It was an airborne virus, spread by pollen. Or was it bees? Or both? Symptoms included headache, nausea, sneezing, aching joints. It might seem, at first, to be allergies. It might feel like a hangover. Men and women were equally susceptible. They caught the virus in jungles and on islands and sometimes in the dank dungeons of eleventh century castles. Any place not-home. You were immune to your own shrubs and flowers and bee stings. And this—whatever it was—would pass. You might have to rebook your flight. But if you could lie in a dim room with a cool compress on your forehead for eight to ten hours, you would awaken clear-headed, energetic. All cured.
Then came the babies.
They seemed fine at first: big screaming voices, round baby faces, some hair but not much. Little fists. Fingers and toes. As they got older, they found their way out unlatched windows; they scaled balconies, shimmied down drainpipes in search of soil and loam. You’d find them, one and two years old, standing in the yard, faces uplifted to the sky. They piled dirt on their bare feet. They would not wear shoes.
They sprouted leafy tufts around their necks, their feet took on a moldy sheen, their toenails were atrocious. You couldn’t keep these children inside. City parents, in desperation, hauled giant pots into their apartments, filled them with soil, let their weeping children find some relief. They’d dig their little toes in up to the ankles. Good luck getting them to take a bath! Or wear clothes.
Little saplings, the newspapers started calling them. Then: Orchid Children. Though they weren’t like orchids at all, really, the way they smelled, the horrible screeches that came out of them if you tried to get them to dress or bathe or take a nap.
But mostly, the Orchid Children are just fine. I know this, because I have one of my own. I started this blog to bring awareness to their condition, which is not something to be afraid of. I am a single mother with two children, Misty (fifteen, born before the virus, and going through a difficult stage) and Jake (who is ten and a complete delight).
There is much to love about these children. They do well on aptitude tests. Special needs, they have special needs. But who doesn’t have those? As they grow, they pull their feet from the dirt and (grudgingly) allow themselves to be dressed. They retain a fear of harsh weather. They emit a vague odor of mulch. They don’t venture far from home, which seems, at least so far, to be a blessing.
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Of course my children’s real names aren’t Misty and Jake. I’m not going to say where I live or give my own real name. I’ll call myself Alice. I’ve always loved stories and the Alice stories are my favorite. Misty and Jake (again, not their real names) enjoyed them, too, when they were younger. Misty once broke the mirror in her bedroom trying to climb through it. Jake stayed snug in his pot but would say, “Again, please,” when I finished a book.
He’s still a big reader, but Misty not so much. Jake likes to sit barefoot in the window seat for hours and hours (or days) reading literally anything I put in front of him. That’s something to keep in mind, those of you with Orchid Children. They will read cereal boxes and auto repair manuals and French grammar and the history of world wars. So be careful. Their brains are fertile. But lately, Jake has been asking for books about brothers and sisters and mothers. He wants to read about the history of our city. He wants to read my old high school diaries (“Ha, ha, those are long gone,” I lied.) He wants to read about old people. This is because of his job at the nursing home. You probably already know about the Nursing Home Project (find more here at OrchidChildOldPeople.org). Some homes still prefer the robotic cats, because Orchid Children don’t curl up on laps but they do provide an air of calmness.
Today, Misty informed me that she wants a Sweet Sixteen party. This is not what I expected of Misty, but children are strange.
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Some of you have been writing to ask me some very personal questions, which I suppose is okay. As I mentioned already, I’m not telling you where I live or what my name is, so I might as well tell you some other information, if it’s useful. I just want to be useful. That’s the entire purpose of this blog: usefulness.
The most popular question is: What’s up with Misty and Jake’s father? Let’s call him Stephen, which is not his real name. We met at a bar, we married two months later. When Misty was five, we left her with my mother and vacationed in a country we’d never been to before. We climbed a hill to a castle and made love on a stone windowsill overlooking a field of dead lavender, and this is where Jake was conceived. When I fell ill the next day, Stephen put damp washcloths on my forehead and fed me soup, and in a week I was well enough to go home.
That’s probably enough information. Stephen left before Jake was born. But he visits occasionally and he sends checks.
Misty just came home from school. I heard her go into the living room where her brother is reading and say, “What’s up, you old sap?” and then laugh at her cleverness. I heard Jake say, nicely, “That’s a good one.”
