CHAPTER TWO
Wish made, and legs sufficiently stretched, she made her way back across the damp grass and over the road to her car. Despite the detour taking less than ten minutes in total, she felt better for it. Different, somehow.
A smile curved her mouth in the near-dark as she imagined what her dad would have said if he’d heard the thought—There’s nothing a bit of fresh air can’t fix.
The smile faded and she exhaled raggedly before turning over the ignition.
Her dad’s absence was proof that there were, in fact, some things a walk outside couldn’t fix, but she knew he would have told her not to be so cynical.
That the earth has ways of healing that can’t be measured. He’d been a bit of a hippy like that.
April laughed and the sound was wet, so she inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, swiping away her tears with the palm of her hand as she pulled out of the church’s parking lot and back onto the main road.
Her parents lived at the other end of town in the same little suburban community where April and her brother, Noah, had grown up.
After their dad had died, there’d been talk of selling the place for something smaller—a fresh start.
But their mom had been against the idea and really they’d wanted to do whatever felt right to her in the moment.
Six months later, April was questioning whether that had been the best approach.
The brakes faintly squealed as she pulled up to the curb outside of her childhood home and took it in for the first time since the funeral.
The grass in the front yard had gotten a little too long, unkempt instead of healthy, and the blackberry bushes had started to grow over the top of the white picket fence that sealed the garden off from the sidewalk.
Once upon a time, her mom had loved gardening.
It was an activity they’d done together when April was growing up, and it was probably the thing that had felt the most unnatural about living in the city: not having that green space, dirt to bury her fingers in, plants to tend.
But she’d persevered, because she’d thought Tyler was worth it—that the future they were building together was worth it.
She’d been wrong.
April stepped out of the car and hesitated before grabbing her phone from the front seat, tucking it into her bra, and avoiding the unread notifications spanning her lock screen. She’d deal with all of that later.
The closer she got to the front door, the harder her heart beat and the more signs of neglect she saw—flowers in the hanging baskets on either side of the steps that led to the small porch dead or dying, muddy footsteps stamped across the porch in a way that would normally have driven Kathy Jones around the bend but had been left to dry onto the white-painted wood.
April should have come home sooner.
There was probably a key under the worn brown welcome mat, but April didn’t bother to search for it.
It was Magnolia Springs—who’d ever heard of locking the front door?
The handle turned easily under her touch and she stepped inside after a moment’s hesitation.
It was quieter than usual. Flickering lights played against the sea-foam walls of the hallway, the TV clearly on in the room just off to the left, but otherwise the house was still.
April toed off her shoes, wincing when one thumped to the floor a little too loudly, and then padded over to the living room doorway to peek inside.
She’d been right. The TV was on, the sound playing so quietly that April hadn’t heard it from the hall.
All the lights were off but the brightness of the screen fell across her mom’s face.
New lines had formed in the familiar expanse of her fair skin, but at least while she was asleep she looked peaceful.
April smiled and stepped backward, deciding to let her mom rest, when the floorboard gave an almighty creak.
Kathy’s eyes flew open and April’s hands shot out to catch the pillow that was flung her way.
“Mom, it’s me.” She tried to hide the laughter in her voice with a cough but Kathy Jones missed nothing.
“Scared me half to death!” Her mom scowled before her face softened and she stood, opening her arms and gripping April tightly when she stepped into the embrace. “Hi, sweetie. I made up your old bed for you. Must have fallen asleep waiting for you to pull up.”
April inhaled deeply, the gentle sweet scent of her mom’s perfume putting her instantly at ease. “It’s OK. I didn’t mean to wake you. I forgot about the floorboard.”
“I asked Martin a hundred times to fix that,” her mom said, glaring down at the offending board even as her voice remained soft.
“Your dad never did get around to it, though.” They both stared down at the floor for a second, each lost in their own thoughts, before the moment passed and Kathy seemed to shake herself.
“Do you want me to fix you a drink? Hot cocoa?”
