Rowan
Being a wallflower makes you thirsty, so parched for attention your heart feels brittle. Then after years—or in my case a lifetime—someone finally sees you. The exquisite feeling seeps deep, the attention saturating your life. So, you jump, headfirst. The red flags go unnoticed. Declarations of love tossed as lightly as petals. Maybe you marry him, like I did. Maybe you bloom in domestic bliss with a house in the suburbs and two adorable kids. Maybe a dog. Bare minimum a pet turtle.
I wasn’t so lucky.
After two years of marriage, instead of house hunting in the outskirts of DC, I was riding shotgun in my sister’s 1990 Cadillac hearse, headed back to Peace Falls, VA, with everything I owned stuffed where a coffin ought to be.
I’d cried so much in the past three hours, I could barely make out the foothills rising in the distance. My throat was raw. Crumpled tissues littered the floorboard, and lint covered my leggings.
“I’ll vacuum in here later,” I croaked.
Poppy shot me a worried glance and returned her attention to the road. She blew out a breath that ruffled her short black bangs.
For two sisters who looked so much alike, we couldn’t appear more different. We have the same bright copper hair as our mother, but Poppy hadn’t worn hers naturally since middle school, when she bought a box of dye at Mr. Wilson’s pharmacy and applied it while our mother was at work. Mom lost it until she realized what a great job she’d done. I suspect my sister made a deal since Poppy’s hair has been every color but red ever since, and Mom’s grays vanished overnight.
Poppy settled on black a year ago, which matched her entire wardrobe. The color, coupled with the heavy winged liner she wore faithfully, made her green eyes pop in a way I could never make my own.
“Don’t forget your drink,” she said.
Had she spoken since we got in the hearse? I honestly couldn’t remember, but judging by how tense her shoulders were, and the box of tissues I’d burned through, I’m guessing we hadn’t talked much.
The tears surprised me. Apart from a couple of late-night phone calls to my mother after I left the hospital, I’d held it together pretty well. I was too busy tying up the loose ends of my life in DC to feel anything but stressed. The moment Poppy arrived to drive me home, the tears started and built with every box, bag, and lamp we slid into the hearse.
Poppy had stopped in Manassas to pee and fill up her gas guzzler, but I stayed in the passenger seat and cried. I hadn’t touched the fountain Pibb Xtra she’d bought me, which was basically a sin. The 32oz-er had sweated in the cup holder for nearly two hours. I finally picked it up and took a long pull from the straw, letting the slightly flat, watered-down goodness soothe my throat. I drank nearly half before I put it back. I guess crying dehydrates you.
My stomach gave a loud gurgle. Understandable, since I’d been too upset to eat much over the past week and hadn’t attempted anything this morning. I tried to remember the last full meal I’d eaten and couldn’t. Normally, I baked when I felt stressed. Instead, I’d used the tension to speed me through my task list like I was one of those wind-up cars. Hopefully, I’d taken better care of my plants than myself.
I twisted to check how my orchid was faring, and pain shot up my spine. I shifted, but the twinge deepened into a throbbing ache. Now that I wasn’t crying or dying of thirst, the pain in my back resurfaced. The doctor had warned me to take frequent breaks to stretch, and instead I’d gone most of the trip without leaving my seat.
“Can you pull over at the scenic overlook? I need some air.”
Poppy swerved into the right lane, cutting off an 18-wheeler. “Don’t puke in Tallulah.”
Air brakes sputtered in our wake, but the truck driver didn’t honk. A perk of driving a hearse, perhaps, but no amount of courtesy would have prevented us from getting flattened if the semi had been going downhill instead of up.
“What’s wrong with you? I just need to stretch.”
As the scenic overlook approached, Poppy flicked on the turn signal, giving the semi enough warning this time before she slowed. She drove past a few out-of-state cars to the edge of the small parking lot and shut off the engine.
“Sorry,” she said, patting the dashboard. “You took down all that Pibb and then your stomach made those weird noises. I’m a little protective of Tallulah.”
I glared and opened the passenger door. My back screamed as I pulled myself from the hearse and straightened. I took one painful step after another until I reached the stone wall that protected visitors from the steep drop to the valley below. I shuffled along, letting the wall hold my weight until I reached the center.
I turned to face the view and my breath caught. I’d have wanted to stop at the overlook even if my back wasn’t hurting. Poppy had only lived in Peace Falls. She wouldn’t understand how it felt to watch the mountains surrounding our small town disappear in the rearview mirror, to search for that feeling of shelter among tall buildings and find only a claustrophobic ache for open space.
The mountains spread before me in waves, the dips and rises worn smooth with time. Summer was my favorite season in the Blue Ridge Valley. Many people preferred the fall colors or spring blooms, but seeing everything so lush and green brought back countless memories of hiking with my dad. He’d play hooky from work a few times during our summer breaks from school, so we could enjoy the trails with fewer tourists. Our mountains were another hour down the road, but the chain began here. Waterfalls like the one that gave our town its name trickled and poured from underground springs within the mountains, visible only to those willing to weave on foot through the trails to reach them.
Whenever I came home, I always stopped at this overlook to admire the earthen giants that welcomed me back with the same pull of longing as when I left. But this time was different. I wasn’t returning to visit. I no longer knew when I’d leave the mountains again. At the ripe old age of twenty-six, I was unemployed, separated, and in more pain than I’d ever felt in my life. Everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish had been obliterated in two minutes, leaving me broken in every way a person can be. When I left Peace Falls, I was determined to make something of myself. To become someone people respected, or, at the very least, mentioned on occasion without a sigh and a “bless her heart.” I’d failed.
