They’ll hang tiny people dressed in ethnic clothing from branches stuck in the middle of a bouquet of sunflowers. A sign will read, “Let’s make our world welcoming.” Or they’ll hang red Valentine hearts from the ceiling in front of a wildflower display, with photos of their Hollywood boyfriends attached: Jimmy Smits. The Rock. Keanu Reeves. Robert Redford. Denzel Washington. Morgan Freeman. “Who Is Your Hollywood Boyfriend?” a sign says, and people are invited to write down names on hearts.

They might have a pink tulip display, but then they’ll have birth control packets attached to bamboo shoots. They’ll make a sign that says, “This Is Birth Control Awareness Month. Remember That Health Insurance Pays for Viagra, So It Should Pay for Your Birth Control! Call Your Senators and Representatives Today!”

They’ll make “political statement bouquets” before an election. Two years ago they hand-painted a lovely sign with red letters next to a calla lily bouquet. It said, “Don’t Vote for a Dick.” The person running was named Richard. He lost.

A minister protested about one of their flower displays because it was titled “The Glories of Being a Feminist.”

“Feminism is a threat to marriage,” he intoned, so piously.

“A man who wants to dominate and control his wife is a threat to marriage,” my mother snapped at him, his quiet, cowed wife standing beside him. “Pretty soon the wife won’t take it anymore and she’ll leave her balding, paunchy, middle-aged husband for someone smarter and handsome.” She eyed the middle-aged minister’s bald head and bulging stomach. “It does get tiresome in bed to sleep with a man who has a medieval attitude about women.”

The quiet, cowed wife then laughed to her sanctimonious husband’s surprise.

My mother and aunts say they’ll always be together, “unless,” as Aunt Camellia says, “I find another lover. Then you two are going to have to leave, or at least move to the barn when he spends the night so I don’t have to worry about you listening in. I should make a lotion called Sexy Lotion. Or Nighttime Naughtiness. Or, simply, Lust.”

“It would sell,” Aunt Iris said. “Sounds like it’ll appeal to a carnal audience, particularly to people like us in our horny years.”

“You could make a lot of money,” my mother said. “Maybe I’ll find a lover, too. Sorry, dear.” She glanced at me.

“It’s okay, Mom.” My dad had been gone a long time. She deserved a lover.

“I think I’m up for a lover,” Aunt Iris said. “It’s unlikely I’ll get pregnant, no matter how exuberant I get with my new man. But if I did get pregnant, I would know it was an act of God and I would know that the second coming of Jesus Christ was in my uterus. I would then act accordingly and stop drinking wine and scotch and I would stop smoking an occasional cigar and I’d quit eating pie for dinner and eat more carrots. God,” she groaned, “that sounds awful.”