Where Petals Fall (21 page)

Brian came in as Junie was changing Sarah’s clothes. She stuffed them in the bottom of the hamper, not wanting to deal with any of his snarky comments. Every nerve was on fire. Her chest tingled. She moved about the room like a firefly, unable to settle down.

Junie sent Sarah to the living room to watch television as she carried the hamper downstairs.

“I thought I’d throw a load in before we go,” Junie said, slipping into the laundry room.

“Another accident?” he said.

What happened to your good mood?
“No, I just don’t want to come home to dirty laundry. How was your day?”
Tell me about Shane
.

“Uneventful.”

Liar
. “Sorry about court.”

“No big deal. We’ll get the guy off. They’re just buying time. How about your day?” he asked.

“Uneventful.”
Call me on it. Come on, please
.

“That’s good, I guess.”

The air between them was charged with negative electricity. Junie heard every word Brian said as a taunt, every omission of his conversation with Shane as an admission of guilt of some kind, a threat to her safety, only she didn’t know why. She’d never been afraid of Brian before, and she hoped she was being foolish now, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed. His personality was forced, his kindness feigned. Katie’s words echoed in her head.
Ask your husband
.

Brian’s cell phone rang. He answered it, moving swiftly into the other room. Junie strained to listen.

“Now? I can’t. We’re…busy.”

She breathed in slow, quiet breaths.

“Right now? Damn it. Why do you do this? What’s so important that I have to leave right this instant?”

Silence. Brian paced. “Shit. Fine. One hour.”

Junie heard him coming back and she quickly picked up Sarah’s drawings, as if she’d been leafing through them.

“I gotta go out.” Brian looked up, his eyes stuck on the drawings.

“Okay.”
Good. That gives me time to think
. “Where are you going?” She took a chance. “Maybe we should postpone the trip.”

“Naw. I’ll be back early enough to go. Just meeting a client at the office, exchanging files.”

Junie followed his stare. “Sarah drew these at school. Didn’t she do a great job?” She held on to a thread of hope that even now Brian would show some enthusiasm toward Sarah’s efforts. “I think she’s really coming along.”

Brian took the stack of drawings and looked through them. He began to breathe harder, his chest lifting and falling with each measured breath. He snapped his eyes toward Sarah, who sat silently on the couch, blanket in her lap, thumb in her mouth.

“Nothing special there,” he said as he opened the door. “Be ready in two hours.”

Junie sprang into action. She called Clara, thankful that she could come right over. She sat down with Sarah and asked her why she liked Kayla’s earring so much. Sarah didn’t answer. Junie tried a few more lines of questioning, but finally gave up when Clara arrived.

“Thank you for coming over so quickly. I’ll be back soon.” Junie snagged her keys and headed out to her car before she could get wrangled into small talk.
Ask your husband
. She’d ask him, all right, but not in front of her daughter.

The wind whistled through the telephone lines. Junie put her head down and steeled herself against the rush of fear that ran through her. She had to be stronger than her childish insecurities.
It’s only wind
, she told herself, and headed toward Brian’s office.

The roads were empty as she neared his office parking lot. Brian’s car was nowhere to be found. Junie was not surprised. She picked up her cell phone and called him.

“Yeah,” he snapped.

Junie listened for background noise. “Hey, um…can you bring me one of those folders that Stacy has, you know, the accordion ones? I want to coordinate some of the articles I pulled up about the things Theresa has brought up.”

Brian didn’t answer. Junie smirked.

“She’s not here.”

“Well, I figured that. She keeps them in her right drawer. She showed me last time I was there.”

“I’ll see if I can find it. I gotta run.” Brian ended the call.

Junie heard a train in the background.
A frickin’ train?
Junie could think of only one place that Brian could be, but why would he drive halfway to her parents’ house at this time of night? She pulled out her cell phone and called Clara, who agreed to stay with Sarah for an extra hour and a half; then she lead-footed it to the highway.

Junie pulled off the exit when she passed the train station, thinking of Sarah’s high-pitched voice calling out
choo-choo!
each time they passed the station and how much the missing
choo-choo!
alert had saddened her when they’d driven by the other day.  She had no idea what she was doing, or why she felt compelled to chase down her husband, but Katie’s words echoed in her head. She pulled down the darkened street to the illuminated station, feeling like a derelict. What the hell did she expect to find? She had no clue. Some tawdry meeting with a thug? Another woman? Junie suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

She took one quick spin through the parking lot, then headed back toward home, admonishing herself for acting like the star of a reality show.
Who does this?

