The Hydrangeas

Growing up, I lived in a house that stood on what was once an old golf course. It was hard to tell – what with all the houses and children and fence lines. You could tell by the hills and slopes, though, left behind by the caretakers who surely once watered them.

Also seemingly forgotten, were the shrubs that stood in the corner of our backyard. They were kept warm by the mulch which surrounded its roots and shielded from the wind by our house. They were the kind of shrubs whose flowers and leaves allowed you to hide behind in the summer; the kind whose branches you reached for while sledding past in the winter.

My mother called them hydrangeas, a word I learned to hear yet could never quite say like her. It rolled off her tongue, each syllable making its way to my ear while never once sounding like one solid word. She would often use it to describe a location, rather than the plant itself.

"You missed a spot mowing the grass," she wouldd say to my father, "over in the corner, by the hydrangeas."

Or, "your ball bounced over there," she would say to my brother, pointing her finger at their own pointy branches, "behind the white hydrangeas."

And while their petals blew freely around my backyard, sometimes taking a moment to stop by on my window screen, the shrubs themselves stood secreted in the corner of our yard, never able to leave. It was comforting, though I found myself later feeling sad for them.

They were show-offs in the rain. The spring rain would pour, tearing through leaves and poking holes in the mulch. But not the hydrangea petals. No, they would hold on with all their strength. It was almost as if they knew how temporary the rain was. As if they knew if they just held on a moment more, they could see the sun again.

The white petals seemed to fall off as quickly as they regrew. I would be hiding under their warm, summer branches, crouched down so my brother couldn't see me behind their cover. I'd find myself covered in the petals from head to toe, only to still feel safe under their canopy.

In the fall, they showed their wisdom. They changed colors just as the maple leaves did, white to green to almost purple. They had to show off again before falling away for winter.

Winter allowed the branches to start new, to shed all of those purple petals and begin to think about sprouting new ones. They seemed to think and think all winter long, their branches pointing out like my mother's finger leading the way to our toy ball.

It wasn't until we moved away that I really thought about those hydrangeas, and much like my mother did, I used the plant as a locator rather than identify it for what it truly was.

"You know, our old house," I would remind my brother, "the one with hydrangeas in the corner."

Katie Lilljedahl | 2021-04-11