“You’re still wearing your rings,” Poppy said, propping herself against the wall beside me, facing the parking lot instead of the view. She crossed one combat boot over the other and examined her broken fingernails. “You’re not planning to take him back? Are you?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. I twisted the overpriced rings and sighed. It wasn’t Poppy’s fault my heart and body ached, and she’d earned serious sister points today, minus the near-death experience. “I was afraid I’d lose them if I packed them.”
“You should take them off before we get to Peace Falls. Mom will notice.”
“Mom will understand. She wore hers until Chris went to kindergarten.”
“That’s why she’ll notice. And worry. Besides, you can’t compare your situation to Mom’s.”
I wiggled the large diamond and matching band from my left hand and handed them to Poppy, who unclipped one of the chains around her neck and slid on the rings. “Good. I’d hate for you to move back in with all that dog poop.”
I chuckled, despite how awful I felt. “Dog poop is a tamer nickname than I expected from you.”
“Brad’s a dick. I’m talking about the real dog poop.”
My stomach sank. “What dog poop?”
Poppy smiled, a rare and terrifying thing in the best circumstances. “While you were saying goodbye to your super, I might have left a few parting gifts around the apartment.”
I rubbed my forehead, which suddenly hurt more than my back. “Where?”
“No way. I’m not telling. You’ll text dickhead a warning or call your super to clean it up. Plus, I can’t remember where I put it all. Two pounds is a lot of crap to locate. I weighed it. A pound for every year you were married.”
As usual, Poppy’s prank was oddly poetic and over the top. “Where did you get that much poop?”
“Chris.”
“Mom finally let him get a dog?”
“Nah, he walks the neighbor’s. He started collecting right after the accident. It was all his idea.” Poppy smiled again, a softer smile that gave a peek at the sweet person she was under all the makeup, black clothes, and heavy boots.
I get it. I do. Poppy, Chris, and I stick up for each other. We always have. My baby brother might be ten years younger than me, but that hadn’t stopped him from covering Avery Peterson’s convertible with tampons soaked in Hawaiian Punch after she “accidentally” spilled a carton of milk on my head senior year and told everyone I should thank her for making my hair less glaring. Poppy took the fall, of course, and high-fived Chris when she got home from yet another detention.
“Remember what happened after the tampon incident?”
Poppy’s eyes widened. “Shit. You think we made things worse for you?”
“Probably.” I rested my head on her shoulder. “But thank you.” My back gave another twinge, and I stiffened.
Poppy sighed and wrapped her arm around my waist. “What can we do to make your back feel better? Some yoga? A couple shots of Jameson?”
I lifted my head and narrowed my eyes at her. “Please tell me you don’t have an open container of liquor in your vehicle?”
Poppy stepped back and held up her hands. “Hey, I didn’t know what kind of mood you’d be in. I wanted to be prepared. Plus, I’m twenty-three. I don’t think there’s an issue, not that I’d be drinking it. The law is a little gray. I just figured it was good to have on hand, in case you needed it. Honestly, I didn’t know what you’d need. Lauren wasn’t helpful. She said to ‘listen with love’ and suggested I grab some pastries, which I totally planned to do, but then I overslept after working on a piece too late. I didn’t want you there one minute longer than you had to be, so I grabbed the whiskey and dog poop and left. Times like these, I wish Tallulah had a second passenger seat. Lauren wouldn’t have forgotten the pastries or assumed you were going to hurl and almost kill us, but another set of seats would defeat the whole purpose of driving a hearse.”
The corners of my lips twitched with a smile. “If we get pulled over, I’ll say I’m mourning my husband.”
Poppy stood taller. “Dickface isn’t worth mourning, Rowan. But the Jameson’s in the glove box. I even packed Dixie cups, so you could measure, or drink like a lady, or not smash your teeth on the bottle if we hit a bump.”
I placed a hand on her shoulder and shook my head. “I’m not showing up at Mom’s reeking of whiskey before dinner. Like you said, she’s worried enough. Let me walk the length of the overlook a couple times to loosen up, and I’ll be fine.”
“You are, Rowan,” she said, firmly, “better, without him.”
My eyes burned at her confidence and lack of pity. It was the reason I’d asked Poppy, and only Poppy, to help me move. Mom would have cried right along with me, just like she had on every phone call since I left the hospital. Chris would have gotten upset the way only a sixteen-year-old boy can and done something stupider than collecting dog poop to rain on my ex. My best friend Lauren would have tried to console me with positive affirmations and 100% would have waved a burning sage stick over everything I owned before we left DC. It’s the reason I begged them all not to come a week ago when everything happened. I couldn’t handle their pity or their sadness. I knew Poppy would take whatever she was feeling about the situation and pour it into her art, but even she looked near her breaking point. I haven’t seen her this agitated since our dad’s funeral when she realized she’d outgrown her black ballet flats and refused to wear a pair of my hand-me-downs with gold sequins. Even then, she didn’t cry or rage. Instead, she rambled about proper funeral etiquette with a specificity no nine-year-old should know and ended up staying at the house with a neighbor to set up the repast, missing the service. I swiped at my eyes and took a steadying breath. “I hope you got his brown Ferragamo loafers. He loves those.”
Poppy smirked. “I cannot confirm or deny.”
I linked my arm in hers, and we set off across the parking lot toward the hearse and the next chapter of my life.
