The Lilac Tunnel: My Journey with Samantha

I follow Elsa to the back door while Samantha waves from the kitchen table, and I make a face at Elsa’s back that we both smother smiles over. Outside, a balding man in a black suit meets us with a basket and clippers, introduced as Hawkins, the butler. A butler? Samantha’s family must be very wealthy.

Elsa hands me the basket and clippers, tells me to fill it with fresh flowers for the table, and disappears back into the kitchen without waiting for an answer. I freeze at the garden’s edge, dense with flowers I don’t want to crush, wobbling on one leg like a stork while I search for a clear spot to plant my other foot until giggling erupts behind me. Samantha, on the porch, asks if I’m stuck.

I must be, I tell Samantha, hopping back toward the lawn until I lose my balance and fall into the grass. She laughs and sits beside me, then turns serious: she’s sorry I’m on my own, having lost my parents. I flash back to her standing up for me in the parlor, believing I’m an orphan, and feel a stab of guilt. I’m not really one. She is.

I tell Samantha I’m sorry about her parents, too, and we sit together in silence, grass cool and damp beneath us. She smiles, saying she has a feeling we’ll be good friends, and I feel exactly the same, right as the porch door opens and Elsa’s familiar scolding voice calls out to me.