Page 22 of The Life We Left Behind

The sound of a folder sliding onto the counter drew my attention to the florist, who’d returned already knowing why it was that I was there. Even if I had been trying to avoid a certain someone, it was still a job on my to-do list.

“I think I’m okay for now, but you’ll be the first person on my list if I need some help,” I promised.

She nodded sadly, stroking my arm again, and I nearly jumped a foot in the air when Titus finally lifted his head and belched in my direction. A wave of rotten fish smell rushed over me, and it took everything in me to keep the polite smile on my face and not gag at the stench.

Dear God, Titus may be alive now, but somethinginsidehim had to be dead or dying. How was it possible for such a smell to come from one tiny animal?

The florist cleared her throat politely and then flipped open the folder, moving it to the corner of the counter. “Why don’t you have a look at some arrangements while I serve Mrs. Shulster?” She gave me a knowing smile, and I resisted the urge to drop to my knees in thanks for the save.

Those two steps of distance between me and what I was now thinking was the reanimated, zombified dog in Mrs. Shulster’s arms was enough to place me in clean, fresh air, and I pretended to look completely engrossed in the folder before me as I blindly flipped through it.

It didn’t take long for Mrs. Shulster to buy her roses and then excuse herself with another sympathetic arm rub and wave of rotten dog corpse smell. As soon as she stepped out of the store, I let myself take a gasping breath as the woman behind the counter finally snorted in amusement.

“Oh god, how does she walk around with that thing in her arms?” I gasped dramatically, feeling the need to open every available window even though the animal was finally gone.

“My husband and I have a running bet about whether it actually has legs. I’ve never seen it on the ground. She rescued it about five years ago, and we were convinced it was halfway dead then.”

“Well, at least she’s not alone,” I added with a wince.

Mrs. Shulster was one of the kindest people I’d ever met. She’d helped my father a lot after my mother had passed. She made arrangements with some other women in the town to come to the farm and make sure the fridge was stocked, the laundry was done, and the house was clean. My father had told me the story so many times of how he was so crushed after my mother died, and he had this tiny baby to take care of, and then the next day, there she was on the porch, watering the plants and setting things straight. She never mentioned it, never made him feel like he was being coddled. They all just took care of the extras around the house so he could spend his time getting to know his baby daughter and learning how to be a lone parent.

That was just how Mrs. Shulster was. She saw when someone was in need, and she made sure it was filled.

I should probably stop mentally making fun of her dog. That would be the decent thing to do.

I hadn’t realized that I’d fallen quiet until the woman at the counter politely cleared her throat again. “Have you seen anything that caught your eye?” She nodded to the folder that I was still holding onto the edges of.

“Erm, yes.” I flipped back a couple of pages to something I saw earlier. “This one looks perfect.”

It was bright and bold, nothing like the flowers the funeral home had told me they were doing. But they reminded me of the flowers that Dad had always insisted grow on the porch and around the farm. They were the ones my mother had planted, and he’d meticulously replaced them every spring. It only seemed right that we should say goodbye with the things that had meant the most to him in life.

I could feel that telltale itch gathering behind my eyes and took a deep breath to push the tears back. I didn’t have time for a breakdown at this point in the day.

“That’s a lovely choice.” She smiled at me, and it struck me as strange that it felt genuine and wasn’t filled with the sympathy I’d been expecting to see on every face. “Do you have a date for the funeral yet?”

“Thursday.” It didn’t seem real, even as I said it. The same numbness filled me that had at the funeral home, and I clung to it, knowing it was the only thing that would get me through.

“Okay, well, that’s plenty of time to have these prepared. I can have them delivered to the funeral home for you.”

“Thank you. I’m Delaney, by the way.” I stuck out my hand, and she smiled again.

“I know. The gossip in this place is quicker than any news channel around.”

I laughed then. “Yeah, I can remember. Do I even want to know what they’re saying about me?”

“Well, from what I heard when I was getting coffee this morning, you mysteriously disappeared as a teenager, and once everyone was satisfied that you hadn’t been taken by aliens, they were fairly convinced you’d joined a secret government agency because apparently you were smart enough for that sort of thing.”

I was stunned into silence by that one. She couldn’t be serious. Honestly, a secret baby was the only sensible and obvious answer.

“Wow…that’s not at all what I was expecting.”

“No, but to be fair, that was the most outrageous one and my own personal favorite. The other was far more boring and that you’d got a scholarship to a better school in the city and gone to stay with your aunt. But boring! Am I right? I’m Emma, by the way.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Emma. I hate to disappoint, but there were no governmental agencies recruiting me as a spy.”

“Bummer. Well, I guess you can be boring like the rest of us if you really insist on it.” She laughed as she pulled a notepad out from beneath the counter and started taking notes on the arrangement I’d selected before writing down the funeral home details.

“I know I’d remember you from school, so I’m guessing you’re newish to Willowbrook.”

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