Coming home after a long day of work surely is frustrating to some people, and that includes no other than Hearst’s hardworking aunt, Marian. She decided to treat Hearst children some sweets today, thinking it could possibly sweeten her day as well. Carrying a huge bag filled with candies, she opened the front door just to find Momma frowning while looking at her note book in the living room.
“Sis? What’s wrong?” Marian asked. She took off her coat, grabbed a seat next to her, and caught a quick glimpse of what her sister had been doing that entire afternoon. “A tree? That doesn’t feel right.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Here,” without a single doubt, she took Momma’s notebook and pencil, taking her turn to add something and complete the idea. Her sketch was just as rough as Momma’s, but it was clearly a depiction of a house—placed above the trunk, beneath the close-packed leaves.
“This would’ve been better, especially for the children,” she said, giving the book back to its owner while putting her coat on. On the upper left side of the coat is written the name of this ingenious lady: MARIAN MERSAULT HEARST.
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Mersault Hearst.
Hid in the: @TAN_YARD & @TheHearst.
What does a college student like her possibly need during the daytime? That’s true, a cup of refreshing iced coffee, straight from the brewer. As soon as her class ended, she picked up her phone and dialed her sister’s number.
“What? You can’t?” an emotion of sadness swung by her face, knowing that her eldest sister were unable to go out and give her some company today. “What are you doing then? Are you—huh, you’re planting seeds, you said? You’re out of your mind, Rachel Sis.”
She was kidding. It’s common for sisters to say those things to each other, right? So then she went to her sister’s house, discovered that her sister was actually occupied in the backyard, planting what she called ‘a tree’ seed at one point. Of course, Cecilia was confused with this whole situation, but she decided to put away her tote bag that her college books ended up scattering the place, just to help her sister. One book opened its first page and revealed her name: CECILIA ESMAE HEARST.
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Lí
ⓘ 一团华丽，像圣花一样柔软。My lungs swell by the flower bloomed inside of me. 🪷
It was about time Ginger invited his friends to come over. We’re doing an art project, at least that what he said to Momma the other day, so she allowed it.
On the day his friends came to the house, they chose to work on this art project on the backyard, so that the paintings will dry quicker. They rolled out a giant mat close to the sprout—which Momma planted a while ago—but because it looked quite identical to the grass surrounding it, one of Ginger’s friends almost accidentally stepped on it until he rebuked, “Hold your toe!”
And at the same time, Momma approached them to hand out five glasses full of orange juice. “That was not a big deal!” she reassured. “Gingie, be good to your friends.”
“Oki, Momma,” Ginger smiled that his eyes crinkled, then continued working on his canvas that had his name in the back of it: GINGER VANOWEN HEARST.
Yichen is the type that doesn’t talk too much, but sure is attentive to everything in his surroundings. The moment he knew Momma was putting something on the ground and had been looking after it for days, he determined to find out what was her plan all this time. He didn’t straightforwardly asked Momma things like, “What are you up to, Mom?” but soon as he got home from college, the first thing he did was going to the backyard to watch over the sprout.
Until one day, Momma found out about that.
“Yiyi? What are you doing down there…” she asked from the patio, while Yichen was squatting before the sprout to watch it grows. He didn’t realize Momma was talking to him for a second.
“Eh, nothing, Momma,” he looked over his shoulder while his position remained the same. “I’m just curious about how trees actually grow.”
As expected from Yiyi, Momma talked under her breath, while wiping the dust off a book she was holding. It was an encyclopedia with a sticker that says her inquisitive son’s name on the cover: YICHEN RUI HEARST.
“Hahaha! You can’t catch me!” It was the sound of Santiago playing chase with his little siblings. Instead of reminding the younger ones to watch their steps and try not to step on the sprout, he was the one being told to.
“Don’t blame me,” he excused, pointing his finger to the ground. “Blame the sprout! Why isn’t it getting any bigger!”
He did step on the sprout one day. Well, not exactly stepping onto it, but he didn’t pay attention to what’s under his feet that the sprout came out of the soil along with the roots. That was when his siblings decided not to intervene—especially as Momma switched her personality, then gently called his full name: SANTIAGO FOLD HEARST.
Along with her older brother, Jolene doesn’t say much about growing a tree in the backyard, but she had been carefully watching over it for a few times. She just agreed though sometimes she did wonder, “Won’t it take too much space?” And so on.
She usually went there after college. When the others were not noticing, Jolene took the watering can from the storage room, filling it all up, and made sure that the sprout got hydrated enough. One day, when Momma was out of town to do some business, she left a note on the fridge, which said, I am out of town. There’s food in the fridge and on the cabinets for you to cook. Be back soon, love you!
On the bottom side of the note, Momma was thanking someone for taking care of her plant really well—and that was when Jolene noticed her full name there: JOLENE MERYIA HEARST.