Where Petals Fall Read online

  Sarah watched intently, angry eyes shifting from where Junie stood to Peter’s house in the distance behind her.

  Junie turned around, expecting to see Peter—he wasn’t there. She walked toward Sarah. Sarah clasped the handle tighter. Junie walked past her to the side yard, where Sarah could focus on only her.

  Eventually Sarah slunk toward her, spreading her fingers out in front of her. Junie tossed the ball. Sarah caught it against her stomach, then threw it back. “Nice throw!” Junie tossed the ball back again, higher than she’d meant to. She inhaled deeply, soaking up the fresh smell of the damp earth.

  Sarah reached high above her head to catch the green plastic ball. Her ring caught the sun, flashing a brief burst of white toward the sky. In that instant, it was the face of Junie’s childhood friend Ellen that Junie saw, not Sarah. Ellen’s hands reached up toward the sky, her silver ring catching the sun—only Ellen wasn’t smiling, like Sarah was. Ellen’s lips were contorted into a wide O, tears of terror streaming down her cheeks. At that moment, twenty-four years after Ellen’s disappearance, Ellen’s screams echoed in Junie’s head, screams Junie could not remember ever hearing when Ellen was alive.

  Sarah tugged at Junie’s arm.

  Junie was paralyzed; sharp pangs surged through her limbs, as if she’d stepped on shards of glass from a shattered vase that appeared years after the vase had been dropped. Her whole body tingled with anxiety. Why was she suddenly seeing Ellen, and why had Ellen looked so terrified? Even worse, why had Ellen’s image replaced her own daughter’s? Junie’s heart thumped against her rib cage. She fought to catch her breath without alerting Sarah to her trouble. The image left her with a sinking, hollow feeling and a gentle tug at the back of her confused mind.

  Sarah stood before her, blond curls blowing in the gentle breeze.

  A chill ran down Junie’s back. What was happening to her? She took a few deep breaths, then crouched, putting her hands on Sarah’s bony shoulders and stared into eyes so blue they rivaled the sky. Junie looked for a hint of Ellen, something that might have spurred the image, but she came away with nothing to root the mistake into reality. Ellen had dark hair and olive skin, while Sarah was fair. Ellen had been as thick as Sarah was slight. I must be overtired, Junie thought. Ever since Brian had taken on his latest court case, he’d been working late into the evenings, and Junie had waited up for him each night, sometimes into the early hours of the morning. Even with the way their relationship had become fractured and strained, Junie still felt the need to wait up. More than that, she still had the desire to wait up, to have those few moments of adult time with Brian, even if they were now filled with tension. Not anymore, she thought. Tonight she’d go to sleep when Sarah did.

  Sarah stood with the ball in her hands, staring at the ground, her eyes sad once again.

  “Sorry, sugar,” Junie managed, brushing Sarah’s bangs off of her forehead. “Senior moment.” She took Sarah’s hand and they walked toward the kitchen door.

  Sarah crinkled her nose, a facial expression Junie had come to interpret to mean that she didn’t understand something.

  “It just means Mama needs some water.”

  Junie thought back to the afternoon Ellen had disappeared. Junie was eating a chocolate ice cream cone, sitting on a two-foot-tall brick wall that surrounded a garden of purple and white pansies and the greenest ivy she’d ever seen. In the center of the garden was a beautiful maple tree, a tree that her father used to say had grown from sugar seeds. Junie remembered the day because it was a Tuesday, and her father came home from work early every Tuesday—or as her father called it, Treatday. Their ritual was to “sneak” out for ice cream each week, just the two of them.

  She remembered that particular day because her father was late, and after waiting for what seemed like forever on the front porch, her mother told her to get in the car, and she took Junie for her ice cream. Her mother had been short-tempered, Junie remembered, because that was as rare of an occurrence as her father not showing up to take her out. It was the only Tuesday afternoon he’d ever missed. Junie was just seven years old, and up until that afternoon, the worst day she’d ever experienced had consisted of being punished for using permanent marker on their kitchen table—she hadn’t known the ink would bleed through the paper. She remembered the day Ellen disappeared because she and Ellen had had a skipping race to school that morning. Ellen had won, and Junie said, “I’ll beat you tomorrow.” The next day came, and Ellen was gone.