She waited for the light before the ramp to change, wishing she had a cup of coffee. She spotted a Dunkin’ Donuts up ahead and decided to whip into the drive-through. She waited behind a blue Jetta full of teenagers, listening to them hoot and holler at one another. She debated parking and ordering inside. She glanced through the front window, and her heart skipped a beat. Brian sat across from Peter, his face red, pinched. His jaw was set in a hard line.

Shit
. Junie pulled out of the line and into a dark corner of the parking lot, watching them through the glass.

Peter leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his hands outstretched and flailing, as if he were describing something. He brought them together beneath his chin and closed his mouth, watching Brian.

Brian stared down at the table. He ran his hand through his hair, then turned away.

Junie slumped down in the car. What the hell was going on? How long had he been lying to Junie about his father? Was the whole thing a put-on? Were they pretending to be cold toward each other? At least he wasn’t with another women, she reasoned.

Junie had had enough crap for one day. She dialed Brian’s number and watched as he withdrew his cell phone, looked at the display, then pushed a button. She was instantly sent to voice mail.

There had to be a good reason for this. He’d said he was meeting a client, and the other day he’d said that he and his father were working on a case together, but she didn’t see any files. Maybe she’d confront them while they both sat together. Now.

She couldn’t move. She jumped when her phone rang.
Clara
.

“Hi, Junie. I’m sorry to bother you.”

Junie could hear Sarah screaming, out of control, in the background.

“What happened? What’s wrong?”
Oh God, please let her be okay
.

She listened as Clara described her daughter moving from one houseplant to the next, spoon in hand, digging in the pots. She’d asked Sarah what she was looking for, but Sarah hadn’t answered, and she’d finally taken each plant and put it out of reach on top of the refrigerator. Sarah now stood before the refrigerator, screaming.

Junie started the car and took one last glance into the Dunkin’ Donuts. They were gone. She scanned the empty parking lot.
Shit
.

Clara left only minutes before Brian came in the front door.

“Junie?” he called.

Junie lay listening to Brian look for her, her arm wrapped protectively around her sleeping daughter. Clara had let Sarah cry herself to sleep, something that Junie had never been good at, but at that moment she was supremely thankful for it. Sarah’s curtains were closed, and by the time Brian found his way upstairs, Junie had decided to take the easy way out and avoid a confrontation. She pretended she was sleeping. No Deep Creek, no confrontations.

With her eyes closed, she listened to him breathing heavily in the doorway.

“Junie,” he whispered.

She lay still.

“Damn it.”

She listened to him walk away. 

So much for her plan. Now what? She’d sleep with Sarah. That much was decided. She snuggled in to her daughter’s side, feeling torn. What had Sarah been doing, digging in the plants? Why was she so upset over not being able to reach them? Why was she enthralled with Kayla’s earring, and what the hell was Brian doing with Peter in the middle of the night? Junie thought her head would spin all night long, but when she rolled over on her back, it took only a few minutes for her to fall into a deep sleep.

The house phone rang. Junie looked over at Sarah, sleeping peacefully beside her, and was thankful that they’d decided not to hook up a landline in the bedroom. She climbed over Sarah’s sleeping body and made her way downstairs to the kitchen.

“Hello?” she said sleepily. The clock above the stove read 6:00 a.m.

“Junie, hi. It’s Peter.”

“Peter?  Hi, how are you?”

“I’m good. Listen, I need to talk to you. Is there some time later today we can meet?”

The urgency in his voice woke Junie up. “Is everything okay?”

“Come on, Junie. It’s time to go. We need to get on the road.” Brian stood behind Junie, his arms crossed.

Junie looked at the telephone, then back up at Brian, deciding if she should tell him that Peter was on the phone. Or maybe he already knew?

“Junie?” Peter’s voice pleaded. “Later today?”

“Um.” Junie looked at Brian. “Maybe we should skip Deep Creek. Sarah had an awful night last night, and I’d still really like to get her in to see Theresa.”

“It can wait a day or two.” Brian crossed his arms.

“Junie, your bakery?” Peter asked.

Everything inside Junie screamed to get out of the house and leave father and son to battle out whatever was going on, but Junie was frozen. She couldn’t answer Peter, and she couldn’t look away from Brian’s stare. Her stomach ached. What could possibly be going on between them?

“We’ll go today and be back Sunday night,” Brian said.

Junie answered Brian. “Okay.”

