The server filled her mug to the brim—no cream—and disappeared. Hanna knew she had about six minutes to herself before the server would reappear to take her breakfast order. Staring at the haze of steam curling over the white ceramic mug, she wondered what she should or should not attempt to do on the day of all days.
Olivia had warned her about the Big Days. Anniversaries, birthdays, Mother’s Day—the pressure that came with them—all stretching and bending the lines on the calendar for attention. That day, she decided, she would make no plans. She would follow whatever compulsion entered her mind and let the universe guide her for a bit.
After another round of coffee and a dry but pleasant scone, she decided she was at risk of heart failure if she didn’t shake off some of the caffeine. She wandered from the cafe, waiting for some sort of cosmic tug—from her or elsewhere. Anything that could be mistaken for a sign was on the table, but for the first half hour, it was mostly Bay breezes and morning commuters.
She passed a corner flower shop, the notes of a song her mother liked floating from the open door. Hanna stopped, a gentle smile pulling at her lips. She turned and entered the shop. Black and white marble tiles stretched beneath several antique dressers and tables holding overflowing bouquets and stems of roses and lilies.
“Good morning!” a voice chimed from under a desk painted teal, the edges peeling, but in a chic way.
“Morning,” Hanna murmured, reaching out to stroke the pale pink petal of a rose.
“Looking for anything in particular?” A woman in her late fifties sprang up from the desk, a white canvas apron tied around her waist over a denim shirt. Her dark hair curled around her ears, lines crinkling at her eyes.
“I’m not sure,” Hanna confessed. “Just something to brighten the day.”
“Ah,” the woman said, her eyes scanning her shop. “You know what, I have the most gorgeous arrangement in the back that hasn’t found a home yet. I threw it together this morning. I must have known you’d come in.”
Hanna felt a tingle in her shoulders, a certain something that tugged at her heart. The woman returned with a teal mason jar filled with seven sunny-yellow blooms.
She choked on a rush of emotion, her eyes narrowing against the tears.
“Are you alright, honey?” She set the mason jar on the desk, rounding it to reach for Hanna’s shoulders.
“I’m fine!” she insisted, brushing the tears away. “Just a tough day. Could I come back for these later? I’ll be out and about all day.”
“Of course,” the woman said. “I’ll keep them in the back. I hope your day gets easier.” She patted Hanna’s shoulder once more. Hanna backed out of the shop and waited for the light to change on the corner.
There was a woman on her phone, chatting away to someone. Under her arm sat a canvas tote bag with a bouquet embroidered across it, sunflowers blooming over the side. All at once, Hanna’s plans solidified for the day.
She followed the woman for a few blocks until she dipped into a small coffee shop next to an antique store tucked between office buildings. Hanna casually strolled in, unsure what she was looking for next. The floor creaked under her as she weaved through aisles of figurines, furniture, and books. She pushed her way to the back of the shop and flipped through rows of vinyl albums when a light breeze swept through her hair.
It pushed her gaze over her shoulder to the open door at the back of the shop, peering into an alley. As she contemplated her next move, a bicyclist streamed by wearing bright yellow shoes that spun in rapid circles.
Okay, then. Sometimes the universe doesn’t scream, it whispers, and Hanna decided to accept proximal sunflowers in the form of yellow accessories.
She exited through the back door and down the alley. The bike raced too far ahead for her to catch up, but she decided the general spirit of her idea was enough, so she kept on in the general direction. She walked along Market for a while, passing by all the noisy shopping center traffic, and hoped that she was heading in a more interesting direction.
It took another ten minutes for Hanna to find the next clue in her endless scavenger hunt, but a little girl trailing behind her mom sported a bright yellow backpack with big sunflowers printed across the plastic.
They headed for the streetcar, as did Hanna.
They rode for about twenty minutes. When the sunflower backpack jumped off, she made her exit too. She was somewhere near the Painted Ladies, which seemed as good a place as any to stop and write a little.
She headed over to the park, enjoying the sun as it peered through gray fog and warmed the city. There were only a few other people scattered throughout the bike paths. She found a bench and made herself comfy for the foreseeable future.
Hanna pulled the navy journal from her bag she’d neglected over the previous few months. She’d started it when her mother was diagnosed, but things moved so quickly, she hadn’t made the most of it. She flipped to the next blank page, after an entry dated around the holidays.
“Sorry, Mom,” she whispered, fishing a pen from her bag. Right around Thanksgiving, her depression hit an all-time low, and she’d abandoned her letters to her mother entirely. It had been her first Christmas without Logan in ten years, and the first without her mother in thirty. She was lucky to have even showered during that time.
She’d lost all motivation to talk to anyone at that point, let alone someone who couldn’t talk back.
She stared at the blank page for a good five minutes, unsure of what to say. She sank back. It was rare for Hanna to take time assessing her own feelings. Forget committing them to paper.
She battled back the temptation to list off all her grievances, deciding instead to make a list of the things going right in her life.
That was something she missed the most about her mother—she’d always been one to hold space for a rant, but it inevitably ended with the question Hanna had repeated to herself a thousand times in the year since losing her mom.
“Try again tomorrow?”
