As a young girl, my mother sat watching on the porch steps, mystified by the grown people’s patience and devotion. The opening took hours. Sometime around three in the morning, the white petals spread open, and the women set down their sweet tea to crane their necks over the blossom. They inhaled its sugary scent and tried to find the baby Jesus in the cradle in the folds. Most exclaimed that they saw it; my mother said she never did. But she would remember the wait for the night-blooming cereus, the Georgia heat stifling and heavy, and take the memory with her when she left, though she would
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