Chapter 47

There is an aftermath, but I don’t really feel it. I just see it, in my mom and sisters, and sometimes in Tom. I see it in the uniformed, faceless humans who come to our house and cover the body and take it away in a brightly lit vehicle. I can’t even cry then. I’m just…quiet. Everything I do feels wrong, feels like a show, like I’m plastic. Stiff and unwilling.

I have nothing I want to share. Nothing I care to say.

It isn’t until a few days after that the world starts to go silent. That’s when I cry. The days become one thing, a meshing of tears, a messy daydream that I can’t quite grasp. I’m pretty sure the dawn hasn’t come since Papa died, but I’m also pretty sure that the sun hasn’t set.

The world continues onward, blurry and raw, an endless string of things that don’t matter and people who can’t possibly understand. It is along this endless string that we prepare for my father’s funeral this weekend.

My mother is the strongest of us all, even though she would claim she isn’t. She goes forward like a train that can’t stop, or maybe she just won’t stop. I wonder, if she did, would she stop forever? So she goes and goes and goes, and I follow just behind, stumbling.

Millie and Astrid follow just behind me. Astrid pretends she doesn’t cry, but I see her swollen eyes and I know she’s hiding. Millie never stops crying, and every time I see her wet cheeks, I can’t help but cry with her.

Sometimes, on the off chance we’re both home at the same time, Tom joins me on the couch or my bed or the porch swing out back, and we sit wrapped in each other’s arms. I see the tears on his cheeks and running down his chin, and he sees mine, and we don’t talk.

(What is there to talk about?)

Every second that I’m not thinking about my father and the night he died, I’m thinking about Levi. Every waking moment is spent wondering, grasping. Everything is wrong, and I don’t want it to be my fault, but it is. Fixing my world is impossible, however, because I don’t have the strength. It’s the same as before: there’s not enough energy left in my reserves to make something happen. I can’t go to him or talk to him without looking like the bitch who only begs to get a man back when she needs something.

I won’t be that girl. Levi deserves infinitely more than who I am.

I go to work again a few days later, but it’s hard to get through fifteen minutes without crying. I have a moment of solace before I see the order my mom placed for Papa’s funeral, lying on the back counter, and I have to bend over, have to heave to get my breath back.

Ludwig finds me when I’ve been crying for a full five minutes. He puts a hand on my shaking, wavering shoulder, then helps me to stand up straight again. Sighing, his hands clasping my shoulders, he waits for me to stop crying.

I sniff until I can breathe again, rubbing my puffy face, and put a shaky hand on the table. “Th-thanks,” I stutter.

He frowns at me. “What can I do?”

“Nothing.” I wave him off, tightening my apron, reaching for the nearest clean vase.

“Hmm.” Ludwig takes the vase from me and says, “I think there’s something. Can you get me five white roses and three stems of the pale yellow spray roses?”

I don’t really have the will-power to say no, so I follow his instructions. When I lay the flowers on the worktable, he asks for filler and light pink stock. I go back inside, fighting tears again, but when I come back, I see he’s almost finished the arrangement. It immediately makes me think of flower fields in spring, and life, and happiness.

He’s right—he can do something, and he has. I give him a crooked smile, sniffling unattractively once more, as I accept his gift. “It’s so beautiful.”

He winks. “I like seeing happy Bee. Care to ring me up?”

Ludwig pays for the arrangement, and when I’ve put it in a box and set it in the back of the cooler to take home later, he calls me back to the work table. “I want you to take my class, Bee.”

I shrink inward a little, sitting on the stool beside him. “I know you do. I do, too.”

“It’s as simple as that, then.”

I give him a look.

He shakes his head at me. “It really is. Buy the tools, pay me whatever you and your mom can afford—but I want you at that class every week.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“Accept a gift?”

“I already have—your arrangement.” (I’m stubborn sometimes. Real stubborn.)

“That’s nothing. Let me give it to you straight: There are people with talent, and there are people with passion. Then, very rarely, there are people who have both. You, Bee, are one of the few. Don’t waste it.”

I open my mouth—and close it immediately. I have nothing to say to that.

“Now, do I have a volunteer to help me with these orders?” He waves a stack of papers at me. “I have to get through nine in the next two hours.”

“Ew. I have nine deliveries today?” I snatch the paperwork from him, smoothing it out on the table. I’m still not happy, but I’m not crying anymore, either. “All right. What do we need?”

“Bee, will you do me a favor?”

I snap out of my trance at the sound of Mama’s voice. She stands in my doorway, her hair dragged into a messy bun, her eyelids puffy, her pajamas the same as yesterday’s. I nod at her, inviting her in.

“Who made those for you?” she asks, pointing to the vase on my desk. She makes herself comfortable on my bed.

“Ludwig,” I say, quietly.

She knows he’s doing Papa’s flowers. She shudders, her eyes drifting closed for a moment. “They’re beautiful.”

“Yeah. What’s up?” I don’t want to talk about flowers.

Mama nods. “Right. Um, I was wondering if you could pick up the last check from TCP?”

