Amused, I returned his successfully punctured beverage.“He might start calling you a lice head if you sit with me.”
“I don’t care.Uncle Jay told me that many great people in history were bullied,” he informed.
I was skeptical.“Name four.”
“George Washington, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks, and Michael Phelps.He’s an Olympic swimmer,” he said with impressive quickness.
My brow quirked.“Name two more.”
“Teddy Roosevelt—he had asthma, like me—and Michael Jordan.He’s the greatest basketball player ever, and he’s from here,” he said with excitement.
Rarely did someone offer me information I didn’t already know, especially so willingly.“That’s unusual to know.”
“I like knowing unusual things.”He shrugged.“Besides, I’ve been called worse.”
He brushed off the concern and remained in his seat.Much later, I learned the truth in his words.His father, Dale, ridiculed him for not being “tough enough” because of his small stature and his asthma.All the while, Dale worsened Henry’s condition by smoking in the house.My understanding of anormal familywas limited then—still is—but such a lack of consideration felt cruel.
“What do you know about anything, you damn orphan?”Dale’s voice echoes.
Though I’m not an orphan, I didn’t argue.
“Unconventional”is the term most frequently used to describe my family.My father, Dr.Richard Blake, demonstrated his expertise in carnivorous plants in his early twenties, resolving the long-standing debate over how the Venus flytrap triggers its trap.He concluded that an electric current produced in the plant’s cells mechanized the leaves—a veritableshockin the scientific community.
I enjoy wordplay.
He authored the definitive work on the subject and several books since, while becoming a tenured professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.
He purchased land in midtown, where a pre-existing bog the size of a football field provides a natural habitat for his beloved carnivorous family.He built an A-frame house with extensive gardens and a greenhouse.Then, looking up from his microscope one contemplative afternoon, he decided to start a family.That he had no relationship or any desire for one didn’t deter him from his quest.Through lawyers, he found a surrogate—an Icelandic woman, hoping to finance her education and remain anonymous to the infant she delivered.Soon, my father had his firstborn.Me.
“The Venus flytrap is challenging to grow, somewhat intimidating, strangely beautiful, and refuses to sit idly by waiting for sustenance,”my father told me once when I complained about my name,“just like you, Venus.”
I should have argued that he assigned me the name before he knew me.Even now, I wish to debate him—did I become like the plant or is the plant like me?At the time, I asked,“Does that mean the dead parts of me will turn black and fall off, too?”
I was four.
He laughed.
But that’s what happened.My capacity to love and be loved has dried up and fallen away.My chest constricts with the thought—the absence—but it could be the heaviness of my backpack.
Ivy entered our family when I was two through another surrogate, an Italian woman named Marta, who wanted to give someone else a family and needed the money to help her own.She stipulated her desire to maintain correspondence with her biological daughter.The letters and packages started when Ivy was in preschool and haven’t stopped, even though Ivy is an adult, a registered nurse, and lives on her own in a townhouse.
A mother through correspondence is better than being calledmotherless.Their connection grew exponentially once Ivy had a phone.She texted and called Marta often, anytime she needed to talk, and Marta would drop everything to explain French braids, eyeliner, boy troubles, gelato, or whatever Ivy wondered about at the moment.
I didn’t have that, exactly.But I had Henry’s mom, Maggie.Sometimes.
The cobbled path toward home first spits me out onto the observation bridge overlooking the bog.The land is recessed, a sandy pit of low-nutrient soil that’s perfect for carnivorous plants.Tall, slender pitcher plants in green, burgundy, and purple stretch out across the landscape like children raising their hands in a classroom.Lower, sticky sundews tangle like thick cobwebs.And lower still, lie mossy patches of Venus flytraps.The distinctive plants are difficult to see this early in the season and are smaller than people expect.
Peopleexpectmonsters.
They aren’t, though.They’re misunderstood, which is arguably the best commonality between my namesake and me.Now, they cower.Their eerie, fanged marginal spikes pricking from their leaves, open and waiting, are the size of fingertips.
A dog barks, bringing my attention to the far right, where a middle-aged couple wearing bike helmets traverses the paver-marked paths in a slumped hunt.
Beyond the low-lying pit of sunken plants lies home.We affectionately call it the fairy house, as do most people—a trend that started when Ivy and I were in elementary school.Having never found evidence of fairies, I cannot verify their existence.But an A-frame house is unusual for the area, especially one nestled into the trees and surrounded by gardens.At night, with the interior lights on and string lights twinkling in the gardens, it looks rather ethereal—like the house and grounds exude their own bioluminescence, only ours is a warm light rather than a cold one, like at sea.Dad constructed the greenhouse from old windows, including a gorgeous stained-glass circle rescued from an old church.There, the light isn’t just golden, but a twinkling rainbow of greens, ambers, and purples.It’s understandable why people might associate it with mythical woodland creatures and their luminescent fairy dust.Growing up, Ivy and I resisted the fairy label, but as we got older, we came to embrace it, realizing it was another unchangeable view not worth fighting.In high school, Ivy and I posted a sign in the front yard—Don’t piss off the fairies!I chuckle at the sight of it in the distance, glad Dad hasn’t taken it down.
Perhaps it’ll be good to be home.
I hop down from the decking to the garden, my suitcase thumping against the wooden planks and banging onto a cement paver.I beeline for the other side, head lowered to watch my step.
