Where Petals Fall (2 page)

Sarah stared at the television, oblivious to the sobs coming from her mother. How could she tell her daughter that her grandfather was dead?
Dead
. The thought crippled her. For the first time in five months, Junie was actually glad that Sarah was not the vivacious, curious child she’d once been. She’d never have been able to pretend that nothing was wrong. A wave of guilt passed through her. She lowered herself to the couch, burying her face in her hands.

She had to pack. Her legs wouldn’t work. How could she pick out clothes and toiletries to bring to her mother’s? Her father was dead. Her mother needed her. Sobs started from deep within her, engulfing her shoulders and turning her legs to rubber. She sank into the couch.
Mom
. At least Selma and Mary Margaret, her mother’s closest friends and neighbors for the past thirty-plus years, would be there with her. She took comfort in the thought that her mother would not be alone until she got there. Junie had heard how the Getty Girls (Ruth, Selma, and Mary Margaret) came to be more times than she could count. When Ruth had first moved into the Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, neighborhood, Selma and Mary Margaret, two friendly though nosy neighbors from across the street had rushed over, welcome baskets in hand. The women got along like three peas in a pod, and before the afternoon was over, the three of them had coined the name for their little trio, the Getty Girls: the Three Musketeers, female style. The Getty Girls had stepped in when Junie’s mother had her hysterectomy, cooking and cleaning and doting on Ruth, and they’d brought Junie chocolate bars and conspiratorial winks when she’d had her first period at thirteen years old. She was thankful knowing that they’d be there for her mother now.

Junie took a few deep breaths, then walked from the living room into the kitchen, her mind wrapped in a bubble of grief. She grabbed her cell phone and lowered herself into a kitchen chair, then dialed Brian’s office phone.

“Hi, Stacy. This is Junie.” Her voice cracked as she held back her sobs. “Is Brian in?”

“No, Mrs. Olson. Do you want his voice mail?”

Junie left a message on Brian’s voice mail. Then she called his cell phone and left a message there as well. “Brian, something’s happened to my father. We have to go—” Tears took over her voice, and she ended the call.

Two hours later, with the minivan packed and ready to go, she realized that she hadn’t called Shane. As she sat down and tried to think about the bakery’s commitments for the week, she remembered how it had been Brian who really brought about the circumstances under which Shane and Junie had met. Junie had just graduated from college with a degree in elementary education, intending to teach, like her father, but when she’d walked across that stage and accepted her diploma, she knew her heart wasn’t in it. It would be too painful, she feared. Being surrounded by children every day would be a constant reminder of losing her childhood best friend, Ellen. Junie had gone back home to figure out what to do with her life. She’d been sitting on the back porch, wondering if she’d just wasted four years of her life, when Brian appeared across the white picket fence. He’d gone from being Ellen’s older, lacrosse-playing, straight-A, promise-of-a-perfect-future brother to the heart-stopping next-door neighbor.

Brian had returned to his father’s house begrudgingly, having no other options while he waited for his out-of-state job offer to come through after graduating from law school. He was anxious to leave Gettysburg—and his father’s house—and start a new life. Not surprisingly, Ellen was a subject that brought downcast eyes and shortened conversation. Junie tucked away her desire to share how much she missed her friend, not wanting to cause Brian any more pain than he’d already endured. Within ten minutes, Brian had used his newly honed lawyering skills to get her to admit that she didn’t even like the idea of teaching. She’d just wanted to make her father proud. Twenty minutes later, Junie was planning her route to doing what she really loved—baking—and they were planning their first date.

Bliss was born a year and a half later, after Junie finished a culinary arts program, where she’d met Shane Donolly, a bundle of Irish energy and a wicked baker. With similar goals and complementary personalities, they’d opened Bliss, and Shane had become Junie’s saving grace. She’d come to rely on him as a friend and as a business partner. Shane might have made the perfect life partner for Junie, if she’d had anything more than a platonic attraction to him. Shane had held down the fort when Sarah was born, and during the worst of Sarah’s recent issues, he’d listened, consoled, supported, and allowed Junie to take time off to focus on her family and not worry about their clients. He was every bit of a solid friend Junie could rely on, and she was secretly thankful that she’d never been tempted to see what else might lie between them. She’d lost one best friend. She had no interest in losing another.

