Molly was the elder, by seventy days. Her sister was regarded as a mystery child. Not even the doctors could explain the birth of a child seventy days after a sibling.

The first explanation by the team of three medical doctors was it had been a normal delayed birth. Sometimes conditions cause a mother to unintentionally extend her baby’s gestation beyond the normal ten months.

However, Molly’s sister had taken the longest than any recorded delay; and there were no indications that the baby’s or the mother’s health were at risk at any time.

To help themselves accept their first explanation, the team observed continually to Molly’s parents that delayed birth was as difficult to adequately explain as that other phenomenon of parthenogenesis.

Parthenogenesis, unscientifically referred to as “virgin birth,” has been the exclusive mode of reproduction of some species of insects for millions of years. It happens, as well, occasionally, among birds and frogs and sharks.

Everybody in Molly’s family kept close watch on that second child to discern any incredible thing about her.

No family member ever discerned any incredible thing about Molly’s sister.

Those were the only two children the parents had. Dared have, more like it, because of the warnings from the gynecologists.

Since no scientist in the medical profession throughout the world who had been consulted could definitively explain the seventy days interval between the births, the gynecologists warned Molly’s parents against risking another mystery birth.

She recommended, as well, that to be extra careful, both Dad and Mom should include in their daily diet the popular folk-lore stop-fertility food of Sunflower seeds.

Dad and Mom went further; they planted a garden of Sunflowers in their back yard, forever and forever. Once a year the family held a backyard party of sunflower seed chocolate for the neighbourhood children.

Thirty years later in another country, Molly and her sister were living together happily ever after, unmarried; schoolteachers; no romantic attachments.

At an annual professional Conference of School Teachers, Molly’s sister met up with a friend, Kerid, from their overseas country of birth.

The instant explosion of mutual romance between her and Kerid was caused entirely by nostalgia of perfect childhood memories in a faraway land of their births some thirty years earlier.

That instant explosion of romance could very well have been the incredible thing about Molly’s sister that all family continuous vigilance had failed to uncover.

It was a four-day Conference. By the end of the Conference, Kerid and Molly’s sister were committed to be married as soon as possible.

Their most daunting impediment was that Kerid was attending the Conference on his way to a new school-teaching post in another overseas country.

They agonized out a solution, which was that they would be married legally in a downtown office before the end of the Conference; Kerid would take up his new post in that faraway overseas country; and they would correspond to work out everything until they could join up again within the next few weeks to live together happily ever after in whichever country they would eventually decide to be their home.

Both thoroughly enjoyed working through the difficulties. They so enjoyed the struggle that they lost track of time.

It was the last day of the Conference, but they had not yet been married legally in a downtown office. They resolved to do it first thing the next morning, before Kerid flew out of the country in the early afternoon.

Caught up entirely and intently in their own happiness, Molly’s sister and her Kerid completely ignored the happenings on the streets of that Conference City.

Political unrest had been fomenting, rowdily since long before the Conference had arrived.

Violent rioting broke out all over the City the morning when Kerid and Molly’s sister were making their way to the downtown marriage office. They were not targeted by the warring mobs, but they were completely engulfed by the combatants.

In the ugly street turmoils Kerid and Molly’s sister were accidentally separated.

He was, by sheer luck, rescued by a police cruiser and eventually taken to the aerodrome where he boarded a plane and left the country. The plane that transported him was the last to fly out of that aerodrome for the next week.

Molly’s sister did not fare as well as her Kerid. Accidentally, she was struck on the head by one of the many missiles hurled at one another by the warring mob factions.

She did not lose consciousness. She ended up at a hospital in a group of citizen casualties.

Although her injury proved to be not life threatening, it was the cause of her total loss of memory of Kerid, even as she felt an urge to return to the Conference building.

The City-wide unrest continued for approximately a week. Some buildings in the City were vandalized, some were burned down; the Conference building was one of those burned down.

In his new country, Kerid was devastated to realize that he and Molly’s sister had failed to exchange any information that would enable them to correspond. His depression increased at every turn as he discovered official sources of information in both countries were of no help in the aftermath of the riots in Molly’s sister’s overseas country.

After a few weeks, he decided to return for a few days to find Molly’s sister.

In the City, he went to the Board of Education offices. There he was given the address of Molly’s sister.

Only Molly was home. They were overjoyed to meet each other. They had not seen each other since Molly and her sister had emigrated over a decade ago from their country of birth. Their joy was dampened when Molly had to inform him that she believed her sister was one of the unknown large number of casualties of the City-wide riots.

Her sister was one of the many citizens that remained unaccounted for.

Kerid’s visit lasted only a few hours before he left to return overseas. In that time, he gradually became aware that Molly knew nothing about the lightning romance that had occurred between him and her sister at the Conference.

Molly let him know that until forensic evidence was found to the contrary, she was going to believe her sister would show up eventually. On that note, Kerid withheld telling Molly of his and her sister’s plans to be married that fateful morning.

He could wait forever for Molly’s sister to return. After all, before that lightning bolt of romance struck at the Conference, he believed he was predestined to live a single life forever.

Molly never gave up hoping that her sister’s near-miraculous entry into this world had long ago provided the means by which her sister would some time in the future return to her.

As an extra hope, she planted Sunflowers.

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