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“Is this the infamous—”
“Shh!” Both of them turn to shut me up.
We stand in almost silence for at least two minutes while Virginia strokes the plant, pokes the soil, and hums now and then.
“Mrs. Power, when was the last time she was repotted?”
“I honestly don’t know. I have people who do that. I’m sure I can find out for you.”
“And the last time you remember she flowered?”
“Well, at least a year ago. Possibly two? She used to flower twice a year, so she’s missed at least two flowerings.”
She? Since when do plants have genders? I exhale, apparently too loudly, since I draw the stares of the two most intimidating women I’ve ever met. I did not realize how terrifying Virginia could be until she joined forces with Mother.
“If you let Will know when she was last repotted, I’ll do a little digging, too, and then we can work to get her back in form for you. I would love to see her bloom. The pictures I’ve seen—stunning. Unique.”
Virginia returns the underwhelming stalks of green to the table.
“Ready for brunch? I’m starving,” I say.
I let Mom leave ahead of us and take Virginia’s hand. Mom’s private hallway is lined with family photos. Each Power man has his own section, starting with my great-grandfather and grandfather on one side of the hall, closest to the bedroom. Dad’s gallery faces them.
We have only a handful of pictures of my grandfathers, plus their framed birth certificates. Dad’s life in photos balances the OG Powers.
Virginia stops when we reach the colorful columns—pictures of my generation. They’re all professional portraits from our birthdays and designated special occasions, high school and university graduations, that sort of thing.
Like the Power men before us, each of our sections has our birth certificate at the top of the column. To mess with Mom and Dad, we used to move around photos pretty regularly. At one point, when we were teens, they were such a mess that Mom had to contact the studio and have them compare all our baby pictures to negatives since even she couldn’t tell Horse and me apart before we were six, and we all looked indistinguishable for our newborn and first-birthday photos. Dressing us identically was, in hindsight, a foolish idea.
“Oh my gosh, look at how cute you were. Oh my goddess…” Virginia is focused exclusively on my two columns of portraits.
I take unusual pleasure in how she fawns over versions of me that are over twenty years old.
“Wait! That’s Colt.” She points to a picture of me, or maybe Colt, at thirteen.
I look, and she’s right. Did one of the guys do this, or is the staff messing with Mom? The thought makes me laugh.
“How can you tell?” I ask.
She points to Colt’s forehead. “There’s no worry line here. You have a crease between your eyes. See?” She points to the thirteen-year-old in the portrait in Colt’s area.
“Amazing.”
“I am,” she agrees. “Should we swap them back to their right places?”
“Nah. We should do this instead.” I reach way above her head and pull the two birth certificates from the wall.
“Let me see.” She reaches for a frame and reads: “William Wallace Power. Born on October 26, 1980, at 1:31 a.m. at Women and Children’s Hospital. William Wallace, eh? They didn’t have high expectations of their firstborn, did they?”
“Not so high.”
“Let me see Colt’s.” She hands me my birth certificate, which I hang above Colt’s pictures. “Colton Carter Power. Born on October 26, 1980, at 1:52 a.m. PST … so you beat him to the punch by twenty-one minutes.”
“The stupidest race I ever won,” I say, reaching for my brother’s frame and hanging it above my photos.
“Why’d you swap them?”
“Small pleasures. Not many ways to mess with Mom.”
