I haven’t been over here in a while.

A week. It’s been a week. For us, that’s a while.

I cross the lawn between our houses. The grass is freshly cut, and it smells fresh and clean like rain on a summer morning. Up above the road, the electric lines are still and black and cut across the clear blue, cloudless sky.

My fingers hold carefully onto the plant I bought from a nursery in town. They told me it’s a Christmas cactus. It doesn’t have any flowers now and the plant is very small, but in the wintertime, red flower buds will grow on the tips of the greenery. I thought they made a mistake at first or the plant was mislabeled, because it doesn’t look like any cactus I’ve seen before. Its long green leaves uncurl from the dirt, and there’s nothing sharp or pointy on it at all. But they explained it really is a cactus. I thought it was so cool and pretty, and I thought Travis’s mom would love it.

I walk up the steps to the front porch. She loves her flowers and plants. Most of the plants are hearty, and they’ll survive winter after winter. She keeps them in a sunroom off to the side of the porch. There’s a screen on one side, but the rest of it is glass. It’s enclosed, but it still gets really cold in there.

The heavy wooden door is open, so I grab the handle on the metal-framed screen door and let myself in. The house is mostly quiet, but I hear laughter coming from upstairs. It sounds like Travis’s mom, and a man, but the man doesn’t sound like Travis.

I feel myself smile softly as my body warms, stepping inside the house. It’s not Travis upstairs with her. I know his laugh. I’ve heard it so many times. I’d never mistake another person’s laugh for his.

Slipping my shoes off, I cross through the foyer of the house. It’s so similar to the house I grew up in, the one I still live in. But it’s so different, too. The bones are the same - the same type of wood beams and flooring, the very same doors and window frames. But everything inside Travis’s house is old, and a little bit more used than what’s inside mine. My mom and dad have re-done the living room a couple of times, purchased new furniture, and they’ve gutted the kitchen to make the first floor open and more airy. That’s not how the houses were designed, though. They were designed with lots of doors and walls and arches.

Holding the Christmas cactus, I press the pot against my chest with one hand and hold the banister with the other, starting upstairs.

“Hello?” I call out. I don’t want to be too quiet; I don’t want to startle anyone. After all, I did just kind of walk into someone’s house completely uninvited.

But I know I’m welcome, even if I wasn’t invited.

“Sweetie, we’re up here,” Mrs. Bloom calls out. Passing through the hallway at the top of the stairs, I make a left toward her room.

I was never in here before she became ill. I would have had no reason to be. Glancing over at Travis’s room, I see the door is shut, but I don’t see him in his mom’s room with her. It’s just his mom and his friend Alec.

“I let myself in,” I say as I enter the room.

My heart clenches as I look around. It’s hard to see - I have to admit that. Travis didn’t want me coming over, I also have to admit that. But he isn’t here, so he doesn’t get to have a say. Not today, at least.

Mrs. Bloom seems happy to see me. That’s all that matters right now.

Alec is by the window, peering out. The window faces away from the road, and there are no houses back there. It’s just rolling landscape, mountains, trees, and a setting sun going down to cast day over another part of the earth.

“It’s nice to see you, sweetie,” Mrs. Bloom says. She puts her arms out to me and sits up a little bit straighter in bed, but it looks hard for her. Sitting down on the corner of the bed, I wrap my arms around her small body.

She was always so beautiful. She had thick, wavy black hair that she wore in a bun at the nape of her neck. She was always slim, with fair white skin and blue eyes just like her son’s. She still looks beautiful. Different, though, of course. Now she has a blue silk handkerchief tied up, covering her hair. I don’t know if she has much anymore. She’s thinner, too. But she’s still wearing a sassy shade of pink lipstick like she always did. Even though she hasn’t been out in a while. She still has that lipstick on.

“Sorry for just barging in,” I say.

“You didn’t,” she says, putting her hand on mine. “We left the door open. I was hoping you’d stop by. I haven’t seen you in a few days.”

Alec turns his face toward us slightly, keeping his back to us.

“Well, I didn’t know if you wanted your privacy,” I say, though it’s not entirely true. Travis told me I shouldn’t come over, but I always saw Alec’s car in the driveway. I didn’t know why I couldn’t be here. Mrs. Bloom always told me I could come over whenever I wanted. Even after she got sick, she said she loved having the company.

It was Travis who things changed for.

“I don’t have enough friends to want privacy,” she says, a small smile playing on her lips. She always had that dry sense of humor her son had. Or I suppose he always had the dry sense of humor his mom had.

