Part 1

She sits a folded flower in her chair, coughing into her iPad. Pulling a tissue, she spits floral spittle into it, tosses it to the ground, wadded and soiled. Her stigma is swollen. It’s constantly dripping. She declares her diagnosis: “I have too much nose.”

Coughing Flower swipes her iPad and wipes her stigma. More floral essence spit into tissues, wadded at her ankles. As if to compost herself. Cough cough cough. She looks outside and sends her cough out onto the patio. “You azalea pink blooming,” she says.

Her only visitor—besides her ex-husband—upon giving birth to her first child—me—was a friend of my father. He brought her a pot of pink azaleas. This sole act saved their marriage (rather, it stayed their divorce), it saved their face; saved them from the shame of receiving no flowers. The hospital room shared with another new mother was overrun with bouquets, flowers in vases, flowers tied in pastel bows. My mother’s side was barren, so when the sole visitor arrived with flowers, my parents erupted into rapturous applause. My father seized the pot and declared with triumph, “Now we have a flower!” 

Not—Now we have a daughter. Not—We have just experienced the miracle of life. The flowers saved them from immigrant shame, from the shame of having immigrant friends ignorant to the American custom of inundating a hospital room with so many bouquets it looked like the Queen’s Royal Garden set in Heart of Texas.

She wanted to name me Flower. She loved wild flowers. When asked, “What is your daughter’s name?” My mother replied, “Marguerite.” The Texan nurses heard it as Margaret and spelled it out as such. 

Cough cough cough. “You azalea pink blooming.” Ever since my parents’ Deliverance on my delivery day, my mother faithfully grows pink azaleas. She refers to it as You, as in Me, as in Flower, as in Marguerite not Margaret, damn you Texan nurses.

Coughing Flower is a veritable faucet of runny eyes, dripping nose, and spittle. She looks at me with weary flower eyes. “I have too much nose.” As her dutiful Azalea Pink Blooming, I bring my mother an anti-histamine pill. I dab my mother’s stigma. 

I’ll never live up to the original azalea pink blooming—bouncing in a pot, wrapped in pink tissue paper, displayed as pride of the place in a Texan hospital—it was their Come to Jesus moment, it gave them all the new hope of new immigrants. I, on the other hand, would be the source of their losing face, the reason they had to learn words such as truant and A.D.D.

As she convalesced, her eyes magnetized to the pink bundle of joy in the room—the flowers. She had given birth to a girl. She wanted to give her a special flower name, like those small wild flowers that grew on the side of the highway, blanketing the slopes in pale blue and pale pink petals. She loved wild flowers. The birth certificate came spelled as Margaret, but she knew what she meant: Azalea Pink Blooming.

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Part 2

Coughing Flower coughs into the kitchen—propelled by fits—palpating the counter top for her pills. The pills have nothing to do with her cough. In the refrigerator door, bottles of pills and a box of butter cram the top shelf, spilling through the slats. Those pills have nothing to do with her cough; neither does the butter. Let’s go for a walk, she says.

I follow her up the hill. Sometimes she can make it in one go; sometimes she stops next to yellow weeds with her hands on her hips, all wheeze in the breeze. Coughing Flower coughs a rat-tat-tat like pistols firing at a fiesta. Then she continues, dragging air into her lungs, walking the dusty trail toward the ocean. I follow behind, like a trailing star. Cresting the ridge, she stops. I’ll sit and watch the ocean; you walk around, she directs. I don’t obey, and remain as I am. Then I sit next to her—upwind—so I don’t get caught in her bullets.

The autumn sun offers faint power. We ride the elliptical curve of long shadows. Coughing Flower’s petals diffuse the light in their papery translucence. The beach is deserted. I have an idea—maybe I can bury her in the sand; bury her up to her neck to warm her lungs. I’ll keep her flower petal face out of the sand so she can cough and spit like a camel. People will ask, Why is this Coughing Flower buried up to her neck? And she will say, with her papery petals flapping in the wind, I’m baking my lungs in a sand oven; you can’t put flowers in a wood oven. Pfoo! She spits.

And so, Coughing Flower spent her days spitting Pfoo! and coughing Rat-tat-tat! buried to her neck in the sand. She would become a local attraction. Children thought she was funny like a carnival performer. They brought her items to spit at: a mirror, a stuffed clown, a balloon—and she knocked them all off like a gangster—Pfoo! Pfoo! Pfoo! When she fired, Rat-tat-tat! some kids leapt sideways, dodging her bullets. Others grabbed their chests and dropped dramatically to the sand. They nicknamed her Coughing Flower Pistolera. Someone planted flowers over her lungs. Someone brought her pizza baked in a wood oven. At night, she had the whole sky to herself. She recognized the Big and Little Dippers, Orion’s Belt. She located the polar star. And the trailing star? Seated on the ridge, watching the ocean.

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“Smily” is a nickname my mother gave herself. These are a collection of stories and poems written for her.