While waiting for another probably useless blind date at the tavern, I ordered a drink and fished out a photograph of Mother, holding an armful of pastel-colored peonies. Watching flowers drink rainbows was something we loved. 

Giant white peonies were Mother’s favorite. There’s no sweeter fragrance,” she’d say. “So intoxicating, peonies bloom only a couple weeks in May.”

She’d snip off the ends of the stems, at an angle “to help the flowers drink faster.” 

Peonies are always crawling with biting red ants. It was my job to shake them off.

We’d line up fruit jars of water and in each Mother added a splash of food coloring. As the flowers sipped the water they changed color, like magic, from plain white to a rainbow of irresistible sophistication. 

I smashed a red ant crawling on my arm and guzzled my drink, hoping my petals would quickly transform, like the flowers.