Heritage

            My sister wore my grandmother's dress on her wedding day. The sepia portrait above the vanity, almost obscured in the tulle that ran around the room, looked just like her, grandmother’s dark hair pulled back, her smile bright across her deep brown face. She would have loved to see her house now, all bedecked in flowers and ribbon. She smiled in her photo, holding a bouquet of yellow blossoms: lilies, my namesake. My sister straightened herself in front of the mirror. "How do I look?" she asked me, fabric swishing around her. Her black hair was pinned up in the back, holding the veil in place above her wide, brown eyes.  

"You look nervous," I said. Her shoulders slumped. "It's alright, Anna," I told her, walking across the room to stand next to her. I turned her to face the mirror. "You're beautiful. If Wyatt wasn't already in love with you, he'd certainly fall for you now." She looked so much younger than me then, with her wrinkle-free face perfectly made up. Even with her hair pulled up and mine wavy in an attempted girlish curl it was clear which one was the elder sister. The wrinkles on my deep brown forehead reminded me of my grandmother.  

Wyatt's brother Jeremiah peeked his head into the room then. His black suit looked good against his deep skin. "The roses aren't here," he said, running a hand through his curly hair. 

Anna's fists crumpled her skirt. "The flower company said they would be here hours ago." She looked down over her skirt before rustling over to me and clutching my hands in her cold ones. "Lily, pick me a bouquet instead," she said. "You know the garden." 

The Hawaiian sun pounded on chairs in the garden behind the house. I walked past them, holding gardening shears in my hand, through the grass and towards the path breaking the rows of plants. Grandmother always had her garden properly arranged. I once asked her why she chose to place the flowers the way she did. "They mean something," she said, brushing my nose with a dirt-covered finger.  

"What do they mean?" 

She laughed and stuck her spade back into the ground. "That's for you to figure out." 

I walked through the rows of flowers now. The midsummer blooms drooped, their heads flaky. I had not tended the garden since she left us. The flowers still sat arranged according to her peculiar fancy. 

First came the daisies. "Gentle love," I remembered, the words coming from far away to drift from my tongue. Gentle love for a gentle girl. I picked a handful, gathering them into a bundle.  

I saw her wrinkled hands, plucking free a blossom. "This is where everything starts," she had said, tucking it behind my ear. 

Next came the Syrian Mallow, hibiscus, famed throughout the islands. "Passion," I whispered to myself. "Overtaken by love." Romance swirled within its pink petals. I plucked some, adding them to the center of the white daisies. 

I walked on down the path. Foxglove speared up the sky, and dahlias beyond it spiked petals out like a thousand needles. I stopped, the gentle breeze catching at the petals in my hand. Foxgloves for healing and hurt, for insincerity, I knew, and dahlias for deceit. I ran my hands over the rough petals. They seemed my grandmother's hands, veined and soft. "You have to hurt sometimes," she once said, running a foxglove blossom between her fingers. "That is how you grow."  

She had picked a yarrow blossom and passed it to me. I left the foxglove and dahlias where they were and added yarrow to the bouquet. 

Gladiolus came next, its bold, big, pink petals defiantly thrown out against the sun. "Strength." It seemed a pity to pluck one free. I clipped one stem, tucking it among the daisies and Syrian Mallow and yarrow. Whites and pinks blended into the tapestry of life.  

The end of the row grew closer. The gladiolus faded into globe amaranth. Grandmother had always stopped here. "This one," she said, plucking it free. "This one is most important. If you forget everything else, remember this one." She met my eyes, her cheeks forming little dimples. She lifted the round blossom in front of her face. "Eternal love," she said. "Like my love for you." She handed it to me. "I love you, Lily." 

I smiled at the memory. "I love you," I whispered as I added the final flower to my sister's bouquet, tucking one away for myself. I walked back to the house to fetch a ribbon, wrapping the stems with white. I tied it off with a bow.  

"It's beautiful," Anna said. She held the bouquet away from her, spinning it around. "Grandma had such pretty flowers." 

Pretty flowers, she said. Such a faint term for them. I looked at the picture above the vanity, at my grandmother's face above the yellow lilies- gaiety, I thought, so fitting for her.  "Such pretty flowers," I echoed. My sister hurried out to the lawn. I picked up the single globe amaranth, its blossom round as her face, its bright color like her smile. I placed it above the picture frame and followed Anna outside.