“Good, I’m on my way,” Peter said.

Shit
.

Sarah stood before the refrigerator, staring up at the plants.

“Sarah, honey, let’s go outside for a bit.” Brian had taken the car to get gas—or so he said—leaving Junie with a little thinking space. If she met Peter, she had about an hour before she’d have to leave. She’d just tell Brian she’d had to run into the bakery to tie up a few loose ends. First, though, she had to help her daughter pull out of whatever was spiraling her into regressing, or rather, she had to find out what was circling in her daughter’s mind, and the only way to do that was to try and get Sarah to talk about it.

They walked across the grass toward the rock garden that lined the fence, stepping over roots from the giant oak tree Sarah had named Weird Harold the summer before.

“Careful of Harold,” Junie said. “What do you want to do here? Want to see if there are salamanders or ants under the rocks?” Finding bugs was just one of the activities that Sarah used to enjoy with her grandfather. Junie crouched beside Sarah, missing her father with an ache so big it felt like a rain cloud hovering above her.

She watched Sarah touch the rocks, then pick up a stick and dig in the mud.

“Sarah, honey, why are you digging so much?”

Sarah flicked dirt up into the air with the tip of her stick.

“Are you looking for something?”

Sarah didn’t answer. Junie let it go and decided that maybe letting Sarah play out her frustrations would pay off in the long run. She picked up a stick and began digging. Sarah stopped digging and looked at her mother.

Junie pretended to use all her strength to dig, moving from side to side, pushing down on the stick she held within her fist.

Sarah mimicked her movements. She’d mimicked her movements before, so Junie didn’t see her daughter’s aping her movements as a golden ticket, but mimicking was a form a communication, and that was a start.

Junie tried to get Sarah to speak to her. She asked her what she was digging for, if she liked the flowers, which rock was her favorite, and several other open-ended questions.

Thirty silent minutes later, Junie stood, wiped off her hands, and surveyed the holes that ran down their yard. It looked like a bad scene from
Gophers Gone Wild. 

Junie’s cell phone rang.
Katie.
Junie answered the phone, walking away from where Sarah was digging.

“Junes, I’m really sorry about snapping at you. I don’t know what got into me. We’re friends, right?”

The hope in Katie’s voice got on Junie’s last nerve. She pressed her hand to her temple, took a deep breath, and decided to confront her head on. “Katie, I have no idea what you were talking about. I can’t remember a damn thing, and I can’t get any straight answers. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Katie remained silent.

“Ugh! I’m sorry, okay. I’m a bit frazzled right now.” She looked at her torn up yard. “My daughter is going through a rough time, and this whole thing with Ellen has me distracted.”

Katie cleared her throat. The tremble in her voice made Junie believe she was holding back tears. “I’m sorry about your daughter. I didn’t know.”

“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault. It just is.”

Sarah picked up a giant rock and held it above her head. “Sarah, put that down,” Junie said instinctively. The rock magnified before her
…Squirt! Get outta here!
Brian’s voice echoed in her head. She leaned against a tree. The rock flashed again and again over his head, a bad rerun. Ellen’s shriek raced through her ears. Junie froze.

“Junie, are you okay?”

She dropped the phone and crumbled to her knees. Katie’s voice seemed very far away.

Junie stretched her fingers, reaching for the phone as if in a haze. She lifted it to her ear as Katie rambled on.

“Junie? I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that this pact is killing me. It’s been years.”

Junie’s eyes drifted to the garden. Suddenly she saw herself as a little girl, her hair blowing in the wind, drizzle hitting her cheeks, thunder roaring above. She was freezing, lonely, sad about Ellen being gone. It was pitch dark outside. Her bare feet sank into the wet ground. She stood at the back of the Olsons’ garden, shivering in a thin nightgown that hung to her ankles. Hidden behind a large tree, she stared up at Ellen’s window. Ellen had to come back; she just had to.

Peter’s sobs drew her attention. He knelt at the edge of the rose garden, his shoulders hunched, his knees sunk deep into the wet earth. “I’m so sorry,” he cried.

Junie’s chest constricted.

A gust of wind came across the hill, blowing rose petals across the yard. Several blew by her face, floating slowly down and landing near Junie’s feet. One lone petal clung to her thin nightgown.

The phone slipped from her hands as the world turned black. Junie faded in and out of consciousness. Strong hands lifted her under the arms, guiding her toward the house. Her mind drifted back in time. The smell of the creek surrounded her. She needed to find Ellen.