“I’m glad you’re back,” Trevor said as I helped him dress a corpse before we placed them in their silk-lined coffin. It was a woman who’d died of old age. She didn’t have a lot of family, so they weren’t doing a viewing. She was being buried in her favourite pair of pyjamas, a framed photo of her and her late husband in her hands. It was taken on their wedding day, and the way they looked at each other melted my heart. They seemed so happy. I hoped their marriage had been a happy one too.

“Hmm,” I said, slipping the frame beneath her hands.

“It hasn’t been the same without you. No laughter.”

I straightened the cuffs of her sleeve and stepped away, surveying our work before I helped Trevor close and seal the lid.

“I thought Jenny was doing my job while I was gone?”

“She was. But it’s hard working with your spouse all day and then going home to kids.”

“Do you think that’s why Mum and Dad couldn’t make it?”

“Mum and Dad couldn’t make it because she was an addict,” he corrected.

“They fought a lot.”

He shrugged. “At least they cared enough to fight. Being kind all the time isn’t the ideal either.”

“Are you and Jenny having problems?” I asked, reading between the lines.

“Don’t all couples have their problems? Jenny and I aren’t perfect. We fight. And sometimes we feel like giving up.”

“But you don’t.” I sprayed sanitiser all over the work area.

“No. Because at the end of the day, we love each other.”

I put far more effort into wiping down the stainless-steel surface than was necessary, trying to keep my thoughts even. “I guess that’s the difference between your marriage and mine. You love each other. Sam doesn’t love me.”

Finishing up, I turned to walk away and put an end to the conversation. Trevor had been trying to get me to tell him what happened between Sam and me for weeks. I didn’t think he could believe my marriage wasn’t salvageable.

“Did he tell you that?”

“He wouldn’t say he did. That’s pretty much the same, right?”

“I don’t know. Some people struggle with the words even though they have the feeling.”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t have the feeling, Trevor. He never did.”

“Then why did he marry you?”

I met his eyes. “Because he had to.” Then I turned around and walked away. That was all I had to say.

“I’m heading home. I’m done for the day,” I said at my father’s office door.

He remained focused on the paperwork on his desk. “Is Mrs Barnett ready for tomorrow?”

I nodded. “So is Mr Henry. The morning services are all ready to go.”

“I’ll need you to help Jenny pick up flowers in the morning.”

“Sure. We can use my van.”

“That’s fine.” He waved me away but I didn’t move, just stood there until he finally looked at me. “Do you need something?”

I twisted my fingers around each other, struggling not to slip back into the obsequious daughter I was before. Part of walking away from the Cartwrights was fuelled by my desire to learn exactly who I was and how I fit into this world. And to do that, I needed to revisit my past and understand why everything went so wrong. One thing I’d learned from the Cartwrights was to be bold, to unapologetically go after what you wanted.

“What happened to Mum?”

He froze completely, perhaps even stopped breathing. Then he looked me in the eye. “She left,” he said, a hint of defensiveness in his tone.

“And then what happened?”

He looked down. “We never saw her again.”

“I don’t believe that.”

He picked up his pen again. “Well, that’s what happened.”

I took a step forward, that clawing feeling taking over my chest again. “You’re lying,” I said in a harsh whisper. “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe you never looked for her. I don’t believe you don’t know where she is or what happened to her. Maybe you’ve been keeping that information from us to protect us, but we’re not kids anymore. We deserve to know what happened to our mother.”

Suddenly Trevor appeared beside me. “Is she right, Dad? Do you know?”

Dad took a deep breath, then placed his pen back on the desk before clasping his hands. He let out a heavy sigh. “We tried to save her,“ he said. “Did everything we could, spent everything we could in the hope she would recover. But she was sick, and not just from the drugs. She was just never right in her mind. Chronic depression. We couldn’t save her.” He pressed his fingers to his eyes.

“What does that mean?” Trevor asked.

“You were both so young,” he said, lost in what I was sure was grief.

“What does that mean?” Trevor demanded, his eyes wide.

I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat. “It means she’s dead, Trev. It means she overdosed.”

“Fuck.” I’d never heard my brother swear before. He placed his hands against his forehead and released a sob. “Fuck.”

Dad met my eyes, his shining with emotion. “Now you know.”

Trevor shook his head, his voice quivering as he spoke. “You should’ve told us. We had a right to know.” He stormed out of the office, and I heard the back door slam.

I closed my eyes to the sound. “He’s right, you know. You should’ve told us.”

“You were already so heartbroken. I thought it best….”

“You were wrong,” I said, turning to head out the door.

“I’m sorry,” he said to my retreating back. I turned around, the apology seeming almost as strange as Trevor swearing.

“What?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Where is she?” Even as I said it, I think I already knew the answer. “And what happened? I need to know everything you know.”

He gave me a tiny nod. Then he began.

* * *

Growing up, you could frequently find my father working in the garden of our home, specifically the roses that grew underneath our kitchen window. I had a memory of my mother planting them when they were but tiny shrubs in pots. That’s where he’d spread her ashes. Turned out, he was out there talking to her. Why? Because despite everything, he loved her.

Sitting on the wooden bench that had been there for as long as I could remember, I stared at those bushes, my eyes brimming with tears. My mother was dead.

