Her house was nowhere near completion. And even into late winter when things were cold, she realized how drafty it was. Her heating bill skyrocketed, and the house still remained in disrepair. The few paint jobs she did were patchy at best, and the new door handles she tried to put on fell off more times than she cared to count.
And then spring came again, and with it came that lovely local tulip festival she adored. She’d drive along her way to work in the city and gaze out her window to take in the seductive views of popping reds, yellows, oranges, blues. And they would all be like children nestled down in the grass’s blanket at the feet of a Dutch-inspired windmill, all with its red paint and charming white blades.
Spring melted into summer. The cicadas screamed their desperate song out into the setting sun, and the crickets and frogs were a symphony as she’d sit out on her rundown porch with her a cherry Coke. Evie watched the traffic drift on by far off when it came, and she’d race outside to marvel at any time the Hercules C-130s flew overhead.
But now it was time for flowers again.
She stopped at that side of the highway and walked back gradually to those wild gifts of mother nature. A mosquito tried to bite her, but she slapped the pest away hard, leaving a little blood splat on her arm. The flowers were plucked, snipped, bunched together, and she even spent a little time lifting the petals a bit more and smiled at them, tilting her head to the side. It was hot. It was a sauna outside. Her thighs rubbed together painfully as she limped back to her car. Her knees and back were bothering her, and so were her emotions.
An hour later, she gave those flowers to her beloved pawpaw by placing them on his chest.
A thunderstorm began its first percussive strike outside.
The murmur of people she hadn’t seen in months or even years swarmed her hearing like bugs, like mosquitoes that needed to beslapped away. They never came to see Pawpaw when he was laughing, working hard in his yard, needing help.
And now she had guilt.
Crushing guilt.
With fingers curling around the mahogany edges of the casket, Evie cursed herself. She left him. And apparently, he needed her still.
She felt a hand on her shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking, baby sis.”
She turned and looked at her oldest brother, a tall and dark-haired man with eyes as dark as his hair. He was the successful child. The one who married when he was younger, graduated with high honors, a brainiac, and a whiz with his finances. Her other older brother had gone on to become a successful DJ.
But Evie shook her head and held him hard, crying into his chest. “I’m so glad to see you again, Darren.”
He hugged her back with a squeeze so strong and tight it momentarily relieved her back pain. “I’m glad to see you, too. I heard you bought a house. Congratulations. You deserve it. You’ve worked so hard. Why don’t you come sit with us? Daniel cancelled a gig in Florida to come to the funeral and to see you. He’s missed you a lot.”
Later on, she watched in the rain while the casket was lowered into the grave. Those Midwest thunder skies were always so menacing that time of year. Dark and diabolic. Pawpaw George was laid to rest and given the twenty-one-gun salute, the taps, and a folded flag for Darren to take.
But he insisted that it be given to his baby sister.
“I want you to have it.”
“But why?”
“I think you know why. You took care of Pawpaw while I was busy with my business and my new family. I hardly got to see him at all these last three years.” He lowered his head shamefully. “Not to mention, Daniel wasn’t even here for almost six years.”
Being the loving sister she always tried to be, she held his hand. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. He was so proud of you and loved you regardless. You and Daniel both.”
That didn’t stop Evie from having a full-blown breakdown once shegot into her home. She stormed in and screamed, throwing her flats against the wall. Slamming the door closed, she hated everything all over again. She was truly alone now. Her brother lived over an hour away, and she had never truly learned how to be a proper adult due to the untimely deaths of her parents. Pawpaw George was all she had.
She cried herself to sleep.
Often, Evie took him flowers from his favorite spot and would eat muffins and talk with him by his grave, even into the cold and frosty autumn when she had to buy flowers at a store.
She was tired, so she dressed herself in dirty leggings, a baggy sweater, house boots, and with greasy hair and unwaxed brows she headed into town to the drugstore where she’d be able to buy medicine for a cold she felt was coming on, some comfort food, and flowers for Pawpaw.
At the store, she walked in and tried to bypass all of the obstacles one would find in an ill-kept but high-favored local drugstore. And way up at the top she saw the medicine she needed. It hadn’t been stocked yet and was still in its shipping box.
“Why the hell are you all the way up there?” she mused.
She stood on her toes, reached, winced, and was barely able to graze the box with her fingertip. And then she heard a voice coming from beside her.
“I would ask you if you needed help with that, but that’s a question Captain Obvious would ask.”
She chuckled without looking, as her focus was still on the box. “Not at all! I hate being short.”
