Page 19 of Advice from a Sunflower

She looks over at Ally curled up in my lap, then to Gabriella in her bassinet. “I can handle it.”

A scoff falls from my mouth before I can stop it. Marnie’s eyebrows knit together in defense. “I’ve been handling things on my own for a while now, Mouse. I promise, I’ve got this.”

“What do you mean? Hasn’t Denise been there to help out?”

The thought of Marnie caring for a toddler full-time at nine months pregnant has my blood boiling. I try to remember the last time I heard her mention our mother’s name in our nightly calls, or even the last time I asked about her. Nothing came.

Her head shakes side-to-side. “No. She left a couple of months ago to live with Mark Hassle. They’d been seeing each other for a couple of weeks and decided to take their relationship to the next level.”

Sarcasm bites her tone, her eyes rolling up to the ceiling in annoyance.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What would you have done?”

“Come home to help.” I cringe at the thought, but immediately know in my heart that’s what I would have done. I’d drop everything to help Marnie.

“Exactly. You’re halfway through with school, Mouse. I’m not going to let you throw away your future the way I did. We’ll get by just fine. You need to focus on yourself for now.”

Her selflessness is admirable. In our lifetime together, I’ve never known Marnie to spend so much time thinking of others, especially not me. But becoming a mother has changed her for the better and while I want nothing more than to drop everything and help her out, I know it would be in vain. She doesn’t need me to sacrifice my future to help her; she needs me to work hard and get through it for now so I can help her out later. Somewhere along the way, I’ve become her ticket out of that place, only I’m just now realizing it.

We don’t speak about it again for the rest of my visit. When it's time to go, I kiss them all goodbye and hesitantly walk out of the room, dread filling me with every step I take away from them. I have to trust that Marnie can handle her family without my help and focus on the only thing that's going to help all of us: my education.

That doesn’t stop me from calling her the moment I arrive back to my apartment to ask how things are going. Or from calling twice a day since. Josh was only able to get two days off work to bond with his new daughter, then it was back to twelve-hour shifts. Denise found her way to the house once they were released from the hospital. According to Marnie, she took one look at Gabriella, made a comment about her looking just like me, then walked away with a cigarette lit in her hand.

Chapter 11

Lyla

Twenty-two years old

Today is graduation day at Cornell. It marks the end of the most transformational four years of my life, spent at the most amazing place, with the best people. My fellow classmates and I are waiting in the auditorium before we walk across the stage in front of our friends and family to receive our degrees, nervous anticipation swirling around the room as we take the time to reflect on our experiences together. And I’ve had so many.

Despite my mother’s brutal words as I walked out her front door for the last time, I quickly learned that she was wrong. Growing up in The Hollow didn’t define me here. I’ve made friends. I’ve earned good grades and managed to get through all four years without a single loan taken out. I’ve even supported Marnie and her two girls sometimes, sending money into her account for groceries or paying for plane tickets to fly them out to New York.

I was proud of my accomplishments and the road it took to get me here. I couldn’t wait to have my name called, so I can walk across that stage in front of Marnie and my two nieces and show them that life is possible outside of our dumpy hometown. This day was living proof.

“Can you believe it?! What are we going to do with all our time now?” my roommate, Kimberly wondered beside me.

She was a Bioengineering major, making her social life through college virtually nonexistent. We still managed to find time for each other, though. We’d been paired up in our first year here and both decided that the other was probably the best we were going to get when it came to roommates. Our bond has strengthened since then and I know it’ll last when she heads back home to Texas to begin her career close to family. That’s just the type of person she is.

I still have no idea where I’m going to go when this is all over. Where people like Kimberly were just now beginning their post-college job search, I’ve already been working on my career for two years and I’m loving every minute of it. The week after Marnie had Gabriella, I submitted my work to a few publishers in the New York area. After a slew of rejection letters, I finally got a bite.

Just over a year later, my book was published. The words that I swore would never be seen by anyone else but me have somehow gotten me on quite a few bestseller lists, and we’re already working on releasing a sequel. The best part is that I can write from anywhere in the world and travel whenever I want. It’s not what I had in mind when I enrolled at Cornell, but I was learning that the best things in life come unexpectedly.

On top of the job perks, I have more money than I could ever need, which makes it possible to send Marnie and the girls the things that they aren’t able to get on their own. I still experience that familiar pang of guilt in my chest when I think about them stuck in a place that stunts growth. Marnie usually talks me out of it, assuring me that they’re there by choice, not by force. I didn’t care. I still planned on getting those two girls out of there the first opportunity I got, even if that meant leaving Marnie behind.

They didn’t choose to live this life, and they should be given every opportunity available to them to prosper and grow in ways they’ll never be able to in that small little town.

I’m thinking about them as the dean calls my name and beckons me across the stage, congratulating me with a smile.

Chapter 12

Lyla

Present

The house looks the exact same as the day I left. Same dilapidated, moldy aluminum siding covering the front, same faded red door, same broken-down shutters. Everything looks the same, yet it couldn’t be any more different.

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