The Sunflower Forest. Torey Hayden

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      I knew he hated his jobs. He never said so but it was one of those things you could feel. He would linger a moment too long over his morning coffee. He would come home with his hands black and his clothes dirty and apologize to Mama even before he kissed her, although Mama never complained. But mainly it was the study. In every house we’d ever lived in my father had always insisted on having an extra room for his study. Even if it meant Megan and I had to share a bedroom. Someday, he told me once, he’d have a job where he’d have to bring home work from the office to do at his desk and he’d need a study – somewhere quiet to get away from the noise of the TV and Megs and me and Mama’s records, so that he could do his paperwork. So far he had never found such a job, but every night after supper he went upstairs and sat for a while behind the desk and waited.

      While my father dreamed, my mother acted. We lived like Gypsies because of Mama. She pursued happiness down a real road. Wherever we were, my mother assumed peace of mind must be waiting over the next hill. Nowhere suited her for long. She wanted it cooler; she wanted it warmer. She wanted to be in the country; she wanted to be in town. Always searching, never finding.

      There was a regular routine to our moves. First Mama would grow restless, pacing around the house, uprooting things and transplanting them in the garden, paging through Megs’ or my schoolbooks and constructing fabulous tales about what she imagined the places in the pictures must be like, while my sister and I would sit captivated, eating our afternoon snacks at the kitchen table. Then would come the depression. Any little thing my sister or I’d do would upset her, and she’d start having more and more spells. Her anxieties would increase, in particular her fear of leaving the immediate environs of the house and yard, because she’d begin thinking the people in the community didn’t like her any more. Then Dad and I would get stuck with all the grocery shopping and the errands. When those things started happening, I knew it was only a matter of time before we would head off for some new horizon.

      I hated the moves. I hated the awful weariness right afterward when I would wake up in the morning and realize that all the people out there were strangers except for Mama, Daddy and Megan. I hated the discouraging task of starting over, of trying to make new friends, of even wanting to try.

      My feelings, however, never appeared to make much difference. When my mother was in that state, she had no energy left over for other people’s feelings. As far as my father was concerned, relieving her discomfort was all that seemed to matter; he never questioned the process. If Mama wanted to move, we moved. If Mama thought we’d be happier in Yakima or North Platte or Timbuktu, then that was all it took for my father. He would drop everything, give notice at his job, sell whatever was necessary to raise the money, then pack up and go to wherever it was Mama believed she’d be at peace this time. And he expected the same devotion from Megs and me. We were not allowed even to question the move in front of Mama: this was just something you did when you were part of a family.

      

      The guidance counsellor was waiting for me again when I came out of my calculus class on Wednesday of that week. She was leaning against the lockers on the other side of the corridor, and when I came out of the door of the classroom, all she did was nod and I knew the nod was meant for me. Without exchanging any words, we went back to her office together.

      The counsellors, six men and Miss Harrich, were together in the new part of the school building. Each one had a little cubicle just large enough to accommodate a desk, a desk chair and a second chair and still have space to close the door. In Miss Harrich’s cubicle there was a large framed print hanging over her desk that said, in letters that were nearly impossible to read, ‘A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone.’ It took me the better part of three visits to puzzle it out.

      Sitting down at her desk, Miss Harrich lifted a file with my name on it from a stack by the dictionary. For several moments she riffled through the contents, stopping to read occasionally with such absorption that it was hard to believe she had read it all many times before.

      ‘So, how’s it going?’ she asked me.

      I shrugged. ‘All right.’

      ‘Are you thinking, as I asked you to? About where you want to go to college?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘Have you decided?’

      I shrugged.

      ‘Lesley, I hate to have to keep reminding you about this, but the time is coming. You’ll have to get an application in. You can’t procrastinate for ever.’

      I nodded.

      There was a pause and she looked back down at the file. I was sitting across from her and could see what she was reading. I already knew what was in the file: my IQ score, my test results, a long note from my old chemistry teacher that said he thought I was an under-achiever. I could read upside down easily.

      ‘You’re exceptionally good at languages, Lesley. German, French, two years of Spanish. Do you still speak Hungarian at home?’

      ‘Sometimes,’ I said.

      ‘There are some promising career opportunities for linguists. Have you thought about doing something like that? You’re very good. And it’s an open field, jobwise.’

      I nodded.

      Miss Harrich sighed. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, although I could tell she thought I was. Or at least that I wasn’t being very cooperative.

      ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I am trying to help you, Lesley. I know you think I’m just hassling you, but I’m not. I’m worried that you’re going to just keep putting this off and putting it off until it’s too late. And you’re such a bright girl. You have so much potential. I just don’t want to see you waste it.’

      I stared at my hands. My stomach hurt and I wanted to leave.

      There was a long, uncomfortable silence. She watched me, and because I couldn’t bring myself to look at her face, I studied her clothes. She was an older woman, perhaps near sixty, but she dressed very fashionably. Soft wool skirts and silk-look blouses, in muted, earthy colours. If she’d been someone else, I would have liked to ask her where she bought them. They didn’t look like what you found in our town.

      I shrugged wearily as the silence grew too heavy for me. I didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t even know what was wrong, why it was so hard to look at the applications and do something about them, why I hated coming in here so much that it made me feel sick to my stomach.

      ‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked. ‘I mean, how’s it going for you? Generally speaking. Classes all right? Are you having any trouble?’

      I shook my head.

      ‘Are things OK at home?’

      I nodded.

      She regarded me for a long moment before finally opening her desk drawer to take out a pad of hall passes. ‘If you ever need anyone to talk to,’ she said, ‘you know I’m here.’

      ‘I have history now,’ I said when I saw her hesitate over that blank on the form. ‘Room 204. Mr Peterson.’

      ‘You heard me, didn’t you? That’s why I’m here, Lesley. To help out when things get rough. I do care. You know that, don’t you?’

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