I TURNED ON THE TAP.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—and breathe.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—and breathe.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—

I knew there was no blood. I wasn’t even bleeding, but I couldn’t get the image out of my head of my blood dribbling down onto my hand before it trailed along my fingers and dropped to the rocks below, where Mia lay, twisted.

I turned off the tap and lifted my right hand in front of my face. I turned it over and back, over and back, time and time again, checking to see that there was no blood. It was insane. I clenched my teeth together and turned on the tap again.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—and breathe.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—and breathe.

Lather, scrub, rinse ... lather, scrub, rinse—

‘There you are, Landi.’ My saving grace stopped beside me. Gram. I could clearly see her flowing colour of pink this morning, like cotton candy at the fair, reminding me of warm summer nights, love, laughter and fireworks. She turned off the tap and dried my hands then grabbed my left hand and led me out of the powder room. She pulled me to a table by the window and called to Darcy, ‘Two cups of tea, please.’

Darcy gave Gram a nod. He knew the routine when I was like this, lost in a scene of reality that happened three years ago, one that I couldn’t climb out of.

Gram sat opposite me at the reclaimed hardwood timber table. I stared at the fresh flowers that sat between us. We were in a florist store with a café attached, so of course there had to be fresh flowers adorning each of the tables. It was like an advertisement for Flowers for Fleur. I blinked. The white hydrangeas reminded me of a snowball. Anxiety swirled inside me as I remembered when I was fifteen ...

‘I will win today, Mia!’ I had said.

‘No you won’t. You never beat me in the snowball vertical tower challenge!’ she had said.

I crouched in the snow and made twelve snowballs, then stood. I held one snowball in my hand and balanced another on top. Mia handed me the snowballs, one at a time, while I carefully added them on top of the other, trying to make a snowball tower. I was killing it today. My placement of the balanced freezing spheres was perfect, probably from all those ballet lessons I had from when I was eight. I placed the seventh snowball on top, and was about to add one more to break the record set by Mia—

‘Seven snowballs ...’ Mia had sung in the tune of the chef who fell down the stairs on Sesame Street, and doubled over in laughter.

I held my breath to stop the onslaught of giggling from being set free from inside me. But it was no use, the giggle monster had been unleashed. I closed my eyes and laughed so hard I fell over, losing my tower of snowballs in the process, all except one.

‘Cheat!’ I said, and walloped her with my remaining snowball. I always lost, only because Mia always cheated with the Sesame Street song.

Mia fell into the snow beside me. I looked at my best friend. ‘One day I will win. Let’s make a bet!’

Mia looked into my eyes, her face lit with excitement. ‘Okay!’

‘If I win ... you will have to hi-five everyone you see at school at lunch time—no matter who it is.’

Mia raised a single eyebrow at me. ‘You’re on ...’  

A warm hand covered mine and pulled me back to the present. ‘Close your eyes, Landi ... breathe in for a count of three ... and out for a count of five. You know how to deal with intrusive thoughts. What do you need to say?’

I closed my eyes. I wanted to cry but I couldn’t. Not here.

‘Stop,’ I said.

‘Then what?’ Gram pressed. She knew the cognitive behaviour therapy cheats as well as me.

‘Distraction.’ I opened my eyes as Darcy placed teacups and a teapot between Gram and me.

‘Go on, Landi,’ Gram said.

I turned the teapot three times to the left, then three times to the right. It was a ritual I had watched Gram and my mother do forever. I poured Gram a cup of tea, then myself, and added milk.

There. My intrusive thought was gone. For now. I shook my head. I knew the repetitive behaviour of trying to wash the imagined blood off my hand was completely stupid and irrational. But it always seemed so real at the time.

‘Sorry, Gram,’ I whispered.

‘It’s not me you need to apologise to.’

‘I know.’ I sipped my tea and looked out the window. The rain poured down casting a muted light outside. A young girl sat on a bench seat and slipped on her yellow rain boots. She beamed up at her mother. The first time I saw Mia she was on a seat just like that, sliding her green rain boots on ...

She stood and buttoned up her rain coat and ran into the rain and jumped in puddles. I wished I could be like her. Not afraid of the mud. My mother hated the mud. And so I hated the mud. The girl stopped jumping and looked at me. I held my breath, frozen.

She walked towards me, her hand outstretched. ‘Come and play,’ she had said.

I looked down at my pink rain boots, my clean, pink rain boots, and took her hand. She pulled me into the rain and we jumped in puddles and spun around and around and around with our arms outstretched, our faces towards the dark clouds. Rain splattered my face, touching my poked-out tongue. I felt free. For the first time in my life.

I closed my eyes and fell over, dizzy, straight into the mud puddle. The world kept on spinning around me. The girl fell beside me and giggled. I looked at her and giggled too. The type of giggle only eight-year-olds can have.

‘Yolande!’ My mother’s angry voice threaded between the raindrops. I was in trouble.

‘I’m Mia,’ she said when I stood, and rubbed the mud from her eyes.

‘Mia,’ I repeated, and ran off.

‘Yolande,’ Gram said, bringing me back to the present. ‘You know you can’t change it.’

I put my teacup down. What I would give to go back in time and never to have jumped in the puddles with Mia. To never have met her. To never have become best friends.

‘Gram ... do you think we have control of our lives, or has it already been laid out before us, and we’re just going through the motions?’ I asked. Gram was wise and knowing.

She raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Look out the window at the people, Landi. Are they deciding what to do next. Or are they like robots, and have no choice in the matter?’

I looked out the window and watched. Gram was right. We chose what to do, and you dealt with the consequences of your own choices, or another’s choices. Good or bad.

I looked back at Gram. ‘If Mia and I weren’t friends, do you think it still would have happened to her?’

Gram didn't answer me. Her silence sparked a wave of anxiety inside me and my body tensed.

‘Yes,’ she finally said. But her words didn’t make it any better for me. ‘Look forward, Landi, not backward. You ca—’

‘Can’t change the past,’ I finished. I’d heard it a million times.

‘Imagine if we could choose one thing to change in the past ...’ Gram said.

I gave Gram a sad smile. I knew exactly what I would change. Somehow my heart felt lighter. ‘Would the world be better for everyone then, Gram? Or would we keep making the same mistakes?’

Gram placed her cupped hands under her chin. ‘Philosophical ponderings will be continued later, my dear. The flowers are in need of a refreshing drink to lure in the people.’

‘Right you are, Gram.’ I stood and collected the teacups and teapot. I balanced them and took them over to Darcy. ‘I owe you. It’s true. Tea solves everything.’ And nothing, I wanted to add, but didn’t.

‘Aye. For a moment in time,’ he said and gave me a small smile.

I sighed. ‘A moment in time is all I needed. Thanks.’ I bent at my waist and performed an altered ballerina’s bow to him.

‘I’m only nice to you because I get paid to work here, you know,’ Darcy said with smiley eyes.

‘Nah ... you would be nice to me even if you didn’t get paid. Genuinely nice people can’t be bad, even if they tried.’ My words were true. 

‘You should leave now before you see my bad side,’ he said, and threw a tea towel at me. I smiled and gathered it in my hands, and threw it back at him, twice as hard. He chuckled, looked down and shook his head, his admiral blue colour comforting me.

I walked over to the sales desk and pulled out my to-do list for the day, and the typed note for Xander. It needed to go into the flowers of the bicycle basket. I opened it up and reread it. Surely this would be the note to put an end to the notes. He certainly would not want to meet a bossy old woman who would point and wag her finger at him.

Dear Xander,

Then you must meet Grandmother Fleur.

I didn’t sign it for the same reason that I typed it. I wanted to keep him guessing who wrote it, and hopefully scare him away. I walked outside and placed it into the flowers of the bicycle basket. Today it was a living pot of Tumbelina petunias—pinks, white and purples. There was no scent, as they only released their perfume from dusk and into the night. The note looked obtrusive sitting amongst the foliage. I decided I would keep watch for the persistently annoying Xander while I worked. In my mind’s eye he was a middle-aged, balding, rotund man dressed in a suit with polished black shoes with beady, greedy dark eyes.

I rearranged some floral blooms for sales near the front entrance to the store, then returned to the sales desk and checked the jobs off my list.

I looked up when the sound of the shoes stopped before me. It was a middle-aged woman. She wore a white layered cotton linen dress. She was the colour of indigo, like she was restructuring aspects of her life.

‘Flowers, tea, coffee or books?’ 

‘Flowers, dear.’

‘Flowers for ...’

‘Myself. It’s the anniversary of my divorce.’

In an ideal world I would like to have said I’m sorry to hear. But the reality was, there were some men who were pitiful excuses for human beings. And some women as well. ‘Good for you,’ I said.

‘Take my advice. Never marry ...’

I looked into her weary eyes. They were filled with pain.

‘Advice taken and considered. Let me create a special gathering of blooms for you with an aromatic infusion that will leave you breathless and fill your house with victory.’ I don’t know where those flowing words came from. But they sounded astounding. I hoped Gram could create something like that.

I looked down, aware of my scars. No man would ever get past them, even if I did want to marry—which I didn’t. Not after that terrible day with Mia ...

‘Oh my. That sounds like a celebration!’ Her words pulled me back to the present.

‘It is indeed. Give me your name for when your gathering of blooms is born.’ I twirled my hand in the air, adding a swirl of mystique.

‘Maria.’

‘Thanks, Maria. Please have a complimentary drink while you wait. Tell Darcy that Andi sent you.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll bring the flowers to you when Gram finishes the work of natural art.’

‘Thank you.’

I inclined my head to her and turned to Gram. She watched me walked towards her with a twinkle in her eye. She had the type of face that lit up a room when she smiled. The type of face you looked at, lingering, floating on the light and happiness she gave, and when you walked away, your heart overflowed with warmth like the golden sunshine on a beautiful spring day.

It was day three without vertigo, and I was glad for her.

‘Maria would like a bouquet to celebrate her divorce, Gram,’ I said. ‘I told her you would create something that was like victory.’

Gram slowed her movement and a sadness fell over her face. ‘Granddaughter ... divorce is never a victory. It’s the breaking of sacred promises. It’s broken dreams and hearts.’

‘Grandmother ... divorce is also freedom ... freedom from a toxic relationship ... freedom from betrayal ... freedom from abuse. You don’t know her story.’

‘You’re right, Andi. I’m just a forever romantic. It’s easy for me to forget the world is not a nice place for some ... I’ll build a victory bouquet and spoil our Maria. She’s been through an emotional journey of the heart.’

Sometimes I wished I had rose-coloured glasses like Gram, instead of my jade-coloured glasses.

Healing takes time, I reminded myself ...

Healing takes time ...