The Queen Esther Theory of Gardening
“If they live, they live; if they die, they die!” my mom declared when passersby admired her extensive hostas. I rolled my eyes. Inside our duplex, narrow paths snaked through piles of teetering detritus. Scraped-out peanut butter jars overflowed the clawfoot tub.
My mom extolled the virtues of benign neglect. Any neighbor too polite to walk away got an hour-long tour of the trumpet vines. She offered eligible men my hand in marriage, as long as they were willing to wait until I turned fourteen. It was impossible to tell if she was joking.
But my mom was a practical person: each foot covered by shrubbery didn’t need mowing. No raised beds, no chicken wire, no strawberries, no tomatoes. Only the roses could afford to be finicky.
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Queen Esther, as my mom described her, was a beautiful young woman who used her charms to save the Jewish people. Pretending to be a gentile, she wed a rich old tyrant. She stole his heart and then politely requested that he reconsider genocide.
During her quest, someone asked, “Aren’t you scared your evil husband will slaughter your family?” According to my mom, Esther—the ultimate heroine—shrugged and said stoically, “If they live, they live. If they die, they die.”
Hence, “The Queen Esther Theory of Gardening.”
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On Shabbat, my mom dragged me to the Seed of Abraham Messianic Congregation, a gymnasium full of goyim eager to incorporate Old Testament traditions into their evangelical faith.
I liked the Seed of Abraham. Every time I said the name, I giggled.
At Purim, we reenacted Queen Esther’s wedding. I got to be the star and play-marry the rabbi. Walking down an aisle of green carpet between the folding chairs, I smiled in my white dress and carried a bouquet. I was twelve, my bridegroom sixty-something. My father would’ve never allowed it, but that just made my mom more pleased.
“You were the best Queen Esther of all time!” she proclaimed when I needed cheering up.
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I got a boyfriend that summer, the sixteen-year-old son of my mom’s rich friend. When he came over, he mowed the slope in front of our duplex that we hadn’t yet replaced with burning bush.
After, we made out on a bare mattress in the empty upstairs apartment. My mom advised no sex before marriage, but anything else seemed okay. Clothes on, he dry-humped me; I dry-humped him back. He didn’t love me, but he often said, “I like you with a strong passion.”
A few years later, I learned that passion means “to suffer for love.” Can you really like something with a strong passion?
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My mom loved her garden. It was her only respite from the mice screaming out on glue traps and the mildew that laced the walls.
My mom loved me. In the winter, she didn’t make me shovel. She covered the front steps with rock-salt from twenty-pound bags. She chopped the ice off the sidewalk with a blade.
I knew she wanted me to find a better man than her ex-husbands, someone who’d help out with the yardwork.
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The night before the first frost, my mom forgot about her Theory. We had to save the roses. Without protection, they’d shrivel up and freeze.
We toiled in the darkness. Power lines hummed over the patch of grass that remained in the backyard. The radio sang out staticky praise for God and his creation. My mom hummed along to Faith 900 KTIS.
When I grew weary after midnight, she advised me, “Take an emotional vacation”: do everything you need to do, but don’t feel anything about it. She offered cans of Diet Vanilla-Cherry Dr. Pepper, Diet Mountain Dew, and Diet Coke Plus with B Vitamins.
My mom always scoffed at “nature versus nurture”: kids came out a certain way. I didn’t like digging, numb-fingered, into the early hours of the morning. Luckily, I was beautiful.
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My mom suggested I could marry my boyfriend when I was fifteen or sixteen. We’d go ask the judge for permission. It was good for boys to marry young. “Having a wife grows them up,” she decided.
I guessed that I liked my boyfriend. When he mowed, sweat coated his pathetic excuse for a mustache. His tongue was like a worm. He knew all about Minnesota’s statutory rape laws. He liked me with such a strong passion, it made me feel powerful.
I don’t remember if dry-humping made him come. I came once.
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My mom taught me about passion, true passion. In summary: “If you wake up with the urge to garden, never waste it. Call in sick if it’s a workday.”
She admitted she had sex before marriage. She didn’t regret the “years of pleasure” it added to her life. Still, God preferred I wait.
When my mom’s hypocrisy didn’t interfere with my plans, I found it endearing.
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That October, I turned thirteen. Just after my birthday, my boyfriend put his hands up my green silk cami. I said I wasn’t ready. He replied, “But I’m the one who could have gone to jail!”
Now that I was a woman in the eyes of God—and no longer a felony in Minnesota’s statutory rape laws—I missed the flush of youth, so brief. One day it was summer. The next day the leaves dangled frozen from the trees, like limp limbs shriveled by a horrible tragedy.
One day, I woke up and just didn’t like my boyfriend. Six months after our first French kiss, in the sunless freeze, I dumped him.
My mom was disappointed. “He’s such a nice young man.”
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The snow grayed and melted. The grass shot up fluorescent green. I worried we’d find the roses shriveled, but they seemed to love the leaves around them, rotting. As my mom unearthed each cane, they arched upward, aching for her touch.
A different young lady played Queen Esther that year. Hands covered in dirt, my mom recapped my superior performance. “But you are a woman of many talents.” I helped her wipe away a tear with the hem of her faded floral tee shirt.
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My mom missed my boyfriend more than I did. “Who needs men?” I argued, driving a spade into the ground. All of this was hers: the crumbling house, an abundance of hostas, buds bursting from their stems for her fleeting attention.
Besides, how many times had she told me, “God invented vibrators for a reason”?
My mom sighed and fogged her glasses. She said I’d understand when I was older.
She’d heard my ex didn’t want to live without me. “I’m not surprised,” she said. “Who would?!” Good news: in his despair, he’d accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. I couldn’t help but feel smug, as if I’d destroyed that poor sap with my feminine wiles.
“Que será, será,” my mom declared, in her high-school-Spanish-class accent: whatever will be, will be.