I’d always assumed, but to have it confirmed was so much bigger. Dad had told me that she’d left to spare her children the anguish when things got too bad. She checked herself into rehab and then a private mental hospital. There were times when they thought she may be getting better, but then she’d take a turn for the worse and they’d be back at square one with her self-harming to try and end whatever demons she carried in her mind. In the end, she saved up her medication, hid it inside her toothpaste tube. Then she took it all and never woke up.

That was when I was fifteen. Dad had known where she was for five years before she took her own life. And he didn’t tell us, didn’t take us to see her, or tell us she was OK. He just let us think she’d abandoned us. How fucked up is that?

She’d been dead for seventeen years. Seventeen years and I didn’t know. I couldn’t even pinpoint a memory from that year where I could say then, that must have been when it happened. Because I didn’t feel it, I didn’t notice any change. You’d think the universe would shift just a little when someone as important as a mother died. But it didn’t move at all.

Wiping my eyes on the back of my hand. I took a deep breath of the fragrant air and looked around the backyard of my childhood. It was mostly the same, save for a few trees that had grown taller. The palings on the fence were still broken, left over from a time when Holland and I had tried to make a secret passage between our yards. We failed, and I got grounded for breaking the fence.

Holland.

I was missing her more lately, I wondered how she was coping without Nate, if she felt as empty without him as I did without Sam. I wanted to call her, but at the same time I didn’t. I still needed time on my own, time to work out exactly what I wanted and why I wanted it. Reconnecting with Holland didn’t feel as though it would help, seemed more like reaching for an old habit. ‘Holland’s best friend’ didn’t feel like part of my identity anymore.

Sam’s wife. Now that was something I would be happy to call myself. I missed him most of all, and wondered if there’d ever come a time when my heart didn’t ache so bad without him, or a day where I didn’t consider calling him or texting to say I was wrong, that I didn’t need him to love me.

But I did.

A tiny mewing sound caught my attention just as a tiny tabby cat slid through the fence. It was cute and still a kitten. “Hey, little fella,” I said, making kissing sounds and rubbing my fingers together. “Are you lost?”

Without hesitation, it bounced over to me, jumping at my moving fingers and swatting them with its tiny paws. It gave me a chance to check the silver tag that hung around its neck on a pink collar. “Blanche Dubois,” I read out loud, smiling at the formal name. When I flipped it, I saw the address for next door. Holland’s aunty had obviously gotten herself a cat.

“Let me guess, you have a sister named Stella?” I scratched it behind the ear for a moment. Then it sat up, alert, and scampered back through the fence where it had come from. “See ya.”

“Tea?” My father pushed through the back door, holding two mustard-coloured mugs with the strings of the teabags hanging out. I didn’t realise he’d gotten home. I must’ve been sitting out here for quite some time.

Giving him a smile, I reached out and took a mug, pressing the warm ceramic against my cold hands. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, taking a sip while he took a seat beside me.

“I’ve had a lot of deep conversations out here,” he said. “Whenever I didn’t know what to do or which way to turn, I’d come and talk to your mother.” He gestured towards the rose bushes.

“I always thought you were one of those crazy gardeners who talked to their plants to help them grow.”

He pressed his lips together as he swirled the teabag through the milky water in his mug. “Your friend is living next door again. Did you know that?”

I looked over to the house, spotting two kittens in the window on the second floor. I smiled inwardly because I was probably right. Two cats, Blanche and Stella, named after the characters in Holland’s favourite play. “I didn’t know that.”

“You two have a falling out?”

I shook my head. “I think we just finally grew apart. It happens sometimes.”

“I suppose it does. Family seems to be the only thing that lasts.” He had no idea how much those words hurt me. I felt like I’d lost an insurmountable number of people I’d attributed that word ‘family’ to. But then it was different when someone was blood related. The link of blood was the very reason I was sitting in my old backyard, having an awkward conversation with my father. He was my blood and I couldn’t change that. I could only grow to accept and understand because I didn’t want to lose anymore. So much was already gone.

“Did you really think I was going to be like her?” I asked, pointing to the roses so he didn’t think I was still talking about Holland. Growing up, I always thought he was worried about me becoming an addict, but after learning more about my mother, I now realised he was worried for my mental health.

“I was worried about both you and Trevor. But more so you. You were so withdrawn at times, and other times you had this wildness behind your eyes that reminded me of your mother’s free spirit. I was afraid of losing you to the same sickness.”

“That was called being a teenage girl,” I said, sipping my tea.

“Perhaps. I just knew I needed to keep you close. Maybe too close sometimes.”

“Do you realise that you lost me anyway? All those rules, all that pressure to behave a certain way. I felt like I couldn’t be myself around you, and I hid who I was because of it.”

“I wasn’t trying to stifle you, only guide you. Medicine never helped your mother. I turned to God for help with you.”

Playing with the string of the teabag, I looked into the liquid warming my hands. “Do you feel like He helped?”

“You’re strong and healthy,” he said, as if that explained everything and excused even more. But I understood the sentiment. In his mind, his prayers and his rules helped guide me into the woman I was now. In a way they did, but more than anything, I think my upbringing was responsible for everything that was messed up about me. I wondered what he’d say if I told him that it was the bohemian thinking of a family full of nonconformists who helped me become as strong and mentally healthy as I felt today. I miss them so much.

Instead of telling him, I simply leaned in and nudged him gently with my shoulder. “Yeah, Dad. I’m OK,” I said, giving him a more genuine smile than I had before. Then we sat together in the quiet, listening to the birds and drinking our tea. I didn’t think we’d ever have a great relationship, but I understood him a little better now. At least there was that.