Where Petals Fall (6 page)

Junie woke up at four thirty, too restless to fall back to sleep. She spent the night tossing and turning. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Ellen’s frightened face or heard her father’s voice. Her chest tightened, as if a thick blanket of doom were lying over her.  She closed her eyes against a wave of sadness and pushed herself from the bed. Brian slept beside her. Junie pulled on her sweatpants and headed for the kitchen, thinking of Ellen.

She pulled cake flour, sugar, and three pans from the cabinet above her mother’s refrigerator. She’d learned long ago to keep her mother’s shelves stocked with must-have baking items. She’d taken one too many midnight trips to Walmart to grab the necessary supplies to satisfy her sudden urge to bake. At least they carried Wilton products, which made it easier than hunting down supplies. She always packed a few not-so-readily available items, and the rest she kept on hand.

Junie measured the sugar and water, watching it rise to a boil, waiting for the dark amber color to appear. She heated up the whipping cream before removing the boiling sugar mixture from the stove. She never imagined that her father’s death would smell so sweet. In fact, she had never imagined her father’s death at all. She should be baking funeral cookies or something equally as demure, more appropriate for mourning.  She knew that Selma and Mary Margaret would see to Ruth’s house being filled with foods for the gathering after the funeral, but Junie
needed
to bake. She also knew that she could no sooner bake a dessert that didn’t match her father’s love of sweets than she could accept that he was gone and she’d never see him again. A dark chocolate caramel cake seemed the perfect Band-Aid for her pain.

Junie held the warm cream above the caramel, holding the measuring cup at arm’s length and turning her head before pouring it in. She cringed as she twisted her wrist, anticipating the hot splatter that would follow. Junie loved making caramel, but she feared the burn that she’d experienced the first time she’d disregarded the advice to turn her face. She reached up and touched the dip in her skin where the splatter had left its mark.

Next, she added the butter and stirred until it was well blended. Her nightmares fell away with each added ingredient. She tucked the bowl into the refrigerator, moving in smooth procession from one task to the next.

She greased the pans, focusing on the spread of the Crisco as the white disappeared into a clear film before her eyes, reminding her of how easily Ellen had disappeared. She wondered if Ellen had been there, would she be up in the middle of the night baking alongside Junie, comforting her? She’d like to think so. Junie boiled water, then poured it over unsweetened cocoa powder in a small bowl, whisking it until it formed smooth chocolate.

She thought of her father, hanging over her shoulder while she baked, waiting for his turn to taste her creation. A lump formed in her throat. She whisked harder, faster, as if she could whisk away her longing to see him one more time. She wiped a tear from her eye with her forearm and set the bowl down, mixing the other ingredients in a separate bowl and wishing she’d splurged on the stand mixer for her mother’s house.

Junie beat the butter and sugar, thinking of Brian and the way he’d pushed for an
emotionally unstable
diagnosis for Sarah. How could he do that? She cracked the eggs one at a time, plopping them into the mixture, added a splash of vanilla, and mixed until her arm ached.

Sarah hadn’t asked to be different. Why did everyone feel a need to magnify her issues with a quick diagnosis rather than a valid one? Junie lowered herself into a chair, the bowl in her lap. Flour and sugar decorated her sweats. She looked outside. The sun had yet to rise, but the dark of night was lifting. She closed her eyes against the image of Ellen’s face. She pushed herself up from the table, setting the bowl on the countertop. What was happening to her? Was this what happened when you lost someone you loved—problems grew so large that you could barely breathe? She had to pull herself together—get the confusion out of her system. How could she face her mother—and her father’s funeral—with all that stuff wallowing around in her head? She wished she had someone to talk to.
Damn it, Brian
. If only she were back home and it was a more reasonable time, then at least she could talk to Shane. She debated calling him now, then thought better of it. No need to upset him, too.

Junie eyed a bag of pecans on a shelf. She grabbed the bag, turning it over in her hands, then took a rolling pin from the drawer. She smoothed a clean baking cloth on the counter, spread a thin layer of pecans on the cloth, then pulled the cloth over the top. Junie leaned the weight of her frustrations onto the rolling pin, crushing the pecans with a satisfying
crunch
.

“Yeah, that feels good,” she whispered to herself. “You think I’m going nuts just because I see my missing friend? We’ll see about that,” she said to no one. She pushed and rolled the wooden pin until the pecans were broken into tiny bits.

The morning sun peeked through the window as Junie poured a thin layer of cake batter into the pan, then added a sprinkling of nuts, burying them under another thick layer of batter. She repeated the process with each of the three pans.

An hour and a half later, Junie used a leveling tool to remove the uneven pieces of the cake and layered a thick swathe of caramel across the top of two layers, then assembled the cake, sealing it with a thin layer of rum ganache. By the time she went upstairs, she’d sealed her burdensome thoughts deep inside the cake. 

