Azalea Bushes
by
Sheila Lee Brown
Published by Sheila Lee Brown
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Sheila Lee Brown
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Azalea Bushes
Judy decided she would have to punish Aunt Milly. The sixty-eight year old woman was sitting in a recliner watching television. A week ago Aunt Milly was as spry as anyone half her age. Her recently acquired walker was just within reach of the chair. Judy pulled her sun visor on and down to shade her eyes and grabbed her pruning shears and gardening gloves out of the cabinet above the washer and dryer. She would show the old woman!
Aunt Millie glanced over at Judy as she walked by and towards the front door. Her eyes widened when she saw the pruning shears.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice trembling.
Judy shrugged and pointed towards the vase on the piano. It contained the dried remains of several azalea branches.
“Looks like we need some fresh flowers,” Judy said with a malicious smile.
“Please, Judy…” Aunt Milly began as she moved for her walker. Judy quickly stepped towards Aunt Milly and rolled the walker well out of reach.
“I warned you.” Judy said sternly and walked out the front door into the sunlight. She heard Aunt Milly whimper as the front door slammed shut.
“The nerve of that woman!” Judy said under her breath as she pulled on her gloves and surveyed the large azalea bushes along the front of the house, along both sides of the front steps. They didn’t really need trimming. In fact, they looked somewhat sickly from the small amount of herbicide Judy had sprayed on them last week, which incidentally coincided with Aunt Milly’s mystery illness that led to her having to use the walker while she recovered. Judy felt a twinge of guilt about that, she hadn’t meant to go that far, but her anger pushed its way back to the forefront and she stepped down the steps and faced the azalea bushes with new determination and began snipping random branches.
The azalea bushes weren’t nearly as daunting as they had been when Judy had first moved in three years ago. They were large and full and Aunt Milly had been tending them herself. Aunt Milly reluctantly turned them over to Judy’s care when Judy pointed out that she had moved in to help Aunt Milly with those types of things. She supervised Judy, though, and made sure Judy took proper care of them.
Judy did a good job of tending the azalea bushes. Good enough that Aunt Milly entrusted them to her without supervision. And, good enough that Aunt Milly let it slip one day why she was so concerned about how the azalea bushes were kept up.
“My mom gave birth to me in this very house.” Aunt Milly had told Judy one evening. “And she buried the placenta out there in front, where she planted those azalea bushes that very year.” Aunt Milly had leaned forward in her recliner to look at Judy real serious. “We got a connection, me and those flowers out there,” she said. “When they get sick, I get sick. When they’re healthy and strong, I’m healthy and strong.”
Judy hadn’t said anything. She didn’t even really believe it, but she was just curious enough to start experimenting. And, sure enough, there seemed to be a correlation between the health of the azaleas and the health of Aunt Milly. If she snipped too much, Aunt Milly usually caught a cold or some bug going around and would stay inside the house until she recovered. When Judy let the azalea bushes grow large and full before a trim, Aunt Milly would be bursting with energy and would typically go on trips and stay out of the house.
That information had come in real handy when Judy found out that Aunt Milly was secretly trying to sell the property she had promised to Judy. Part of the reason Judy had agreed to stay with Aunt Milly and take care of things was because of that property. A light coating of herbicide had brought the old woman to her knees and had shown her what Judy was capable of doing to her. Judy had placed the azalea branch in the vase in the house to remind Aunt Milly of that fact.
Leaves and limbs continued to fly through the air then settle in the grass around the base of the bushes as Judy continued to cut. She thought about her situation. The old woman had called her son and he was going to be staying with her for a week. Judy just knew this was a way to try to push her out of the house. She scissored through a couple of prospective spider webs and kept moving angrily through leaf and limb.
Judy moved from one azalea fortress to the next. When she was finally done, she wiped the sweat from her brow and took a rest on the top step. Before she could breathe deeply a few times, a truck pulled into the driveway. Judy squinted through the sunlight to see that it was Aunt Milly’s son, Eddie. Two days early.
“Trimming up the bushes, I see.” Eddie said, stepping out the truck and stretching. He looked over the front of the house. “They don’t look so good,” he said. “I always told mom she needed some boxwoods or something smaller and simpler to take care of. Those big bushes are way too much for her to handle.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” Judy said, managing a smile over her aggravation. At least it was obvious that Eddie didn’t know about the azalea bushes and his mother. If the old woman tried to tell him, he might think she was losing it after all these years. “You’re here early.”
“Yeah.” Eddie replied. “Mom seemed a little upset, so I drove overnight to get here.”
“Oh.” Judy said. “She’s been a little under the weather since last week, but she’s fine now. She’s just inside.”
Eddie moved passed Judy and in the house. Judy grabbed a branch that had several decent looking flowers on it to replace in the vase as a warning. She walked in and gasped. Aunt Milly looked pale and slightly withered, like the mostly naked branches of the azalea bushes outside. Eddie ran over to his mother while Judy dropped the flowers on the floor and called 911, suddenly frightened that she might have killed the old woman. Aunt Milly was rushed to the hospital where they were told she had fallen into some sort of coma.
“She could come out of it at any time.” The doctors told Eddie and Judy, but they also encouraged Eddie to look into Aunt Milly’s personal affairs. Judy stayed with Aunt Milly. What she had done had begun to nag at her. She had only wanted to teach Aunt Milly a lesson and that was all. She wasn’t sure what to do about it other than sit at Aunt Milly’s side, watching each inhale and exhale of ragged breathing. Eddie went to the house to look through Aunt Milly’s papers. He came back later that evening, hopeful that his mom would get better soon. He leaned over the bed near her ear to speak eagerly.
“Okay, Mom,” he said. “You’ve got to get better so you can come home and see the surprise I got for you.” There was no reaction on Aunt Milly’s part. “I think you’re really going to like it.” He looked over at Judy and smiled. “Mom always liked to have her front yard looking good and those azaleas seemed to have lived out their life. I’m having someone pull them up and replace them with some nice boxwoods.”
“What!” Judy exclaimed.
“Yep.” Eddie said with a grin. “I had an old friend I ran into that has a landscaping company. He’s there now.”
Judy jumped as Aunt Milly’s body convulsed and her heart monitor began making erratic beeping sounds.
“Nurse!” Eddie exclaimed, stepping back from her mother’s body as she convulsed again. Judy pressed the call button on the bed as Eddie ran out the room looking for someone, but she knew it was a futile gesture.
The doctor pronounced Aunt Milly dead within the hour. Eddie took it hard, so Judy managed all the arrangements. She didn’t bother to tell him about the connection between the azalea bushes and his mother and she was quite surprised when he decided to leave her Aunt Milly’s house for taking such good care of the old woman. The guilt of what she had done ate at Judy like the worms she had found on the azalea bushes two summers ago. She had gotten what she wanted, though, and the boxwoods did look nice and trim out front.
Nothing was left of the azalea bushes at the house except the few flowers Judy had cut the day Eddy arrived. They were beginning to look withered. Judy bound them and at the funeral home she placed the small bouquet of azalea flowers in the casket next to her late aunt’s hands.
“Thank you for that” Eddy said, coming up behind Judy and seeing the flowers. “I know how much she loved those flowers.” He began to get teary-eyed as he looked down at the remains of his mother. Judy couldn’t help but notice how Aunt Milly’s skin resembled the texture of the dried petals.