She called Shane to explain that she wouldn’t be in for a few days, maybe even a week or two.

He gasped when she told him of her father’s passing. She could hear him lower himself into a chair, the music in the front of the bakery playing lightly in the background. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ve got the bakery covered. Do you need me to do anything else? Contact Sarah’s school?”

Shane always thought of everything. “How could I have forgotten? Yes, please. Do you mind?” Junie ran through her days, wondering if there was anything else she might have missed. She lived in such a tight little bubble of family and work, there was nothing else that she could think of.

“Drive carefully, and I’m here if you need me—anytime, Junie, day or night. Call me and I’ll be here,” Shane offered.

“I know,” Junie said. She wondered how such a caring and generous man could be single in his midthirties. Someone was surely missing the boat. There was never a wonder in Junie’s mind about her own feelings for Shane. She’d been happy with Brian, for the most part, since the day they’d become a couple. She had no interest in blurring the lines of her own relationship with Shane from friend to love interest—but it didn’t stop her from wondering what the heck was wrong with the other women in his life. He’d shared just enough banter about his casual trysts for Junie to know he wasn’t gay. “There’s a special delivery coming—”

“Wednesday, I know. I got it covered.”

You always do
.

“Go. Be with your mom. Hug Sarah and Ruth for me, and, Junie, you know I’ll close the bakery and come to the funeral if you’d like me to.”

Shane was closer to Junie than to his own siblings. He had moved away from his family the first chance he got. He always seemed to know just what to say, and it made her wonder what his family must be like. Shane had described them as cold, and Junie thought that he must be right. How could anyone not embrace Shane’s nurturing side? “I know. It’s okay. It’s a Jewish funeral, so it’ll all happen very fast. We have too much going on this week, and there’s no time to call in backup.” Junie wished, not for the first time, that they had another employee or two to hold down the fort, but other than the two very part-time kitchen helpers—who were great in the kitchen, not great with the customers—it was just her and Shane. Every time they spoke of hiring counter help, they decided that they had developed such a smoothly run business with just the two of them that another person would just be bored much of the time, though now she could really use Shane’s shoulder to lean on at the funeral.

Communication with Shane was so easy. They said their goodbyes, and Junie tried Brian’s cell phone again, very aware of the tightening of the muscles in her neck as she entered his phone number, a recent, familiar sensation that had accompanied many of their conversations.

Brian answered on the second ring. “Hey, honey.”

Junie heard him shifting papers, and her chest tightened with irritation. Hadn’t he gotten her messages? “Brian, focus for a second, please,” she snapped.

“I am focusing. I’m in the middle of a big case.”

Junie burst into tears.

“Junie? What is it?” He stopped shuffling the papers.

“My dad. Didn’t you get my messages?” She wiped her eyes, suddenly upset that Brian hadn’t called her back.

“No, sorry. I was out. Things have been crazy. What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“My dad, he…died. Mom found him—”

“What? What happened?”

“Heart attack.” Junie sobbed.  “We have to go. The van’s packed. Can you be home soon? Please?”

Brian hesitated, and Junie’s pulse raced.

“Brian?” she snapped. She could picture his lips tightening as he ran through his schedule in his mind. She hoped he’d drop everything and be with her, no matter what doing so might upend at his work. Brian’s cases were what paid the bills. She’d heard it one too many times. Sometimes she rued his success and the time it stole from their family. She missed simple things, like family dinners and weekends spent lounging around rather than waiting for him to come back from the office, where he went each Saturday morning to catch up on work for a few hours.

“June, I’m so sorry. Look, I’m on a huge case. You and Sarah go, and I’ll be there tomorrow, right after my court appearance.”

“Seriously?” She paced, biting back her anger. She and Brian had grown up on the same block. Junie had been Brian’s younger sister Ellen’s best friend until the day she disappeared. Her disappearance had caused a rift in Brian’s family, and now, even twenty-four years later, Brian always found a reason to arrive later or cut his visit short when they returned to their parents’ houses in their old neighborhood. Brian was once treated like the quintessential golden boy by Peter, his father, and it was as if all that admiration had been washed away with Ellen’s disappearance.  Junie often wondered what Brian’s relationship with his family would have been like if Ellen hadn’t disappeared. She pushed that thought away and listened to Brian’s heavy sigh through the receiver.

