Mollie Sweeney

Mrs. Ciavarra

Honors English 9

24 September 2010

Marigolds (Continued)

I saw Miss Lottie, and finally realized what I was doing. Knowing what grand

trouble I must be in, I did the only thing I knew to do… I ran. But then I heard her.

“Child!” She yelled. “Child, stop your runnin’!” I turned around. She had straightened

up to her normal height. She didn’t look like so much of a witch when I took the time

to see. But what was more surprising was that she didn’t look mad. “Now you come

here. I want you to see somethin’.”

I followed her into her rickety home, and was astounded by what I found.

Pictures. Probably more pictures in that one house than in all the other houses in

this town, combined. All of them of children… teenagers… young men and women. I

then saw that they were the same three people.

“Who are they?” I asked.

“My children,” Miss Lottie replied. “John Burke’s brother, Andy, and sister,

Teresa. I raised them up all on my own, that I did. Their papa up ‘n left us, right after

the three of ‘em were born. Every summer, we’d plant us some bright, yella’

marigolds. I told ‘em the colors would scream to their Pa, tell him to come back

home. Anythin’ to give them hope. Now that two of my three dear child’s lives have

been taken from me, I keep them marigolds, I keep them screamin’ for my children

to come back to me. Now I know,” she said, turning to face me, “that it don’t seem
quite right. It don’t seem normal, to have a mother be the supporter in the family.

Child, believe me when I say… No matter who’s in it, who’s not, or who carries the

weight, a family’s a family. No matter what, child. No matter what.”

I never saw Miss Lottie, or my family, with more clarity than I did that day.