Junie changed Sarah’s sheets without any emotion whatsoever. She was focused on the event that lay ahead: her father’s funeral. How could he be gone? This was it. They were going to bury her father, the man who taught her to ride a bike and secretly brought her hot chocolate. The man who, when Junie spoke of being afraid of sharks at the seashore, rattled off statistics and convinced Junie that she was more likely to get a bee sting than be bitten by a shark, and she still played in the grass, didn’t she?

Brian walked by the bedroom, glancing at Junie with a look that translated into,
Again?

Junie turned her back, unable to deal with his chastising of her mothering skills—not today.

Ruth moved through the house in silent procession.  Junie didn’t know what to say to ease the tension, so she said nothing. She bathed and fed Sarah and put on the black dress that she knew she would discard after the funeral. She couldn’t bear the thought of walking into her closet and seeing the dress, a daily reminder of her father’s passing.

When they finally made their way to the car, Sarah insisted on hanging on to her blanket, her thumb planted firmly in her mouth.

Brian reached for the blanket.

“Don’t,” Junie said from the passenger seat.

“Junie, she’s four years old. Come on. She doesn’t need it in public.”

“Just leave it. It’s a hard enough day. Mom doesn’t need there to be a tantrum, too.”

Brian turned away, grinding his teeth.

The cemetery was only a few miles from the house, but it seemed like a different world altogether. Ten acres of flat, even grass, row after row of headstones, reminders of how often people leave our world. Junie’s heart sank, realizing that nothing in life could prepare her for losing her father, just as she hadn’t been prepared to lose her best friend.

The parking lot was full of familiar cars. Selma and Phil’s blue Toyota Corolla was parked next to Mary Margaret’s Subaru Forester in the closest spots. They would have been the first people to arrive.

Junie stepped from the car, staring at the blue canopy with rows of chairs beneath it, the ominous hole in the earth below her father’s casket. She eyed the mound of dirt on the ground beside the hole. It seemed unfair, cruel, like a rush to the finish line.
Hurry up, because we have to get on with our lives.
Junie’s stomach turned. Couldn’t they bring in the dirt later, or cover it? She reached behind her for Sarah’s hand.  

Selma, Phil, and Mary Margaret were seated in the second row of chairs. They stood as Ruth and Sarah exited the car. Brian rushed to take Sarah’s hand.

“I’ve got her.” Brian reached for Sarah again.

Sarah pulled back, wrapping her tiny fingers around her mother’s skirt and casting her eyes downward.

Brian’s mouth formed a tight line. He bent down, looking Sarah in the eyes. “Come on, honey. Let’s give Mommy a break. Hold Daddy’s hand.”

Sarah hid behind her blanket.

“It’s okay,” Junie said, reaching for Sarah’s hand. She was glad Brian was stepping up to the plate, trying to do the right thing by giving her the chance to support her mother instead of taking care of Sarah. It pained her, knowing how much Sarah’s rejection hurt Brian. Why Sarah preferred her over anyone else, she had no idea.  Brian was a good father. He adored Sarah. She knew he did, even if that adoration was clouded by the effects of her regression. From the time Sarah was born, Brian had changed her diapers, sung to her, even read to her at all hours of the night when she couldn’t sleep. It was only during her regression that Sarah had fallen out of her father’s good graces. If only Junie could figure out what had sparked the change—what caused her happy daughter to reject those around her? Sarah’s rejection had ignited a negative reaction from Brian. He no longer doted on Sarah. He’d pulled away from their daughter, and Junie knew that it was caused by the way Sarah had pulled away from him. Maybe she would answer the questionnaire, if only to get some answers herself.

“Ruth.”

Junie turned at the sound of her father-in-law’s voice and watched Peter Olson embrace her mother.

He turned to her. “Junie, I’m so sorry.” He pulled Junie close.

Junie had known Peter all her life. Before Ellen had disappeared, their house had been like a second home to Junie; her parents had been a second family. Her memories of Peter included him arriving late in the evening, clad in a suit and carrying a thick briefcase, or holed up nightly in his office, which she could see from her bedroom window. She had vague memories of him talking about Brian’s life as if it were a given:
bright future, Ivy league, scholarship, lawyer.
It wasn’t until she was older that she became aware of the discrepancy in how Peter hovered over Brian and nearly ignored Ellen.