“I can be there tomorrow afternoon, but I can’t leave now. I’m interviewing a key witness tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

“Really?” She eyed Sarah in the other room. “You always do this. You did this when we visited them last time, at Easter.”

“I can’t control when I’m on a case.” Brian hesitated.

And I can’t control when my father dies.

“I’ve never hidden the fact that I don’t like going back there, but I will go, so back off, please.”

Junie bit her lower lip. How could she be so stupid? Ellen’s disappearance had been such a taboo subject in their marriage that she had almost forgotten about the feelings that going back home must unearth for him. She’d bundled his discomfort into the rift the disappearance had caused and not the event itself. Of course he would relive Ellen’s disappearance with every visit. After they hung up, she called Sarah’s therapist and made an emergency appointment. There was no way she could handle telling Sarah this news on her own.

It was ten p.m
.
when Junie finally pulled down her parents’ dark and quiet Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, street. She’d been home many times in the years since she and Brian had moved away, but tonight the street looked different. Junie hadn’t paid much attention to the trees that lined the road, now large enough that their branches arced over the street, creating an ominous darkness. The houses were mostly dark, a few kitchen lights left on. Modest, economical cars were parked in each driveway, lawns mowed, recycling bins lined up like the obedient little neighborhood it had always been. She glanced up the hill toward the house where Brian grew up, thinking of Ellen. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel the grass on her skin, hear hers and Ellen’s giggles as they rolled down the hill toward the fence that divided their yards. She’d always felt ripped off by her best friend’s disappearance—she’d been left with an emptiness she’d never been able to fill, though she knew it was a selfish thought.

The back of Brian’s father’s Mercedes peeked out from behind the bushes at the top of the driveway. She could hear her father, wondering aloud why anyone needed to spend that much on a car. Her heart sank with the reality of the situation that had brought her home. She pictured her mother inside, eyes puffy, staring at her father’s favorite recliner. She wondered if she should have left right away and raced to her mother’s side right after she’d called. Her throat tightened, and she took several deep breaths.

Her foot would not press down on the gas pedal. She inched down the road like a thief in the night, counting down the small, 1960s split-level houses to her final destination, silently wishing that when she arrived, she would find it had all been some sort of a bad dream.

Four more houses, three, two
. Her mother’s red front door swung open, and for a split second, Junie stopped breathing.
Dad?
Her father used to somehow know exactly when she’d arrive and meet them in the driveway. She pictured her father, Ralph, coming out of the front door with his eyes wide, as he’d done so many times before. The smile that would have been on his face, the way his eyes lit up when he saw her and then the way they grew even wider when he saw Sarah. She slowed to a stop and watched the Getty Girls file out of her mother’s house, relief easing the tightness of her throat; Selma Smith, her short, stout, pear-shaped body bustling across the street, retreating to the safety of her wiry husband, Phil. Junie swallowed the guilt that crept up her spine as she wondered why it was her father that had died instead of Phil.

Mary Margaret Hatcher (whom everyone called “Old Margaret Thatcher” with an accompanying giggle) walked past the car, her chin tucked into her chest, her face pulled tight. Mary Margaret stopped and raised her eyes to meet Junie’s. Sadness swelled in Junie’s chest, stealing her ability to speak. She lifted her hand to cover her inoperable mouth. She was thankful when Mary Margaret continued walking, lifting her own hand in a hesitant, sad semblance of a wave as Junie’s foot slipped from the brake pedal and she rolled slowly past. At six feet tall, Mary Margaret looked like the Statue of Liberty with her face set in that odd, uncomfortable place between
happy to see you
and
this freaking sucks
.

She pulled into her mother’s driveway, feeling the absence of her best friend even more after seeing her mother’s best friends, and silently prayed for Ellen’s return.
Abducted
. The word sounded so vague, like aliens swept her away in the night. But it hadn’t been night—it was broad daylight, and Junie believed that whoever “they” were, they’d taken Ellen because she was cute and outgoing, unafraid of the dark, and maybe even just because they’d wanted a little girl of their own. She still held on to that ridiculous childhood hope like a security blanket rather than accepting what statistics knew to be true: It had been too many years. Ellen was probably dead. 