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Here’s a clue about my town: it’s surrounded by tornadoes in the fall and spring. Sometimes in the summer. Rarely in the winter, but it’s not out of the question. So far, the tornadoes haven’t actually hit, but they spin around the town and the sirens wail and we all hide in our bathrooms, because—another clue about my town—the soil is too soft for basements. I’m telling you this because some of you are asking about the best place to raise an Orchid Child. Is there a particular environment where they will flourish? A small town, a big city, the beach, etc.? And my take is that there is no particularly good or bad place. You don’t need to move to a forest, as so many of you have suggested. I’m not saying don’t move to a forest, I’m just saying it’s not necessary.
You may have seen the blog by the French mother who is raising an Orchid Child in Paris. You may have seen all those photos of her little girl in a red beret, smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower in her designer pot, or plunked in front of a Monet at the Louvre. I suppose five-year-olds can appreciate Impressionism. I’m not criticizing; I’m just saying perhaps this woman might be glamorizing her situation a teensy bit. I haven’t seen any photos of her child throwing her shoes across the aisle of a grocery store and screaming at the top of her lungs until a store manager rushes up and accuses the mother of being abusive. And then the mother says: If I was abusive, I would have left my children home alone and run away and joined the goddamn circus!
Come to think of it, that was Misty who threw her shoes in the grocery store.
She just poked her head in the room to say she’s taking my car to the mall. Our mall is terrible—one of those sad malls, with a defunct Sears—so I think she might be lying. I should start hiding my car keys, maybe.
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Many of you want to know if I’m a stay-at-home mom, and I am, not because advertisers are flocking to my blog (they are not) but because I’m fortunate enough to teach online grammar classes for a university whose students are mostly in another time zone. I work between midnight and four a.m., then sleep for three hours, and then get up to make breakfast, which is yogurt and microwave oatmeal, which Jake enjoys. Misty just sucks down a cup of coffee and slams out of the house to get a ride to school with a girl who wears gray lipstick. I take Jake to school (he used to ride the bus, but children are cruel) and then do laundry and shopping and blogging and get a nap in if I can before picking Jake up at three.
Yes, I’m exhausted. But I think of my own mother, working so hard to support me and my seven brothers. She was a nurse, a job she was very good at but hated.
La Fleur, the French Orchid Child, has a nanny who speaks four languages. Her mother is a fashion designer and her father is an architect. Good for them! But not everybody can buy their kid designer sunglasses on the Champs-Élysées. Don’t let their blog posts make you feel bad. This is what I keep telling myself, too.
This reminds me: I should check my credit card statement more often. Someone, I’m not saying who, seems to have charged ninety-seven dollars at Old Navy last month.
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I’d mentioned Jake’s job at the Old Folks’ Home. And by “job,” I mean he doesn’t get paid but he feels as if he’s doing something good in the world, and for himself—which is better than a job. We go on Saturdays, between ten and three. One of the reasons he likes it so much is that he gets to stay barefoot in his pot. There are two other Orchid Children who participate, but they are even shyer than Jake. If you push their pots close enough, they sometimes reach out their little hands and touch fingers, but just for a moment.
There’s a bright atrium and a woman who plays the harp, and the old people sit in rows and nod their heads and clap while Jake and the others sway and sing: nothing with words, but a sound like the wind through the trees. They don’t have to be taught to do this, it’s something they do naturally around the age of nine months. You might be interested in checking out Orchid Sounds: An Album of Hope, available on iTunes.
Being in the Old Folks’ Home is what makes him happier than anything in the world, so it’s what makes me happier than anything in the world, too. But he knows he can’t live his life with his feet buried in the dirt. At school, he wears shoes like the other children, though he carries a mulch bag for emergencies—for moments of anxiety, like tests. This is allowed. There are waivers. But the other children laugh, so he has to go to the school nurse’s office to take his tests there.
Some of you say I should have weaned him earlier, or never given him dirt to begin with, never let him “roll around like a pig in filth.” (You know who you are: that was unkind.) To which I say: I might as well deny him sunlight and air.
So yes, there’s some controversy about the Nursing Home Project, now in fourteen states. Doesn’t it encourage these children to wallow in their differences rather than overcome them? To which I say: Fuck that.
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Yesterday Misty said, “How’s my birthday party coming along? Is it going to be a surprise?” Jake and I were in the middle of his algebra homework—algebra! And he’s ten! That’s not an Orchid Child thing, that’s just him.
“Misty,” I said. “Can’t you see we’re busy?”
“Can you help me with my homework when you’re finished?”
“Misty,” I said. “You’re a big girl. You can figure it out.”
Like she really cares about homework.
After she left, Jake looked up at me and said, “I want to be an old person when I grow up.”