  Policemen had come to their door and asked her a lot of questions about Ellen’s friends at school and if she knew about any adults or children that might not like Ellen. Junie didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Ellen. They asked her if she knew why Ellen would want to run away, and Junie remembered thinking, She didn’t want to run away.

  Junie didn’t go to school on Wednesday. Her mother kept her home. She kept Junie close, so close that Junie felt smothered. She couldn’t go to the bathroom without her mother jumping up to follow her.

  Later that afternoon, her mother explained to her that the police thought someone had taken Ellen and that they didn’t know when, or if, she would return. She said that Junie would be told when Ellen came back, and until then, it wouldn’t be a good idea to visit Ellen’s house. The next morning, Junie’s new routine was born. Her mother took her to school and picked her up after school. Junie spent much of her time indoors, staring out the window at Ellen’s house, waiting for her to magically appear.

  She had watched as Peter meticulously planted more roses in their already overflowing garden. Roses were Ellen’s favorite flower. When she was younger, Junie liked roses. She likened them to the fun she and Ellen had enjoyed around the gardens. That changed after Ellen’s disappearance. Junie abhorred them. She watched Brian skulk around the yard, punching himself in the leg, grabbing the sides of his head like an injured animal that couldn’t pull away from the fractured limb. Six months later she watched Susan Olson carry suitcases out to her car. She never came back. Eventually they all fell into the pattern of their new lives—lives without Ellen.

  Junie pulled her mind back to the present as they climbed the back porch steps. It seemed she was tucking away a lot of emotions lately, and she wondered if an ache could hurt so badly that it could make one’s own mind play tricks on them.

  Chapter Five

  The house was quiet. Junie filled a glass of water for Sarah and one for herself. Sarah waited for Junie to pick up her glass and drink before she moved to do the same. Sarah waited to set her glass down until her mother had done so first. Sarah’s idiosyncrasies had appeared slowly over time, until one day they defined who she was. Junie had come to expect these aping actions, while Brian had fought them. Brian. Junie withdrew her cell phone from her pocket and dialed his number.

  “Junie, I’m heading into a meeting. I’ll call you later. Is everything okay?”

  Junie bit her lip, then sighed. She fought to keep her voice calm. “Yeah, I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Can it wait, just till this afternoon?”

  Sure. I’ll just freak out all day over seeing my dead friend—your dead sister. “Yeah, sure. Will you still make it tonight?”

  “Yes, of course. Leaving right after this. Call you later.”

  For a brief moment, Junie pictured a beautiful stranger waiting for him, beckoning him. Her hand dropped to her slightly thickened waist, where over the last five months, five unwanted pounds had settled. She furrowed her brow, wondering where such a ludicrous thought came from.

  Junie found Ruth sitting on the chair in the living room that Junie’s father had deemed “Mom’s reading chair.” Junie remembered finding her mother in that chair, paperback in hand, each day when she’d arrived home after school, and she’d end the night on the same cozy perch. The dark blue velour was worn and frayed, but Ruth would have no part of replacing the material. Next to her sat her father’s empty recliner.

  “Can I get you something, Mom?” J
unie asked, bypassing her father’s chair and lowering herself onto the couch. Her insides quivered. She had to talk to someone about Ellen, and it obviously wasn’t going to be Brian.

  Ruth lifted her hazel eyes toward her daughter, and there was no mistaking the emotion behind them—lost, as if her father’s death had left her mother in a foreign state with no map to find her way. Ruth was strong, capable, someone who took troubled times and whipped them into learning experiences. Junie was not adept at how to handle this side of her mother, which she’d never experienced before. She tucked away her need to talk about Ellen and tried to figure out how to help her mother.

  “Mary Margaret and Selma are coming over in a bit. I’m all right. How’s Sarah?” Ruth asked.

  “Fine. Watching television.” Junie looked down, silently scolding herself for not intuitively knowing what to say to help her mother. It was moments like these that made Junie wonder if what Sarah was experiencing was somehow caused by her lack of mothering skills. She’d always felt like she lacked a certain strength that seemed to be present in all mothers, something that allowed them to keep their chin up even in difficult times. Lately Junie had felt her chin leaning on her chest as she floundered to keep afloat. There was only one thing she could do, and that was to ask for help about how to help. I am so lame.

