I wish I could take Mom’s patch of the garden, call it mine, and put it in the back pocket of my old, faded, blue jeans.  I wish I could keep it forever.  I wish I could take Nanny’s house and put it in the pocket of my hand-me-down jacket.  I wish I could keep it forever and ever.  I search for the comfort of these things to ease my soul that is filled with a nervous energy that just won’t settle down.  Mixed up in a raggedy-mess of teenage Donna and me arguing with Mom not to legally sign over her share of the garden that Grandpa gave her, pushed to the breaking-point of her sisters’ persistent pressure and words of “don’t worry, Marie, you’ll be taken care of.”  Don’t do it, Mom, please, please, please, don’t do it.

Uncle Pippi tells his six sisters to give up their partial ownership of the garden, in order to ease the burden of a complex tax return.  What do they care?  Mom’s sisters have husbands.  Aunt LaLa has the security of her brother and parents.  Mom’s scribble-scrabble signature lets go of the garden and there goes our one thread of anything that we actually own.  There goes the thread of the patch of garden in my head.  Who does Mom have?  Nobody except her four girls.