I’ve showed him pictures of the world’s oldest known Orchid Child, Edward, now 20 years old and a sophomore at MIT. Smiling Edward, surrounded by friends and pretty girls.
“That’s a great goal,” I said to him, and then went into my room and cried a little. Misty knocked on my door to tell me she wants a red velvet cake for her birthday party; she said she’ll handle the guest list.
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I’m just going to call this post Things I Love About Jake:
I love the way his little leaves uncurl around his neck in the morning when the sun comes through his window.
I love the way he smiles. His teeth, I may have forgotten to mention, are already taking on a greenish sheen, something Orchid Children are self-conscious about but which is part of their special beauty.
I love that he always tells me how much he likes the meals I make—radish stew is a favorite. (Whereas some people have nothing but complaints.)
I love that when I’m sad, he puts his arms around me and says, “Lighten up, Mom,” his fingernails hard against my neck.
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Some of you are asking rude questions, like: What’s the difference between an Orchid Child and a Sap Sucker? I don’t appreciate your slurs. Sap Suckers do not exist, and I don’t think the world is a safer place when we demonize others. He does not kill small animals and drink their blood. If you really think that, I feel sorry for you, but you’re beyond help.
Sometimes he gets moody, especially if it’s a cloudy day. He stays in his pot and won’t wash his feet, and all he wants to read is cereal boxes. This is called growing up. It’s something to feel grateful for. So shut up, haters!
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Today, Jake was strangely silent when I picked him up from school. He went into his room and when I peeked in later, he was in his pot with his feet buried up to his ankles in mulch. He said, “Shut the door, please!” and he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. Later, he came out and said, “Can I go to Misty’s party?” and I hesitated for a very long time before saying sure. He smiled. He said, “We should get her a car for her birthday.” We can’t afford a car, I told him. We went online and he picked out a pair of earrings shaped like trees.
Her party will be Saturday, after we get back from the Old Folks’ Home. Decorations will be simple: red crepe paper streamers, to match the cake. Who knows what kind of people she’s inviting. I asked Jake if he wanted to have one of his friends come over and he said no and went back into his room.
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La Fleur’s parents are selling designer dirt! Thank you, Carol Ann from Michigan, for forwarding that link. The dirt is allegedly filled with nutrients and herbes de Provence, and you know what? That’s just ridiculous. Some of you are asking if I recommend this formula. The answer is NO.
In other news, Edward—the oldest known Orchid Child—just turned twenty-one. La Fleur and her parents are flying to Boston to meet him. This will mark the first transatlantic flight of an Orchid Child.
I asked Jake, “Do you want to go on an airplane and fly across the ocean?” and he shuddered and tucked himself into his pot for the rest of the night.
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Forgive the long absence. The comments section is filling up with questions: What happened at the party? SERIOUSLY, WHAT HAPPENED? No, I’m not going to include photos.
Also, you’re speculating: Misty burned the house down! She and her crazy friends got arrested!
No one burned the house down. No one got arrested. And anyway those are not the only terrible things that can happen to a family.
Here are some Do’s and Don’ts for anyone planning a 16th birthday party who thinks they’ve thought of everything:
DO remember to take the birthday girl’s phone away before she calls her father in Scotland (!!) and asks him to please let her come live with him because her mother is a crazy old bitch.
DO feel strangely relieved to see him there, on the day of the party, holding balloons. He smelled of castles and moats and wildflowers and Australian deserts. He brought an iPad for Misty and a book about Australian deserts for Jake. One of the reasons we broke up was because he had been brainwashed by songs about rambling and rolling but now, now apparently, he says he’s ready to set down roots. He moved into an apartment two miles away and started applying for web design jobs. He says he wants to be a family: me and Jake and Misty and him, all of us.
DON’T be fooled by this change of heart. That’s the thing about changing hearts, they can always change back.
When your daughter’s seven giggling friends arrive for the party, DON’T encourage your Orchid Child to come out of his room, where he’s reading about Australian beaches. It’s entirely possible that he will be inclined to dance with these seven very pretty, very giggly girls, who will say things like, “You’re such a cutie pie!” And then he’ll tire himself out and have an uncharacteristic meltdown when they leave and only be comforted by his father, who will fill his head with stories about a great big world filled with giggling girls.
DO pick a fight with your children’s father so he’ll leave in a huff. Or DON’T. Either way will probably turn out bad.
