Mel and Ida stood in front of Mel’s childhood home, Ida’s left hand firmly grasping Mel’s right. Neither one of them moved. Ida didn’t know what to make of the bustling, dusty working class district of Montrose. Mel was simply frozen with the fear of confronting her mother after all these years.
And both of them were still dealing with more than a smidgen of shellshock. Holding each other’s hands felt like the best way to gain a bit of confidence when dealing with so many unfamiliar situations back to back.
“Well… I guess we knock. What d’ya think?” Mel looked down at the child holding her hand.
“Ist es sicher? Safe?” Ida asked.
“Oh yeah! For sure. This is my mom’s place. It’s where I grew up,” Mel said, pointing at the pre-fab and compacted sand-stone building in front of them.
“Mutter?”
“Yeah, my Mutter,” Mel said, pointing back at herself.
Ida nodded, and began walking towards the door, still clutching Mel’s hand.
“Oop… I guess that means we’re goin’ in.”
Mel let Ida lead her along by the hand until they reached the front door. As they got closer, a wave of memories came flooding back into Mel’s mind: childhood games of cops and xenos, hunting through the compost heap on the edge of the city for “hidden treasure,” endless nights of wondering when her father would return home. A perfect cocktail of nostalgia and skeletons in the closet.
Ida brought them so close to the front door that Mel could see the old etchings of blessing that she had helped her mother crave into the plate metal frame of the door. The odor of caked mud and welding tool grease filled her nostrils.
Completely lost in thought, Mel didn’t notice that Ida was looking up at her expectantly.
Realizing that the strange woman she now found herself with wouldn’t be knocking on the door anytime soon, Ida took the lead again and wrapped her knuckles on the metal door.
They were not greeted by Mel’s mother.
“Git off my property ya filthy vagrants!”
Mel found herself on the business end of a Detroit 7.5 las-pistol.
Instead of her mother, Mel was faced with an elderly man, a shock of white hair springing from his head with an equally white mustache to match. His forehead and eyes were framed by hard lines and his skin was cracked by the sun. In that moment Mel wondered if this was the fate that would have awaited her father if he had lived to old age. For the first time that she could remember, she wondered if her father being dead was a blessing.
“I said GIT! Or I’ll shoot ya, I swear to the gods!” the man hollered.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down, old-timer!” Mel interjected. “I f*ckin’ grew up here! This is my old house, just…”
She looked down at Ida, and then back up at the man before continuing.
“...just showin’ the lil one around my old stomping grounds.”
“Yeah well, I’on’t really care,” the man said. “This is my house now, not yers! So I’ll say again: git!”
“Just one second, sir. I’m just…this used to be…” Mel searched for words, while also trying to avoid escalating the situation or getting shot. “The Travers family? They used to live here? Francine Travers? She used to live here not even that long ago. Maybe only a year or so ago?”
*zap*
In one swift motion as the man aimed his gun, and fired a warning shot into the sand at their feet, Mel took her left hand that Ida had been holding onto, wrapped it around the girl’s front and placed herself directly in the line of the man’s fire.
“Gregor!! You want LPI on our asses again? Or worse, you want Texas citizens dead in the street?? Put that fool thing away, you hoodlum!”
Mel, Ida, and Gregor all turned to see who the voice belonged to.
Mel’s mouth hung open a little, barely able to contain her pleasant surprise.
“Miss Cassy?? Cassiopeia, is that really you?” she asked in disbelief.
“Well I’ll be a Rogue’s code of honor, if it isn’t little Mellony Travers!” Cassy said. The woman craned her neck to look over Mel’s shoulder at Gregor, who was still holding the pistol. “You can be the one to ‘git’ now, there Gregor! I’ve got some catchin’ up to do, and you’d better put that piece away ‘fore you hurt yourself!”
Gregor muttered something obscene, holstered his weapon, and slammed the front door behind himself as he went back indoors.
Once Cassy was sure that Gregor had left them alone and would not be coming back outside with a larger gun, she led Mel and Ida directly across the street to the open air flower shop that occupied the space outside of Cassy’s own home. The sight of Cassiopeia’s flower carts was yet another familiar touchstone that brought hundreds of memories crashing back to Mel. No matter how grim and dismal the Texas system became, there was always brightness and beauty at Cassy’s flower shop.
Cassy settled down on a stool behind one of the massive baskets of desert blooms she had for sale, and looked Mel up and down.
“My, my, it really has been quite some time hasn’t it Mellony!” she said.
“Please, it’s just Mel,” Mel said. “I haven’t been called by my full name in ages.”
Ida went eagerly from basket to basket, smelling fresh buds and gently touching each flowers petals in wonder as the two women caught up on old times.
“So how long ya been back? How long are ya stayin’? Is the little one your’s? Gracious me, I never expected you to be the kind to take on bein’ a mother. Who’s the father?” the older woman peppered Mel with questions.
“Whoa, whoa now, slow down, Miss Cassy! I just got back, and the kid ain’t mine, she’s just…” Mel looked around briefly until she spotted Ida, who had buried her entire face in a basket of Violet Yeenias, trying to get as full a sniff of the flowers as possible. “It’s…a long story. But no, I’m no mother. We’re just her to see my mom, actually. You know where she moved to? I never expected she’d give up that old house.”
Cassy fell gravely silent in response.
“What…? Why are you looking at me like that?” Mel asked.
“I… figured you were still mad, or there was somethin’ else that’d come between you and yer mother. And that’s why you weren’t…why you weren’t…” Cassy’s voice faltered.
“Miss Cassy….where’s my mother?”
* * *
Ida and Mel found themselves staring at a stone slab that represented the death of yet another matriarch.
Cassy had led them to the gravesite, and then left to wait on the other side of the dunes and out of sight in order to give them the space and privacy the girls needed. Mel looked down at the headstone hewn from fresh sandstone, and found that she had no more tears to give. The whirling dust of the Houston deserts bit into her cheeks as she stared at what remained of her own childhood.
Suddenly she noticed that Ida was not directly by her side.
“Ida, what are you…?” Mel began to ask, until she noticed.
Ida walked to the headstone, carrying a single Violet Yennia in her hand. Mel figured that the girl must have pilfered it while Mel was still processing the news that she herself was also now an orphan. Ida knelt down, bowed her head, and layed the desert flower down on the grave.
“Tschüss Mutter.”
Even though Ida was speaking another language, Mel understood. Ida wasn’t saying goodbye to Mel’s mother, she was saying goodbye to her own.
As Mel and Ida said their final farewells, they held each other’s hands tighter than ever until they both felt their fingers cracking.
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