April smiled. “No, thanks, Mom. I’m just going to head up and sleep. It’s been a long day.”
“OK, honey.” Her mom pressed a kiss to her cheek and then turned as if to go back to the living room. Kathy chuckled, the sound ringing hollow. “Just turning off the TV, then I’ll be heading up myself.”
April nodded, satisfied, and made her way toward the small staircase at the far end of the hall.
Most of the houses in this area were bungalows, all one story, but a handful had second and third floors.
A pang went through her as she reached the top of the stairs and found herself face to face with the pictures on the gallery wall.
Not so long ago, her dad had joked that the stairs would be hell on his hips when he got older.
Little had they known, that wasn’t a problem he would have to worry about.
She turned away from her dad’s gentle smile, not quite ready to face one of the last family photos they’d taken together, and instead approached her childhood bedroom.
It was muscle memory—the turn from the top, the feel of the handle in her palm—and the room beyond was almost exactly as she’d left it.
The carpet muffled her footsteps, a familiar purple splotch near the foot of the bed catching her eye as she perched on the edge of the mattress.
She’d spilled nail polish there when she was fifteen and had cried when her mom had noticed it and grounded her for the whole month, making her miss the party of the summer hosted by Jake Hopman.
April sighed. The only things that were different in the room were her and the bedspread. Once, the hot-pink walls and posters of her favorite cities and boy bands had seemed so her. She wasn’t sure when she’d substituted color for beige and her dreams for being the perfect almost-wife.
Desperate to shut her brain off, she shed her dye-stained clothes and rummaged in the large drawers for some PJs to wear.
Coming up empty, she decided to sleep nude, when her phone vibrated from the nightstand, reminding her to take her meds.
Luckily, she kept them on her, otherwise they’d have been left with the rest of her belongings in New York after her hasty exit, and that was a headache she didn’t need.
She tied a too-short robe around herself and quietly slipped down the stairs to grab a glass of water, the sleeves fluttering in the air where they stopped mid-forearm instead of at her wrists like they used to do. The all-over daisy print was cute, though, and buoyed her mood slightly.
Water retrieved, April had just turned toward the stairs again when a tingling spread over the back of her neck. She paused and allowed her curiosity to take over as she moved quietly away from the stairs and toward the living room.
The lights were still off, the TV screen black, and her mom was asleep on the couch. It might have seemed innocent, impromptu, if not for the pillow and comforter that she slept with, completely at odds with the tidy sophistication of the rest of the room.
Maybe April wasn’t the only one struggling.
She snuck back out of the room and up the stairs, deciding an interrogation could wait till morning. For now, her childhood bed was calling.
Something about the haze of the morning just made everything seem better. Or maybe that was just the smell of blueberry pancakes wafting into her bedroom.
They were her mom’s staple dish, one of the very few things she could cook. It was a shortcoming that had been passed down to April, too. Her dad had been the cook in the family. Now that he was gone …
April frowned as she forced open her eyes and pushed away the thought. Her mom could take care of herself. She wasn’t going to starve just because Dad wasn’t there to do the cooking anymore.
… Right?
For several heartbeats, April stared up at the ceiling.
Stuck to the paint were the remnants of glow-in-the-dark stars, glue gone gray with dirt and fluff where the stars had slowly fallen down.
It felt annoyingly apt to her, and it was then that she realized she had reverted back to being an angsty sixteen-year-old.
Strange how heartbreak didn’t hurt any less once you were an adult, but the fallout was often more complex.
Like, say, running away from the city she’d called home without any of her clothes or things and now finding herself stuck in a dilemma.
There was the tiny daisy-print robe she’d worn last night, or she could attempt to find something in her drawers now that she had daylight on her side. Still, she wasn’t hopeful.
In the end, April managed to scrounge up a cropped blue t-shirt with the phrase Flower Power emblazoned on the front in bright pink.
She vaguely remembered buying it. If she was right, she’d been seventeen and had just gotten her belly button pierced, so of course she’d needed new clothes to show off the piercing.