Page 41 of Free to Fall

Bailey’s giggles erupt from the living room. “Those colors don’t go together! Why’s your room those colors?”

She’s making my daughter laugh over something that has nothing to do with her medical condition.

Eavesdropping like I’m some sort of creeper, I hear Laura clarify, “The sea is the color of my mama’s eyes and amber is the color of my daddy’s. When I feel hurt or scared, they’re the colors that comfort me the most.” Laura leans close to ask, “What’s yours?”

I show myself, leaning against the jamb and listening, curious about Bailey’s answer, when the evidence on my dining room table suggests there isn’t a color she doesn’t like.

“Yellow, like a buttercup. Daddy and I go to the park and he holds buttercups under my chin.”

“My Uncle Phil knows the meanings of all the flowers.”

“Does he really?” Bailey’s enthralled.

“Yep. Do you know what it means to hold a buttercup under your chin?”

“That I like butter. Do you?”

Laura’s smile is unencumbered, as it so rarely is. It’s a smile StellaNova captured on the red carpet in photos taken long before the massacre at the hospital. When she burst into laughter at Amaryllis Bakery at my scheduling a meeting with her uncle to call him a greedy pig. This is the adored “Queen Gore”—the adored unrepentant doctor whose charisma won over colleagues and patients alike.

Every time I think I have it under control, adding joy to the sheer force of her beauty almost knocks me away. I bring up the images of the paparazzi photos in my mind’s eye. As good as they are, they don’t do her a damn bit of justice. They can’t capture her pure aqua eyes surrounded by a long fringe of lashes. Nor do the photos capture the way her hair frames skin that’s almost translucent. “Bailey, my aunt bakes with so much butter, we consider it an additional food group.”

“Like cupcakes.” Just saying the word causes Bailey’s glands to have a Pavlovian need for her favorite treat.

It’s at this point I inject myself back into the conversation. “Buttercup, I never told you who Laura’s aunt is.”

“Who?”

I struggle not to give away the surprise when Laura leaps to her feet. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”

I’d asked Laura to pick up a cake from Amaryllis Bakery on her way to work. After all, it’s Bailey’s last week of school and it’s been a full week of just Laura and Bailey together. I’m somewhat disappointed to see her return with a plain white bakery box instead of the pale pink box with the bright red flowers along the side—the distinctive Amaryllis Bakery design.

She presents it to Bailey with a flourish. “That was made especially for you.”

Bailey reads what’s on the lid, and her eyes widen comically. “Daddy?”

I frown before moving behind Bailey’s wheelchair and read the top of the box.

Bailey,

Congratulations on finishing first grade!

XOXO,

Ms. Corinna

Amaryllis Events

“I know you asked me to stop by the bakery,” Laura confesses. We both swivel our heads in her direction. “But when I stopped to see Mama at her office, Aunt Cori was there. She whipped these up in no time.”

Bailey’s hand shakes as she lifts the lid. We both gasp at what we find inside.

There are two dozen mini cupcakes. They’re cleverly decorated to look exactly like the flowers I nicknamed my daughter after—buttercups.

Bailey’s lower lip begins to tremble. From experience, I can tell she’s about to dive bomb into Laura.

I barely manage to save the cupcakes before disaster strikes and the dessert Laura likely pressed her aunt into making becomes a stain on my carpet.

As Bailey’s little arms reach around Laura, she murmurs something. I don’t know what it is, but Laura’s words are clear as day. “You’ve been so brave, Bailey. Now, Aunt Cori wanted me to remind you she can’t do something like this every week, but this week was special.”

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