beautiful, Mama. Everyone knows you are the best gardener in the neighbourhood. I want to be just like you one day.” Mavis stopped suddenly, and focused her attention on her daughter. “You don’t wanna be like me, my dear. You wanna to be like your Papa. He is the smart one. You have university in your future, like him. My family, you know, we had nothing when I was growing up. I never got to go to school or anything like that.” Her words were tender, full of love. But there was sadness in her voice. “Mama, you’re smart too! Don’t say you’re not smart like Papa. You know more about flowers than anyone I’ve ever met. I’m so proud to show everyone your garden, Mama. I’m so proud of you.” Marguerite had always wanted to tell her this, of how proud she was of her mother and her beautiful flowers, how special her mother's gift was, but Mavis was always quick to dismiss praise. Mavis was silenced. She sat down and smoothed her freshly-set curls with her hands, already arthritic due in part to her days toiling with a trowel. Her eyes flickered with something, though Marguerite wasn't certain of what. After a moment, Mavis took her daughter's hands in her own. “So you want to know where Mama learned her peonies, ah?” Her French accent had grown jaunty and thickened with joy. Marguerite knew this tone. It meant a story was coming. “Yes!” She said, encouraging the yarn to be spun before her mother changed her mind. “Tell me!” “OK, OK.” She began. “You know where Mama grew up, yes?” Marguerite knew well. Mavis was born in 1900 in Alberta. She met Marguerite’s father Patrice at a rodeo when she was twenty-four. Patrice was smitten with her. Mavis was stunning in her youth—dark, svelte, athletic, and strong. Patrice proposed and they made the trek eastward to Quebec after marrying in 1925. “When I was little, we lived in a place in the mountains. My family was Métis. We live with other Métis in a place that’s called Jasper Park now. No Métis live there anymore. We all got forced to leave, we lose everything. It was a very sad time for us. I remember my mother cried, and my father was very angry. Papa said that they stole our home from us. We moved near a little town north of the moun-
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Voicings Magazine ISSUE 1
tains when I was eight. It was called Teepee Creek. My father did not want to go to live in another Métis place; he said we would do better if people did not know we were Métis, so we only spoke English around other people. I was sad at first because we had a bigger house before and it was hard to stop speaking Michif, but, over time, I came to love it there.” Her mother was staring past her as she spoke. Marguerite was hushed. She had never heard this story. “I met a man one day in Teepee Creek. He was black. To me, he looked as black as licorice.He stuck out in our town, like my family did. Anyway, the black man, his name was Cyril Clarke. I always call him Mr. Clarke. One day we were at a market and I saw him. He was holding a bunch of the biggest, whitest peonies.” Mavis’s hands were holding invisible blooms as she spoke. “I never saw such flowers before, although I was nineteen years old; they were so lovely, so very white next to his skin. I went to him, and I ask what they were. He told me they were peonies, and he gave me one. “‘It’s a Baroness Schroeder’ he said. ‘And it is for you, if you like it, Miss.’ It was the prettiest flower I’d ever seen. Mr. Clarke became a friend with my family. He knew everything about the peonies, and he had a big farmstead where he grew them—every kind you could think of. Mr. Clarke let me and my family help him a lot because he was allergic. We made a bit of money, and he let us have some roots we could grow ourselves to sell our own flowers. Our family had nothing of value, you know, until he gave us those. The people who live around us did not like us much, but everybody loved our peonies once they saw them, and they bought from us all the time.” Mavis bit her lip and looked into her lap. "Mr. Clarke gave our family something we could be proud of. He was some kind of genius about the peonies. I know he sent many flowers to the university, and wrote articles about them, and he taught me everything I know. The only thing I ever learn was the peonies.” Mavis paused. “When I met your father, you know that he fell in love with me like that.” Mavis snapped her fingers and smiled. It was well known that Patrice fell head over heels for Mavis. He often told the story himself