Page 32 of A Lot Like Lavender

Pamela suddenly makes a pained sound, jarring us both. Jordan looks down at Molly, who hasn’t stirred, obviously unsure of how to move her without waking her. Hopping up, I start to slip my hands beneath her, but he stops me. “It’s her reflexes. She’s getting close.”

“Oh.” Tears brim in my eyes, despitehow hard I try to avoid them and how very much I don’t want to cry in front of Jordan. “What do I do?”

“Stay with her. Talk to her. Let her know you’re here.” His patient, close-lipped smile is the one I remember. Understanding and kind. The empathetic softness that made him an easy friend and would have made him an incredible physician. “I’ll take Molly to her room and be back in a minute. If that’s alright with you?”

“Yes…” I say, wiping tears from my cheeks. “Okay.”

He lifts himself and Molly from the floor effortlessly, heading for the hallway, before I call him back. “Jordan.”

“Yeah, Red?”

“Thank you. For today.” It’s hard to look him in the eye, knowing he’s seeing pieces of me that I’ve successfully kept to myself for a long time. But Jordan showed up today in more ways than one. Whether he sticks around or not, I want him to know the truth right now. I want to be more like Molly, even if the simple admission makes me feel as if I’m laying myself bare. “I’m glad you’re here. That you’re home.”

He holds Molly a little closer, like she’s his security blanket now. I feel that hug wrap around my heart and take hold. He loves her.

“Me too, Red.”

When his footsteps grow faint down the hallway, I tell Pam she’ll always be my favorite. That James, Molly, and I loved her from the moment she joined us, and I’m so thankful she stuck around for so long. I apologize for her pain and not catching this stupid parasite sooner. And then I tell her she can rest now. That I won’t leave her for a second. I say goodbye.

When Jordan returns to the room a few minutes later, she’s already gone.

11

UMBRELLA

CALLUM J. WRIGHT

JORDAN

Lavender.That’s the first thought I have when I begin to wake. Warm, spring lavender fills every inhale. With every exhale, I want to burrow deeper into the sensational weight wrapped around me. I’m in a dream. One where the weighted blanket draped across my chest isn’t an inconsequential piece of fabric I need to help me sleep, but instead the woman who—despite my best efforts and, to my great shame—has filled my dreams for weeks. I shift a hairsbreath and that weighted blanket mewls, pretzeling itself tighter around my waist, doing absolutely nothing to encourage me to wake up and face the day.

Then my skin pimples with awareness. A creak of the floor. The rooster crows. Which is particularly strange since I don’t own a rooster, and I don’t remember falling asleep in the barn’s loft last night.

The next, semi-coherent thought that suddenly races through my now active brain is,I’m being watched.

Squinting my exhausted eyes open, a few things become clear very quickly.

The first, I’m staring at Emory’s bedroom ceiling. It’s wallpapered with a green base, the exact shade of her eyes, and patterns of ferns outlined in cream, something I didn’t notice last night when she’d exhausted herself with emotions after Pam’s death, and I carried her to her room. I’d intended to leave her alone, sleep on the couch or in the barn loft like I have more than once over the last few weeks, but in a moment that I can only assume was one of her lowest, Emory wordlessly took my hand and guided me back to her bed, letting me wrap myself around her for the night.

Yeah, I hate myself.

She was vulnerable, and in a moment of weakness, I took advantage. I shouldn’t have stayed. Shouldn’t have allowed myself to have a taste of something that I know isn’t real. But I also cannot bring myself to move, hopelessly memorizing the way it feels to wake up with Emory in my arms. How her wild, red hair hides a portion of her face so I can only see a hint of her long eyelashes brushed against her cheek and the pink of her lips, barely open as she softly snores, breath hitting my bare chest.

Then, the second and far more alarming reality is the fact that Molly is standing beside us in her jammies, a puzzled look across her face as she stares at the state of Emory and me in her mother’s bed. Everything that happened in this bedroom last night was innocent and totally PG, but I didn’t plan for Molly to get the visual she is now. Her green eyes are wide and excited, though tinted red and puffy after a night of crying. She looks like she’s gearing up to squeal, hands fisted at her chest. That, or she’s ready to jumpinto this bed and join us in what I just know—if any of this were real—would be the best cuddle of my entire life. But before she can scream or launch herself under the covers, I bring my finger to my lips, encouraging her to keep quiet.

Removing myself from beneath Emory is a sad but necessary chore. The toll the last few days have taken, emotionally and physically, are likely the only reason she stirs but doesn’t wake when I carefully slip out from underneath her, replacing my body with one of the thousands of pillows she keeps on her bed. I’ve never understood why women seem to need so many, but I’ve got to admit, after a night of perfect sleep, I see the appeal—though I think the pillows had little to do with my contentment. I’d spend the rest of my life in that bed. Bury me there. I never want to leave.

But, sadly, I do.

Finally, when Molly slips her hand into mine as we tiptoe down the hallway towards the kitchen—where I plan to make breakfast for both of the girls who’ve unknowingly tattooed their names permanently across my heart—I know I’ll never recover.

“You don’t have a shirt on,” is the first thing Molly says when we reach the kitchen.

“I don’t.” I feel my cheeks heat but needlessly so. Nothing happened aside from me not wanting Emory’s bed to smell like alpaca and a life changing snuggle. She changed into an oversized shirt and sweatpants, too, but I don’t think Molly needs all the finer details. “I’m sorry. I can grab a shirt from my bag outside if you?—”

“No!” she says. “I like it. Now I can see all your tattoos. I like the bird best. But those are pretty, too.” She points to where a pair of playing cards is tattooed on my chest. “Those are aces.”

“They are.” I nod, considering whether I should tell her what they mean to me. They’re a memory. A salute, drawn there almost ten years ago on the day Molly was born.