  “Mom, what can I do? How can I help? I mean…I know that nothing I say will bring Daddy back and nothing I do will make it okay, but I want to help.” A lump grew in her throat. She swallowed it down, hoping the tears it incited would remain at bay.

  Ruth sat up straighter, placing her hands on the arms of her chair. She looked at Junie for a minute longer than was comfortable.

  “Junie”—she placed her hand over Junie’s—“we’ll get through this.” She took a deep breath, then continued. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same, but we will get through this. Right now I feel like my left arm was cut off and my right one doesn’t work quite right, but Mary Margaret assures me that each day will get a little easier.”

  Junie wiped a warm tear from her cheek.

  “It’s been seventeen years since she lost Hal, and she’s doing okay, right?”

  Junie nodded, not knowing the answer. Seventeen years. She couldn’t think that far down the road. She was just trying to get her arms around a few days without her father. Junie was still dealing with his death as if he were on a mini vacation and would return home at any minute.

  “Now.” Ruth patted Junie’s hand. “We need to focus on that little girl of yours and get her back to her healthy, normal little self.”

  Junie wanted to ask her mother how the hell she could go from a place of devastation to a place of wanting to help her granddaughter get better within the space of a breath. She wanted to ask her why she was seeing Ellen’s face and wanted to crawl into her lap and curl up so the issues with Brian and Sarah didn’t seem so overwhelming. She wanted to be completely and utterly selfish, kick her feet and throw herself down on the couch crying because she knew she’d never see her father’s face again; she’d never hear him spout out bits of unsought advice that were always just what she needed to hear. Instead, she whispered, “Okay.”

  Chapter Six

  They stood in the bathroom, just two feet from each other, and yet Junie felt miles apart from Brian. The bathroom seemed to be the place they spent most of their time together lately, stolen moments to catch up on their daily plans. Who knew a marriage could be maintained in ten-minute intervals of personal hygiene and sharing of one’s day? Maintained? Junie wondered. She wasn’t sure she was capable of maintaining anything at the moment. Junie watched Brian digest what she’d told him. The image of Ellen had been like a noose, tightening as the day progressed. She needed to tell someone about seeing her, and she couldn’t burden her mother with the weight of it. She’d been short-tempered with Sarah, and she wasn’t anywhere near the strong shoulder her mother needed. Junie hoped that by talking about what she’d seen, she could dismiss it and deal with her father’s death, which she had been pushing aside—another too painful reality boring into her. Brian had barely made it through the door and upstairs at ten after midnight before Junie had unloaded on him.

  Brian’s jaw hung open, fatigue drawing his eyelids down. “Really, Junie? After I worked all day and drove two hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic, you bring up Ellen?” He looked away, disgusted. “You know it’s hard for me to be here. Are you trying to make it worse?”

  “No, but it was really scary.” Junie put the toothpaste cap back on the tube. “Who am I supposed to tell? Mom?”

  Brian didn’t answer.

  “Why would I suddenly see Ellen? I can’t ever remember seeing Ellen that scared over anything.” She pulled her shoulder-length blond hair back into a ponytail, secured it with an elastic band, and brushed her teeth.

  “Things don’t just appear out of nowhere. Were you dreaming?”

  “No. I was fully awake.”

  “So you were upset?”

  “No. Maybe,” Junie answered.

  “Overtired?” Brian pushed.

  “Maybe.” Junie shrugged, wishing he’d stop throwing questions at her.

  “Junie, there’re a million reasons for this. There’s no evidence—”

  “Evidence? Stop cross-examining me. I need to have a conversation with you, not be interrogated by you.” There had been a time when Brian’s clear-cut route to problem solving had been reassuring; now it had become a defense mechanism for him and hurtful for her.

  Brian loosened his tie and sat on the edge of the bathtub. He pulled off his black leather loafers. “Being back here, it brings it all up again.” He stood up and removed his trousers and shirt. “The whole thing just has you tied in knots.”