Junie thought about her mother’s friends and the way they’d held her shoulders and looked into her eyes after Ellen disappeared. “Don’t you worry, Junie. God will bring her back.” Truth be told, they were the reason Junie didn’t rush out the door the second her mother called and instead had waited for Brian. She’d known her mother was being taken care of. Of course they’d be by her mother’s side. It was Junie who felt alone, she realized, as she turned off the ignition. It was Junie who needed doting on. She needed her husband.

It had been a white-knuckle drive north as the sun set and the rain picked up. Junie silently cursed Brian for not driving with her. She’d waited for him to come home, to see if she could convince him to go with them, rather than waiting another day, but when it hit eight thirty, she knew she had to get on the road. She’d let his nine-thirty phone call go to voice mail. She understood his discomfort in coming home, but that didn’t quell the ache in her stomach over his not being there when she needed him.  She glanced at Sarah, still fast asleep in her car seat. Halfway to her mother’s house, Junie had spun around to look at her as they drove past the train station, expecting to hear Sarah’s gleeful shout,
Choo-choo!
Sarah had been staring straight ahead, her eyes at half-mast. Her missing excitement magnified Junie’s aching heart. She was thankful when Sarah had fallen asleep—an acceptable, expected silence.

Junie opened the door against the wind and dragged her fatigued body from the car. Her fingers ached from clenching the steering wheel; her thighs felt as if they were tied in knots. The wind howled, whipping her blond hair across her cheeks like swift strikes with a thin blade. She hadn’t slept through the night since Sarah had started regressing—if Sarah wasn’t wetting the bed, she was crawling into their bed in the middle of the night, scared.

Rain pelted Junie’s face. She shielded her eyes with her arm and looked up the hill at the old Victorian home where Brian had grown up and where his father, Peter Olson, still lived. The house had looked so beautiful when Junie was a little girl, surrounded by a white picket fence with crawling hydrangeas and a thick nest of trees hiding the gardens in the backyard like a secret. She and Ellen had spent hours playing hide-and-seek among the veritable maze of roses and flowering plants in the rear of the house. Over the course of several years, the wide, gray wooden planks of siding had lost their sheen; the picket fence had been left to age not so gracefully, chipping and peeling like an untended wound.

Junie closed her eyes against the void in her heart that Ellen’s disappearance had left. It still bothered her that Ellen could walk to the library—something they’d done many times as kids—and then never be seen again. It was unfair that someone she loved so dearly could be silently swept away, and now, twenty-four years later, it had happened again. She knew what fate had ended her father’s life, but it hurt no less, and no more, than when Ellen had disappeared without a trace.

Thunder echoed in the clouds. Junie startled and climbed back into the van, wrapping her shivering arms around her middle, taking one deep breath after another. For as long as she could remember, Junie had been unsettled by the combination of wind and thunder. Rain didn’t bother her, but a strong heat storm had always sent her into a panic. She used to be embarrassed by her childish insecurity, but at thirty-one, Junie had no control over the trembling of her limbs or the racing of her heart. She’d accepted long ago that it was just part of who she was.

The door opened slowly, and Ruth moved under the arc of the porch light, a thick brown cardigan sweater wrapped tightly around her small frame. Junie’s heart swelled. She’d never again see her father standing next to her mother, arm draped over Ruth’s shoulder. Ruth would never again utter the words that Junie heard so often while growing up,
Oh, Ralph
, said with a hint of a smile. How the hell would she handle this and be strong for Ruth when she could barely be strong enough for herself?

Junie gritted her teeth against her anxiety and forced herself to step from the car into the wind again, scoop Sarah from her car seat, and run into the house.

Ruth shut the door behind them. Junie leaned in to her, Sarah heavy in her arms. She kissed Ruth’s cheek, one arm wrapped around her, afraid to unwrap herself from their embrace.

“Mom,” she whispered, at a loss for any meaningful words.
I’m sorry
was too weak. She had no experience with consoling someone other than her daughter, and a scraped knee was far from the passing of a husband.

