When the weather was nice on weekend afternoons, Dad would often take all six of us kids on bike rides so Mom could get something done without everyone underfoot.
We would depart after a flurry of activity—pumping umpteen flat tires, gathering helmets and water bottles and sweatshirts, buckling the two youngest into the heavy black bike trailer. Then, with the whoosh-snap of kickstands being readied for takeoff, the clicking and clacking of beaded bike spokes spinning, and the cheerful rustle of wind through handlebar tassels, we were off leaving Mom to grade, plan, and organize in blessed silence.
Mom’s red, ten-speed bike with its narrow road tires and hand brakes matched Dad’s exactly but hers hung on its hook in the garage, alone. I don’t remember seeing her ever ride it.
After a short stint along the road in our subdivision, we would pick up a paved bike trail and ride from Reston to Vienna. The wooded trail—in fall a haze of flaming sumacs, in spring alight with blossoms—offered plenty of hills to keep those of us peddling one-speed bikes working hard, and I loved every minute. Oh, the satisfaction of cresting a hill, thighs and calves burning with effort but face beaming with irrepressible elation. Crossing the occasional plank bridges was always a treat; it was jarring, yes, but it offered the pleasure of variety and the chain link fencing on each side was thickly woven by vines, sometimes blazing red and gold, sometimes brown and bare and leafless, sometimes deeply green and luxurious.
The bike path felt another world or a passage to another world and Dad was the key. We could visit only with him, could stay only as long as he stayed, could follow only where he led.
After flying down the narrow corridor through the woods, warm with exertion yet cheeks cool from the breeze, the trail would abruptly end, not as it felt it should—in a land of ridges and valleys, of forests and glades, of rugged beauty and unfolding mystery—but at a busy street corner convenience store in Vienna. Every single time it was a surprise and the sharp disappointment never abated.
We would catch our breath, check in with everyone, and head home. Returning was hard. We were now moving from glory to drudgery, passing through variety on the way to the mundane. Sunday afternoon freedom was slipping away, and Monday morning would soon be upon us.
Once though, the magic was waiting for us at home. As we turned into our cul-de-sac, we saw Mom waiting for us in the driveway, her hands in gardener’s gloves and the front walk transformed. The tulips had bloomed.
Slender buds suggestive of color but demurely cloaked in green had given way to an exuberant display of radiant yellow and red petals. In the slanting evening light, we all stood together at the bottom of our driveway drinking in the stunning spring evening—the mossy green grass, the cherry tree frosted in blossoms, the rows of tulips, luminous and dazzling.
I peered down a few deeply red and yellow blossoms to find their velvety black throats. The sharp scent of new mulch hung in the soft, glowing evening.
Dad leaned over and planted a kiss on Mom’s mouth, “These are my favorite tulips” he said. They chuckled.
At our quizzical looks, he repeated deliberately, “These are my favorite two lips.” We laughed and groaned.
A revelation came over me mid-groan. For the first time I consciously noted or noticed or realized that they had a relationship that did not include us.
I had known they had a relationship that predated us—the era when they had bought matching bikes and Mom had actually used hers. When they had played tennis together, when Dad had taught Mom to drive.
But now, as they stood with us yet apart from us, they felt impenetrable and contently so. I saw they had a relationship we were not a part of, and they were sharing a moment that we were not invited to.
Their relationship not only predated us it would outlast us.
The revelation felt silent and secret and sure, like the velvet center of each tulip—there whether you see it or not, never showy but deep and profound.
I said no more.
Two years prior, tulips had meant Dad and the kids.
We had been transforming the dark and dingy parts of the house in Chantilly—chocolate paneling in the dining room and porch was painted a bright, cheery white. Now, we were contemplating the exterior of the unwelcoming kitchen doorway. From the side stairs, the view of the house was unflattering—stained siding and scraggly grass below the deck. It felt forbidding and untidy. What could be done on a budget to a rental house?
Dad devised a plan and recruited all of the kids to help in the execution. Depending on our various abilities, we got to use hammers and nails, trowels and wheelbarrows, tarp and spray paint. Little could have pleased us more.
The plan: hang lattice, freshly painted white, under the deck and arrange a rock garden dotted with tulips in front of the lattice.
It all went down one glorious, rollicking Saturday, a day full of activity and bustle and interest.
I learned how to spray paint. Dad set up a station for Missi and I against the side of the garage where we could safely spray downwind from the others, and we worked together to evenly coat the sheets of wooden latticework. It was a messy, fun, and novel task and Dad praised our efforts lavishly. To this day I find the cheery metallic clink of ball bearings in a paint can one of the happiest sounds in the world.
We itched to paint a box turtle who unluckily ambled by, but after a moment’s study of his geometric designs in stunning orange and black, we thought better of it. Instead, we called a general break, and everyone came running to admire our find. We tried to feed him strawberries, but he was unmoved by our offerings.
Back to work, we were set to unload edging stones from the back of Dad’s Toyota and pile them near a tree for easy access later. Midstride, we discovered to our terror that bees had recently laid claim to that particular tree. Several buzzed angrily near us, warning us away or calling for reinforcements we couldn’t tell. Unwisely, some younger siblings tried to ward them off by shying whatever came to hand at them; thankfully, they had terrible aim and no one—bee or human—was harmed. We didn’t antagonize them further but moved the stone pile to a new location. Now that the crisis had passed, we shivered in delicious recollection of our close call.
We wheelbarrowed loads of a white, quartzite gravel to the site of the rock garden to form an even, weed-free bed where magenta tulips would stand, grand and majestic yet suddenly deferential in a breeze.
They were our very first tulips. They struck me as bold and splendid, yet somehow inviting and kindly as well. To possess even one tulip felt an excess of riches. To have planted a garden of tulips seemed extraordinary opulence. To know they would come back every spring was treasure beyond compare.
It was a long, dirty, thrillingly exhausting day that ended in showers, damp hair soaking into pillowcases, and dreams about tulips—quiet, comfortable, elegant tulips—the culmination of hard work and a contentment deeper than words.
Rachel Brown
enjoys sipping tea, savoring good books, and spending time outside.
She is daily inspired to live more deeply and love more fully by her husband and two children.
One Response
Being “dad” in this story was a privilege and an honor. Little did I know that one day I would understand how Charles Ingalls may have felt as you so vividly paint the stories of our life. Thank you for sharing from your amazing memory bank, while also letting us into your heart.