What was the third one?
It was a boy. Nora was reasonably sure it was a boy.
“Which florist did you get yours at?” Nora asked, because the flowers were stunning, and small talk was all she had. She deliberately avoided looking at Alexandra’s bed, the soft beeping of all the machinery reminding her of exactly where she was.
“Oh, I made it.”
Of course she had. Daisy was one of those women who did everything. Not unlike Alexandra, really.
Nora kept her focus on the flowers for as long as possible. There must have been fifty bouquets. She took a step toward an arrangement of sunflowers in a rusted water pot, tied with a burlap bow. She touched the card and turned it over.
God Bless!
Xx Soraya Nichols
Oh, Soraya. She’d barely seen her since high school, and apparently today was a near miss.
She glanced up at Daisy and was about to say something dry about Soraya, but the expression on Daisy’s face, which was suddenly so bleak, stopped her.
Finally, she looked at Alexandra.
Oh God, Alexandra would hate for people to see her like this. With her dyed red hair half bandaged—likely shaved—and tangled on her pillow. With bandages on her arms and no makeup on her face.
“I’ve never seen her without lipstick.”
Daisy let out a short, shocked laugh. “You know ... neither have I.”
They both stood there for a moment.
“Nice to ... see you,” Daisy said. “Even if it’s ...”
“I didn’t know you knew Alexandra.”
“Yeah. I do. In the way that everybody knows her. But I’ve been back and forth between my house and YMTO rehearsals and the hospital a lot because my grandma is getting PT before she can go home, and my mom isn’t doing so well, so she and my dad are dealing with ... Anyway, I was here.” Daisy tucked some of her rigidly straight light-brown hair behind her ear, her blunt bob in perfect order, as she always was.
“Oh. Sorry about your grandma. And your mom.” Nora had no idea what was happening with her own mom or grandma, but she imagined at this stage of life there was a strange sort of freedom in that.
Now Daisy had to care for the people who had cared for her. Nora was free because her family had never cared for her at all.
“Jonathan knows Alexandra,” Daisy continued. “He’s been on the city council for a couple of years. It’s good for him. With the construction company. You know, he gets a lot of information on zoning changes and things like that. It gives him some influence.”
Nora frowned. “That’s not a conflict of interest?”
“It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a conflict of interest here. This town has like ten thousand people,” Daisy said, and Nora huffed a laugh.
“Indeed, it does.”
All they had talked about when they were younger was wanting to leave. Because as beautiful as Hemlock was, nestled in the mountains of Southern Oregon and only a few miles from the California border, it was boring for teenagers.
Nora had never asked Daisy how she had ended up back here.
Of course, Daisy had never asked Nora how she had ended up back here either.
“We should get lunch,” Daisy said.
“Yeah,” Nora replied, meaning it just like she did every time. “We should.”
Daisy shook her head. “No. Not sometime. Let’s have lunch, Nora.Today.”