Ruth nodded, pointing to the stairs. Junie saw the tears in Ruth’s eyes and allowed her the silence she needed. She carried Sarah upstairs and down the narrow, darkened hallway to her childhood bedroom. She laid Sarah on the twin bed, watching her stir. The sheet lifted and dropped ever so slightly with each breath. Junie could almost forget Sarah’s issues while she slept. She looked peaceful, the pinch of life receded. She envisioned her waking up with a beaming smile and an energetic cadence in her high-pitched voice. Maybe seeing her grandmother would do that for her.
Grandpa
. Her hopes deflated.

Junie reached for the curtains, hesitating as light in Peter’s den flicked on. Junie watched the familiar sole illumination, thinking of Brian and his strong work ethic, which mirrored his father’s. Peter had groomed Brian from the moment he could read, and Brian had sucked up that one-on-one attention as any golden boy would. Junie still found it curious that Brian hadn’t joined his father’s law firm, choosing instead to move an hour and a half away. Brian had claimed that he’d wanted to make his mark on his own, out from under the wings of his father. Junie couldn’t help but think there might be more—Ellen’s disappearance had been such a thorn in their relationship, she could only imagine the rift it might have caused within his own family.

As she looked at the light that had been on every night of her childhood, her chest constricted; sharp edges of memories she couldn’t reach hung before her like carrots to a horse.

Junie dropped her gaze to Sarah. Perspective was everything. Sarah was there; she was healthy, reachable, safe. Emotionally regressed, Junie could handle.  Couldn’t she?

“How is she?”

Junie startled, lifting her eyes to her mother, who she knew was putting on a strong front for her benefit. At five foot two, Ruth had always seemed slight to Junie’s five-foot-eight stature, but the pointedness of her shoulders and the way her jeans hung loose around her middle caught Junie’s attention. Had she always been so thin? Was it magnified by her father’s sudden death? Junie bit back the regret that squeezed her heart. Months had flown by while Junie was taking care of her family’s daily lives—preschool, dinners, groceries, not to mention endless medical appointments, teacher conferences, and other time-consuming activities surrounding Sarah’s regression. Junie had given little thought to anything outside of her inner circle of Brian and Sarah and the bakery. Even phone calls from her mother had been rushed.
What’s up, Mom? I’m making dinner. Running out to get Sarah from school, Mom. Can I call you later?
While she was busy racing from one moment to the next, her father had been slowly dying. His arteries had been silently clogging, wearing down his heart like a ninja, undetected until it was too late. He and Ruth hadn’t been gifted the grace of time to say goodbye. Junie bit her lower lip. She hadn’t had time to come home again, had she? With Brian working late night after night, and Sarah’s issues, life was too chaotic, wasn’t it?
Excuses
, her father would have said.
Life doesn’t choose our actions; it only presents opportunities.

Guilt surrounded Junie like a cape. She ached to see her father’s serious blue eyes, his short-cropped haircut, which Ruth had deemed his
schoolboy
cut, just one more time. Tears welled in Junie’s eyes.

Ruth wrapped her arms around Junie. “You okay?”

Junie nodded. Strong, practical Ruth Nailon. It was just like her mother, Junie thought, to take care of Junie instead of allowing herself to be the one in need.
Why can’t I be that strong for Sarah?

“I saw Selma and Mary Margaret leaving,” Junie said, trying not to talk directly about her father’s death. It hurt too damn much. It had been Selma and Mary Margaret who’d coordinated the candlelit prayer vigils after Ellen’s disappearance. Junie remembered Selma and Mary Margaret sitting at Ruth’s kitchen table, talking in hushed tones, consoling each other, and praying for Ellen’s return. Selma had spied Junie peeking into the kitchen, and she’d knelt down, held Junie’s shoulders, and looked into her eyes: “Don’t you worry, Junie. God will bring her back.” Junie wished God would bring both Ellen and her father back, but she knew that real life did not work that way.

Ruth pulled back; her trembling hand trailed down Junie’s arm to her fingertips. “They’ve been with me since…the whole day.” Ruth squeezed Junie’s hand, and Junie could tell she wasn’t ready to talk, either. “It’s late. Get some sleep and we’ll talk in the morning.”