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The day after the party Jake started saying things like, “When I get a car, I’m going to drive to the shore,” because Misty’s friends were all talking about the shore. Now he’s obsessed with sand: What does it feel like? Is it like dirt? Have I heard about the healing qualities of sea water? I snapped at him, I’m ashamed to say. Seawater can kill you, I said. Sand is not good for you. And too much sun will make you wilt.
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I’m sure you’ve all heard: La Fleur didn’t fare well on the flight. She got dehydrated, she shrieked, her parents insulted the other passengers and her father hit a flight attendant. A little lap dog started digging up her dirt. They returned on the next flight back to Paris. You’ve seen the YouTube videos. I’m not including a link.
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Guess who’s doing all her chores now? Guess who is all, “Mother, can I help you with anything? Mother, can I do the laundry for you? Now that I’m practically an adult, I understand how difficult I’ve been to you, and all I want is the freedom to live my life, so I’ll be spending the night at Dad’s if that’s okay, especially now that school is out for the summer and you just stare at me when I ask you if you want me to do the laundry. Okay? Is that okay?”
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The oldest Orchid Child, the smart boy with all his diplomas, threw himself off the balcony of his frat house yesterday. There was a very tasteless photograph of a shattered ceramic pot, spilled dirt. The memorial service is Tuesday.
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Yesterday I woke to find Jake gone and his window wide open. He’d climbed down the fire escape! I ran outside and looked up and down the block. We live on a not-busy street that leads to a very-busy street, and so I ran in my sock feet screaming at the top of my lungs like a crazy person. Oh, the scenarios that went through my head! I ran through all the parking lots and backyards and found him in his PJs in the woods behind the community swimming pool, where a peeping Tom was caught last year. He was sunk up to his shins in the soil, shivering. You could hear the bulldozers in the distance, scooping up all the places where perverts might hide.
“Is this what you want?” I asked him, as I dug him out. “You want to just be planted in the ground like this for the rest of your life?” I was trying to make it clear that this was not what he should be wanting, but he just nodded and cried dirty tears.
Some of you have been asking me why don’t I mention the Garden Project? Are you against the Garden Project? Does Jake even know about the Garden Project and isn’t he old enough to choose what he wants to do with his life and are you deliberately hiding the Garden Project from him?
Well, first of all, a ten-year-old is not old enough to decide he wants to be planted in the ground under a goddamn dome for the rest of his life, and second of all, you have to be fifteen to be accepted and third of all, yes, he knows about it, because of course children talk. One of his Nursing Home friends has a sister who was planted last year. She seems to be happy there, but then who can tell, because now she’s just a goddamn plant, which is what happens to Orchid Children if you put them in the earth long enough to grow roots.
I took him home. He crawled into bed. I gave him some books about plumbing and canning and marsh birds and spinning wheels, but none about faraway places and none about Orchid Children.
Speaking of roots, the children’s father has already changed his mind about that and skedaddled. Misty is absolutely fuming. She slammed into her room and hasn’t come out, and Jake hasn’t come out of his room, either, but I’ve put a lock on the window. (Oh, shut up about fire hazards!)
Growing up is hard, I tell them from outside their bedroom doors.
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I’m only mentioning this because I’ve gotten so many questions about it, but yes, I have heard of the Water Babies, born to women who traveled over a bridge the hour after conception. Their children are born with gills; they swim in circles in Water Baby tanks. I don’t have any comments. I don’t have an opinion about whether it’s degrading to feed them fish food. This is not what my blog is about. Everybody has their own challenges in life, is all I’m saying.
By the way, I’m disabling the comments, because they are not productive.
This isn’t meant to be an instruction manual, for God’s sake! I don’t have the answers to anything. I don’t know what to do for my own children except make them food: what kind of food, you ask? Crêpes for Misty—the girl who longs for adventure can try the food of the countries her father won’t take her to! Tofu burgers for Jake. I’m experimenting. I am lucky to live in a town where I can order things online from Kroger (gruyère cheese!) and have them delivered.
We never need to go outside again. We can be a Garden Project all by ourselves, the three of us in this apartment (did I mention it’s an apartment?) five stories above the earth. I look out the window and see you all down there, moving around in your lives, worried about other people’s problems. You are all so small and far away, but that’s how I would seem to you, too, if you ever looked up.
Becky Hagenston is the author of four story collections, most recently The Age of Discovery and Other Stories, which won the Mississippi Arts & Letters Award in fiction. Her work has been chosen for a Pushcart Prize and twice for an O. Henry Award. She is a professor of English at Mississippi State University.
Image by Markus Spiske