= Dandelions
  by Pamela White

My cheek rests on the cool tile floor. Somewhere in the distance, I hear a door slam.

"Yoo hoo, I rang the doorbell," the accusatory voice caws. "Oh Danny. Darling, where are you?

"Where is everybody? Carol? Children? Oh, I bet you've got a big surprise for me."

My lungs are on fire, but it is the hellish vise-like clenching in my gut that keeps me conscious, even as I lie here praying to die.

Maybe I am already dead, but then would I feel the pain? This must be some metaphysical trick of the light that has me existing more above the earth than on it. A super-consciousness alerts me to Mama's first prick of fear as her right foot is poised over the bottom stair. The reek of the bleach spray Carol used on the grout barely tickles her nose compared to the drain cleaner's choking chemical stench.

I believe I can hear the click of Mama's strong maternal instinct as it kicks into high gear. She's racing up the stairs holding her breath. Stay away, I want to warn her. Even now the chemical reaction and its resultant gas are deadly. My eyes are focused on the base of the toilet, yet I sense she has covered her face with the right half of her open coat. My red face terrifies her; my hiccup-like gasps reassure us both that I am barely alive.

My lips and tongue are swollen, yet I moan, "Dandelions."

Silence.

Mama knows a loss when she sees one. Leaving my corpse, she runs down the stairs and slams through the front door, screaming up the street.

Mama never was the sharpest tool in the shed.

Any fan of Citizen Kane knows how meaningful a final utterance is.

* * *

In hindsight, I should have let Carol divorce me. Now, of course, I know she really meant the marriage to end. And it is clear that she is going to get away with murder -- mine.

The dandelions should have tipped me off. Her cleaning frenzy was another obvious hint, but how was I to know? I was just relieved she wasn't bouncing between demanding we act like a couple and threatening to become my ex.

Dandelions.

As a child, Carol spent her summer days armed with a pronged trowel and a bucket. As the sun would rise high over her head, Carol would scoot or crawl around targeting the dreaded dandelions her mother hated. According to Carol's version, her mother was never satisfied, citing the girl's inability to dig up the entire root as a reason for physical punishment.

It was her mother's obsession that turned Carol obstinate in her rebellion. We'd been married fourteen years and I'd never seen her dig up a dandelion once. The kids would run through the yard and pluck one of those hideous weeds and offer it to her as a present. She would actually smell it.

"It's not a rose, jackass," I would say.

Once, just once, she put a dandelion in a bud vase and put it on the table. I picked up the vase and dropped it on the floor. It shattered.

"They're weeds, you moron." End of story.

Except not really.

Two days ago, she bought some poison. Weedkiller spray. The dandelions were starting to come in, and she needed to get rid of them because my mother was coming to visit.

Yeah. Sure. Carol had never cared before, but here I was hoping she'd grown up a bit and would get rid of the weeds. I wouldn't mind not hearing the complaints from the neighbors and the homeowners' association.

Other people have standards even if Carol doesn't.

The weedkiller turned out to be pretty darn potent. I understand now why I threw up all last night.

The burning in my throat, dizziness and disorientation seemed to be serious symptoms of something.

This morning, Carol just watched me, in my misery, smiling, filling me in on her next project.

She had decided to scrub the grout in the bathroom. Again, a present for my mother.

Well, I told her, it was about time she showed her appreciation for my mother. Mama is a saint to have put up with Carol, and to be blunt, I fall in the saint category too.

I couldn't make it to work today. My stomach was turning and twisting still, and there was a terrible taste in my mouth. I actually thought it was the burnt pot roast from last night's dinner.

Carol is a terrible cook.

She started cleaning the grout but kept running in to check on me as I lay in bed, heaving. She had to wave those rubber gloves smelling of bleach in my face.

"Hey, Stupid, bleach eats through rubber."

"Like you're the one with a degree in chemistry," she tossed over her shoulder, stomping off.

Between the rubber smell and the bleach burning, my eyes started running and my stomach heaved. I ran to the toilet and let it all come up.

"Oh no," Carol said fretfully. "You've stopped up the toilet. And your mother is due in an hour. We've got to do something."

"Plunger," I groaned.

"Can't. Won't work. I tried." Carol's tone was deadly serious. I should have known something was up.

Did I say that Carol can't cook? She sucks at mixing together meat and spices, but that degree in chemistry she made fun of me not having? It's like she's got one when it comes to answering the neighbors' questions about their pool water. "Your pH is too low, raise your alkalinity, you need more calcium to harden the water."

Holy cow, a little bit of this and a cup of that, and the development's inground pools would blind you with their clarity.

Same with gardening -- she brewed some kind of compost tea and used it to fertilize tomatoes and cilantro.

I wonder if she worked her chemical magic yesterday with the weed killer and the pot roast. Did she combine the weed killer with anything? Maybe it was enough by itself. She knew how to use just enough to make me sick. Typical Carol, she just drags it out so everybody suffers, especially me.

I was still gagging in the toilet, and she handed me a bottle of Plum-E-Z. It's so simple even Carol could use it to undo her toilet clog, but no, she shakes and whimpers. It's too hard for her. Plumbing is confusing.

"Hey," I croaked. "Where are the kids? What if they need to...?" You know what I mean.

"Not to worry," Carol explained. "They went to the Carpenter's house. In fact, I need to go get them now before your mother arrives. They'll need to clean up for her, won't they? Just promise me you'll use this to unclog the toilet." She pointed to the Plum-E-Z bottle. "What would Mama say about a stopped-up potty?" she tossed over her shoulder as she beats her retreat.

That shook me up. Mama would agree with Carol that it is the man's job. She'd be coming through the door soon. I squinted, trying to read the directions on the label, but there was a big scratch through it. I actually thought some lame store clerk slashed the label when opening the case.

Deciding to use just a bit at first, I opened the lid.

The pain. Oh, the pain. Of course, it seems so far away now. But it was searing, like breathing fire. I felt blisters in my mouth, my nose. How long have I been lying here dead?

Perhaps I should have brought her flowers once in a while. At least let her put the damned dandelions in vases.

I really should have given her that divorce she asked for.

* * *

"Yoo hoo, I rang the doorbell," the accusatory voice caws. "Oh Danny. Darling, where are you? Where is everybody? Carol? Children? Oh, I bet you've got a big surprise for me."

Oh, yeah, Mama. I've got some real big surprise.

PAMELA WHITE lives in a haunted pre-civil war home in New York where she writes mysteries and food essays, teaches food writing online at writerscollege.com and, with her husband, raises a family of three children, five cats and one dog. Her short stories have been published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine (FMAM), Nefarious, Without a Clue, and 3rd Degree. In addition, she is the promotional director of FMAM and a regular columnist for www.thewritingparent.com.

Copyrights (c) 2003 Pamela White