  “But that’s just it. I’ve been back here a million times. Never once in all these years have I ever had something like that happen.” She washed out her toothbrush, tied her robe, and tried to ignore her husband’s muscular arms and chest. She dropped her eyes, settling on his carefully placed shoes on the floor. She let out a sigh. Would she ever feel at par with her gorgeous husband? She doubted it. If she didn’t now, she never would.

  Brian wrapped his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. Her insecurity instantly diminished. “With all that’s going on, it’s a wonder you have any sanity left. I mean, she was my sister, and being here…Well, you know how I feel about being back here.” He pulled her close, then disengaged and walked into the bedroom.

  Junie followed. She turned off the bedroom light and climbed into bed next to him, feeling the warmth of his leg against hers. Her instinct was to pull away from him, annoyed by their exchange, his dismissal of her, but she clung to the hope that they would one day emerge victorious from this miserable place in their relationship. “I know. I didn’t mean to minimize what you must be going through.” She laid her head on his shoulder.

  Brian turned away. “I’m not going through anything. Just tired, that’s all. This case is busting my balls.”

  Junie rolled her eyes. The teenage lacrosse lingo had never left him. He could dress up in a suit, play Mr. Attorney with the best of them, but at the end of the day, he was still just a guy. “Sarah will be glad to see you in the morning.”

  Brian didn’t answer.

  “She missed you today.”

  “Really? Did she say that?” he asked in a terse tone.

  Junie closed her eyes against her mounting frustration. Sarah’s inability to verbalize her feelings had become a barrier between them. She missed the days when they each said exactly what they felt with no thought or worry of how it might be interpreted. How far down would their marriage spiral with Sarah’s regression? “No, but I know.”

  “Mm-hm. Did you fill out that questionnaire yet?” he asked.

  The damned questionnaire. It had been only a few weeks since the doctors had said they thought Sarah had deep-rooted emotional issues. Junie was sure there was a medical explanation and that Sarah’s issues were more than simply
emotional—but she was scared shitless to fill out the forms, just in case. The psychiatrist had given Junie a seven-page questionnaire, which she’d shoved into her glove compartment and ignored ever since. If the psychiatrist wasn’t putting much stock into it, why was Brian? Junie knew why. He was a lawyer, and lawyers liked strong cases. Documents led to cases. Sarah was not a case.

  Brian turned to face her. “Junie, fill out the damned thing. Let’s figure this shit out.”

  “This shit is your daughter, and she’s not emotionally disturbed. She has a great life. Something has changed, and it’s real, Brian.” Same conversation, different night. Junie would never get to sleep now. Why didn’t Brian just support her? Why couldn’t they find another group of doctors instead of just another therapist?

  “She’s got issues,” Brian said, pointing to his head.

  Junie got out of bed, grabbed her robe, and walked out of the bedroom.

  Chapter Seven

  It was one o’clock in the morning, and the house was silent. Junie padded down the stairs and into the kitchen. She flicked on the light, squinting as her eyes adjusted. The roses were gone. Junie looked around the kitchen and living room, then silently thanked her mother for moving them. Junie placed the teakettle on the stove and lit the flame. She took the last tea bag from the box above the sink and pressed the metal lever on the trash can to throw away the empty container. The roses lay in the trash like forgotten children, beautiful and wrong among the coffee grinds and apple peels. Junie let the lid slam closed and lifted her gaze to the window. Peter’s back porch light was on, illuminating his backyard beyond the buffer of trees. Junie thought of Ellen and of the many nights playing flashlight tag and sitting on her back porch talking until one of their moms would call them inside. She wondered what her life might be like if Ellen hadn’t gone missing. Would they have remained friends all those years, or would they have grown apart, like Junie and the few other friends from her youth? She couldn’t name one childhood friend that she was still in contact with. Was that normal? Would she and Brian have ever gotten together if Ellen hadn’t disappeared? Might there have been stolen glances of flirtation between Brian, the coveted older brother, and Junie, the little sister’s best friend, as they’d gotten older? A secret midnight tryst with Brian when Junie was home on a college break, she and Ellen catching up over a few too many drinks—Ellen passed out and Brian suddenly appearing in the doorway?