As a little girl, Junie couldn’t understand how Susan—Ellen’s mom—could have divorced Peter and left Brian and the East Coast altogether. She wondered if Susan was mad about how Peter treated Ellen, and she wondered how a mother could leave when her daughter was missing, like she was giving up hope for her daughter’s return. Susan had moved to Washington State to start a new life, and other than on Junie and Brian’s wedding day, Junie had never seen her mother-in-law again. Now, as an adult, she understood that the painful reminders must have been too much to bear. Junie drew her eyebrows together. Come to think of it, Junie found it weird that no one else had left the area—her parents, Peter, the other neighbors. Wouldn’t she have moved, if only to protect her own daughter from a lingering threat?

Brian shook his father’s hand. Junie bristled at the cold exchange, wondering where their love had gone. After losing a daughter and sister, you’d think they’d want to hold on to each other at all costs, but for all of their adult life, this odd dichotomy of a relationship had existed—they barely spoke, much less exchanged pleasantries or warmth. They saw each other two or three times each year, and one would think that they could muster a hug now and again. Brian had been the smart, athletic one with so much promise that it gleamed from his father’s eyes. The resemblance between Peter and Brian was remarkable—same dark hair and thick eyebrows, same narrow waist and broad shoulders. The coldness between them marred their good looks.

Junie sat before the grave site, her eyes swollen and red, a mound of crumpled tissues in one hand, her mother’s hand in the other. She stared at her father’s casket, remembering a much different memorial—Ellen’s. She pulled her sweater across her chest, locking out the chill of the brisk morning air. This morning was very similar to the morning of Ellen’s memorial so many years ago. Junie remembered the lines of cars, parents, and children as far as the eye could see, gathered to say goodbye to Ellen’s empty casket.

This wasn’t Ellen’s memorial, and Junie was no longer a seven-year-old. She was a grown woman, a mother herself, and she couldn’t make any more sense of the death of her father than of the disappearance of her young friend. She turned, recognizing faces of students who had been in her father’s fifth grade science class and other teachers. Deputy Lyle sat just behind Selma and Phil, their faces drawn, Selma’s eyes reddened with sad spidery veins. Mary Margaret sat beside them, in the row behind her mother, bent over, her shoulders quaking. Junie glanced over the attendees. Mrs. Walters, the librarian, dressed in a black polyester pantsuit, stood beside Dr. Rains, a therapist who lived in the neighborhood. Junie was ashamed to remember the childhood taunt,
Dr. Crazy Brains
. Many of the same faces that had been at Ellen’s service were there, faces that now boasted crow’s-feet instead of the smooth skin of youth.

Junie looked at Sarah kicking her feet, which hung from the chair. Her dark tights made her thin legs look even tinier. Junie wiped fresh tears from her eyes. She hated that Sarah would grow up without her grandfather. Would she even remember him? Would she remember his mini science lessons about how butterflies couldn’t fly if their body temperature was less than eighty-six degrees, or how hummingbirds eat every ten minutes? Junie barely remembered Ellen, and she was seven when Ellen had disappeared.
Seven
. Junie ached for all that Ellen missed out on in life and wondered what really happened to her. Adults died. That was accepted as part of life. But a child missing, assumed dead? She swallowed past the sadness that swelled within her. Ellen’s disappearance was unfair. Her father’s death was unfair, but at least he’d lived a full life.

Junie pictured her father in the casket, his arms crossed, his eyes closed. Ellen’s casket had been empty. The funeral had been a memorial service, in honor of Ellen.
Closure for her parents
, her mother had said. Junie remembered the fear of seeing that casket lowered into the ground. Junie squeezed her mother’s hand so tight that Ruth let out a gasp. Flashes of Ellen’s funeral came rushing back to her, appearing in her mind like a bad rerun. Ellen’s mother, kneeling by the casket, her arms draped over the small wooden box, sobs racking her body. Peter stood behind her, arms hanging loosely by his side, a lost look in his tear-filled eyes, and Brian, Junie’s Brian, sitting, as Sarah sat now, staring straight ahead, his teeth clenched.

She looked at her husband, his eyes trained on the casket, his jaw set tight. What was he thinking? Was he thinking about all of the things he loved about her father, or was he thinking, as Junie was, about Ellen? A flush rushed up Junie’s cheeks, and more memories flooded in.  Fourteen-year-old Brian, his hair perfectly combed, wearing a suit so new it had yet to wrinkle. She remembered the pain in her stomach as he pushed himself up from the chair, a disgusted look on his face. Junie saw the look he gave his father, a look of anger and disbelief. He stormed away from the grave site, stomping across the surrounding graves without care, as only a distraught child might do. She’d wondered if he was angry they’d given up on finding Ellen. She had been furious, wanting to plead with Mr. and Mrs. Olson not to give up. She could only imagine how angry Brian had been.
Oh, Brian
. Her heart ached for him. She hoped her father’s funeral wasn’t causing Brian to relive the same sad memories of the days that changed his family forever.