“What do you have there?” Alec says, coming over and sitting down in the oversized leather chair in the corner.

“Oh,” I say, holding it out on my lap. “It’s a Christmas cactus. Or so I’m told. Apparently it’ll get little red flowers in the winter. The people at the nursery told me that’s why it’s named after the holiday.”

“It’s so pretty,” Mrs. Bloom says. “It’s lovely.”

“And it’s yours,” I say, getting up and walking over to the window. There’s a small, light wooden ledge where the window sits. It’s not quite large enough to be a bench, and she has a few small, potted flowers here. “Mind if I add it to your collection?”

“Thank you, Daisy,” she says sweetly. There’s a melancholy quality to her voice, too. It crackles through the air. It doesn’t make me feel uncomfortable, though. It’s difficult to hear, but I’m glad I’m here.

“Where’s Travis?” I ask.

“Working,” Alec sighs from the corner of the room. “Working.”

“I think there was an emergency or something,” Mrs. Bloom adds.

I cross the room again and sit down on the edge of the bed. Travis is very talented and knowledgeable about cars. And I know he needs the money. He’d never admit it to me himself, though. I overheard my parents talking about it. I guess one of them saw someone from the bank out here surveying the house. They were probably trying to get an estimate on its value. I even think I saw Travis that night, arguing with the person from the bank on the front lawn. I didn’t know what they were talking about, though. It was only after I heard Mom and Dad talking about it that I put the pieces together and realized the Blooms’ house was in danger..

“I wish he were here,” I say in a gentle voice, putting my hand over Mrs. Bloom’s.

“He has a good reason not to be,” she says.

“Still, though,” I say. “It would be nice to see him.”

I know he has other obligations, but he should be here. Still, it’s not my place. I’m sure he spends plenty of time with his mom. He was always a good son to her and his dad. He was always good.

He’s distant now, though. It must be hard for him to see her like this. And like she said, he has a good reason for not being here.

The rest of the evening passes quickly. We chat and laugh, talking about nothing and everything. Third grade teachers, and baptisms and bar mitzvahs, good parties that last until the morning and the eighth grade play Travis, Alec and I were in together.

I say goodnight quietly to Alec when it’s time for me to leave. Mrs. Bloom has already fallen asleep, despite the blaring of the TV we’d put on a half hour earlier.

Travis is getting home as I’m leaving. I check the time on the watch my parents gave me for my birthday. It’s just before midnight.

He gets out of his car and stands near it, grinning at me with his chin tipped down slightly, his hands shoved into his back pockets.

The sight of him nearly takes my breath away. I purse my lips together and try not to show the effect he has on me, but I feel a spear of heat between my legs when he puts his hand up to wave it me, wiggling his fingers in the air.

“You’re still up,” he says. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

“No,” I say, changing my path across the lawn, walking over to him. “I don’t have a bedtime.”

“How is she?” His eyes shift from me up to his house and back again.

“She seems to be in good spirits,” I say cautiously. “She’s asleep now, though. I wish you’d been there.”

“I know. Me too.”

He puts his arms around my waist and pulls me close. I can smell his cologne on him, intoxicating and dizzying, as I close my eyes I can feel everything melt away. All of the pain and everything I saw inside his house. It all gets put away, just for a moment.

“Let me take you somewhere,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “We should go away for a couple of days. Coney Island?”

“We can’t,” I sigh. “There’s too much going on here.”

I don’t have to say what it is. He already knows. It’s his Mom; that’s the only thing. But it’s the most important thing right now.

I don’t want to leave him right now, but I have to. I have to get back inside my house. It’s late. It’s too late to be out here.

“I want to take you to the beach,” he says, putting his hands on the sides of my face. His thumbs stroke my skin in long motions. I feel like I could melt inside in hands. “We need to get away. Together.”

I want that too, but we can’t.

“I’ve got to get inside,” I say, putting my hands on his forearms. He keeps stroking me, though, putting one of his hands behind my head and lacing his fingers gently through my hair.

“I thought you didn’t have a bedtime,” he whispers, putting his lips on mine. My lips are so soft, yet I feel like they crave me. His lips take mine, and he holds me so steadily.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have to go to bed at some point,” I say. He grins down at me, brushing his hands along my upper arms. I feel tired, but his pull is strong.

“Another time, then,” he says.

He leans down and kisses me again, then he lets me go. As I walk away, I quickly glance over his shoulder. He’s still watching me as I go.