Okay, I also don’t want to talk about TCP, but there is no way in hell I’m refusing my mom anything right now. “How come?”

“Suzie forgot to drop it off yesterday, and won’t be able to come by until Friday. But…” She takes a deep breath in. “I need to pay the bills tomorrow.”

I try not to cringe. “Okay. I’ll go.”

She stands up again, nodding. “Thanks, Bee.”

As she’s about to close my door, I take a deep breath and say, “Mom, Levi and I broke up.” They tumble from my mouth, these long overdue words that make my body stiff and my heart burn. Will I never learn?

“You…what?”

I go quiet again, fighting tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was three weeks ago, and it wasn’t a good time to say anything.”

“Bee,” she says softly, and wraps her arms around me. “It’s always a good time.”

“Not with…Papa.”

She’s crying again. “It’s so hard, sweetie, but I don’t want you hurting.”

“I don’t want you hurting.” Or Astrid or Millie or Tom or anyone else. Especially not Levi. Not on my account.

“That’s unavoidable, for me. For everyone.” She kisses the top of my head, and I sink further into her embrace. “If you don’t want to go back, I understand. I can get dressed and run over there.”

“No,” I say with forced conviction. “I’ll be okay. Maybe it’s time for me to do this. I can’t hide from him forever.”

My mom absently strokes my hair, nodding, but I don’t think she really heard me. I’m glad she hasn’t asked me why we broke up. We just sit there, holding each other, wrapped in each other’s pain and broken hearts, until the world starts to fade away, even if just for a second.

The new office is lit up when I arrive, but there’s only one car out front. It’s Suzie’s, but this does nothing to ease my worry.

Still, I hurry to the front door and let myself in. The place looks like a real office now—an office with a homey touch. The walls are bright, wonderfully finished, with THE COLOR PROJECT splayed across the top in big, black letters to offset the bright stripes.

“Bee?”

I jump, turning toward the stairs. “Suzie.”

We look at each other, me by the door, her on the bottom steps, like we don’t know what to do, where to start. My heart is about to burst out of my chest, not only because she’s there and she looks pained, but because I’m just waiting for the moment when Levi follows her down the stairs and sees me standing here.

Thankfully, that moment never comes. Instead, Suzie walks right over to me and hugs me tight. “I’m so sorry, Bee.”

Surprised, I nod into her shoulder. “Me, too.”

“We miss you.” She pulls back and touches her thumb to my cheek. There is less pain and uncertainty in her eyes now. “Is your mom okay?”

“She’s…striving.”

Suzie sighs. Out of anyone my mom knows, Suzie probably understands this the most. “I assume you’re here for the check.”

I step away from her. “Yeah.”

She moves around some paperwork on the desk and hands me the envelope. “Sorry I couldn’t get this to her yesterday.”

“It’s okay.” My voice is still hushed. “Is…” I swallow, glancing toward the stairs again. “Is Levi here?”

“No. He hasn’t been in for over a week.”

“What?” I shake my head. “Who’s doing interviews?”

“I am.” Suzie tilts her head to the side. “He needed some time to…process.”

I swallow, hard.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “He really misses Matt. He misses you.”

“He’ll get over me,” I say, too quickly.

Suzie’s expression grows injured at my words. “No, I don’t think he will.” She raises her eyes to the ceiling, almost like she’s saying a silent prayer. “It’s been hard for everyone, without you here.”

I steel myself. I absolutely will not cry. “I’m sorry, Suzie.”

She shakes her head. “We all know what you’re going through. We just miss you.” Here she takes a deep breath, then presses on. “Your mom invited us to the funeral on Saturday, and we said we’d come. I hope you’re all right with that.”

“Of course,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Of course I am. I can’t imagine if you weren’t there.”

Suzie’s eyes light up. “You can talk to him, you know. He understands, he wants to be there for you.”

I close my eyes. “I’m not ready.” But now all I can think about is him kissing me—embracing me until the distance between us is nothing, all of me wrapped up in all of him. “And I…” I press on my nose, hard, to ease the pressure building up. One tear escapes my eye, wetting my cheek in a straight line. “I really should be getting back.”

“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay. Call if you need anything.”

I hold up the envelope, my half-smile crooked and stretching my face in ways it doesn’t want to be stretched. I want to say Tell him I’m sorry and Tell him I love him and Tell him I want him back. But then I close my mouth, shove the envelope in my purse, and hurry outside. In the warm evening air, everything sparkles by the light of sunset.

I’m almost to my car when I see it, parked a block down the road: Levi’s car, freshly washed and glinting dark green. I pause, and it dawns on me what this truly means, that he is inside, right now, that he was probably upstairs when I was talking to Suzie.

My stomach twists painfully. I sit in the driver’s seat and think about everything Suzie said—about him not getting over me, about how everyone misses me, that I should talk to him. But she also said that he wasn’t there. As I slide my key into the ignition and turn into the road, I wonder how much of that was her trying to be nice, and how much of it was a lie to keep him safe.