Page 82 of Something Like Sunflowers

I quirk a brow. “Yet you still seem so frustrated.”

“Why can’t Penelope do it, too?”

She kicks her boot at the dirt, and chunks of mud and debris flake off into the air, and we watch it fall. She gasps as bits of it hit her arm, then she looks back up at me with apologetic eyes.

“It’s okay. You can cry if you want. Or you can kick the ground. You can be as angry as you want about the things you feel in your heart, Ellie.”

She pauses, shoving her face into my gut and locking her tiny arms around my waist, letting the tears fall freely like she hasn’t done it in all her life.

Maybe she hasn’t.

I comb my fingers through her hair, pulling the tear-drenched strands away from her cheeks and forehead, and wrapping her in an even tighter hug as we rock, back and forth, in a way I don’t think either of us has ever experienced as a mother or a daughter.

“You know, I had a Penelope, too. In real life.”

She sits up, wiping her face on her sleeve and pulling her knees to her chin. “You did?”

“Yup,” I say, letting it hang in the air, an unfinished answer.

“Did you ever get a Polly?” she finally asks, looking ahead at the pinkening horizon.

“No.”

I look into the eyes of a little girl raised by the only man I’ve ever loved. A little girl with so much tenacity and promise. An innocent child who was born, not of her own choice, but because two system-failed teenagers didn’t know another way. A child who is only alive and healthy today because the man I’m madly in love with chose to make it so.

A child I love, as crazy as that may be.

And I know, right here and now, why my life has led me to this moment.

Why I never got my Polly.

So, I tell her, the girl who stands here, asking me the same things I begged of the world before her.

When I was her.

“Because I was meant to be a Polly.”

Chapter 32

Devyn

First thing’s first,” I tell Lemon and Shana, strolling through Abel’s store with a grin plastered on my face, the familiar scents of pine and feed, portals to my youth.

“I need to find me an Abel and get a big ol’ hug.”

Before I can’t.

My heart swoops to my stomach for Clara, another integral role model during my formative stages, someone who looked out for not just me, but all the kids in Pine Forest. I run my fingers over the hand-painted sign by the wall of carts.

Live, Laugh, And Pray There’s Not Shit on Your Boots When You Walk Up in My Store!

Everything’s the same here.

“I have ten years of hugs to make up for,” I whisper, almost to myself, but Shana hears. She grabs my hand and squeezes.

“I’m sorry you didn’t know about Clara sooner.”

“How do you always know what I’m thinking? It’s honestly spooky, Shay.” I shake my head.

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