Epiphyllous

            Elise clasped the rose’s head in her small hands and pressed her nose into the petals. The scent reminded her of the green fields in spring that used to be outside of her house before they moved to Nevada. Her family used to have a huge garden and they used to have hills of freedom to explore in Vermont. Now they had flat desert terrain to wander across. There was no freedom here because they could be watched by everyone as they ran around, no place to hide or take shelter from prying eyes.

            Her mother had said that the move would be good for them. New friends, new school, more family and less drama were what her mother had promised. Elise’s mother had gotten fired from her job for making too many financial errors that added up to a large loss for the company she worked for. With no family in Vermont, and with few friends, her mom decided that moving in with family would be a good idea. Elise didn’t think so. She liked her school and her friends, she didn’t want to lose them. She didn’t want to meet family members who would be strangers to her, but claim that they were always there for her because they were connected by blood.

            Elise didn’t see why she should need someone to be there for her just because they were connected by blood, she wanted to have people there for her because they liked her. She didn’t want to be an obligation.

            Pulling away from the rose, she looked at the potted plants in her Aunt Edith’s kitchen and noticed that two of the plants was an intertwined mass of a labyrinthine mess and decided she would try to disentangle them. She didn’t know their names, she only knew that the purple flowers were attacking the yellow copies of itself and winning.

            Reaching in, she started to thread them apart and noticed that some of them were wrapped around one another and linking from one leaf to another. From one leaf of the purple flowers grew a stem that attached to the yellow flowers. And they would wind together into a knot and connect somewhere else to produce a yellow and purple flower. These two toned creatons angered Elise because they reminded her of the bond her family had with her. The family she wanted no part of that was the reason she had to move away from her friends.

            Seeing the balance and the stability they had, she disentangled herself from the flowers and looked around the kitchen for a pair of scissors to hew the flowers from their embraces.

            “Elise,” her Aunt Edith called from the front door, “Elise, I have something for you!”

            “Coming,” Elise hollered from the kitchen. Her eleven-year-old mind throwing curse words and threats at the plants she had evil plans for, and towards her aunt who had stopped her plans, as she trudged to the living room.

            “Well look at you! Taking a hand in gardening?” Aunt Edit laughed as she took in Elise’s appearance. She was covered in dirt and bits of leaves from her entanglement. “Well, anyways, I know moving her has been hard on you, so I got you something to stay connected to your friends back in Vermont.” And pulling a big box from behind her, Aunt Edith showed Elise what she had gotten.

            “A Laptop?” Elise’s eyes bulged from her head in surprise.

            “I know your mom does want you to have one because the world is dangerous, but the nearest post office is three miles away. I’m pretty sure she would rather have you talking to your friends online than have you walk three miles on your own.” Aunt Edith placed the large box containing a laptop on the sofa in the living room so she could kick off her shoes and toss her purse on the coffee table in the living room.

            At that moment, Elise liked the idea of having someone connected to her by blood.