Page 10 of Sunshine & Sinful

I wait for her to finish her tasks before clapping my hands. “You get the mats. I’ll get the speaker. The last one to the greenhouse is a rotten egg.” I clap again, and off we go, racing through the house and gathering our items. Lily squeals in delight as she grabs the rolled mats from the laundry room and dashes out the backdoor just as I sprint into my bedroom, unplug the portable speaker from my nightstand, and follow her outside. Dancing along the concrete pavers I made from colorful, broken plates, rocks, and cement, I’m the last to leap through the greenhouse door Lily left open.

“You win,” I grouse good-naturedly as I set the speaker on a mosaic bistro table with two matching chairs. When it’s warm enough, I love spending hours out here tending to plants, reading a spooky novel, drinking tea, or just breathing. It’s Zen—my Zen.

Connecting my phone to the speaker and selecting a relaxing yoga playlist we often use, I leave it to Lily to choose where our yoga mats will fit along the pea-gravel-lined paths that weave like little streets through the glass-walled greenhouse.

I shut the door to keep the moist air in. Caring for plants is equal parts science, luck, and love. I try my best to keep the temperature and moisture levels within a range throughout the year to give my plants the best life possible. Almost everything here runs on carefully installed automation, apart from the actual planting and harvesting.

“Over here.” Lily waves from her spot beside the koi pond at the far end of the greenhouse.

Of course, she’d pick there.

Fred and Barney gulp food from the surface as I join Lily and sit cross-legged on my mat, or Sukahsana/Easy Pose, for my fellow yogis.

Lily finishes dropping a handful of koi food into the pond and claims her mat, facing me in the same position.

I offer her a black tie from my wrist to tie up her hair and keep the locks from falling into her face.

Lily smiles in gratitude and does her best to make a messy bun on her head, similar to mine. It flops to one side as baby hairs stick up all over, and I grin. She’s the cutest.

“Shall we begin?” I double-check.

Eager as always, Lily nods once, and her bun flops to the front, then back, smacking the top of her head.

Pressing my lips together, I stave off a laugh. “In for five.” I draw my hand up my belly, pushing it out as I audibly inhale for five. Mimicking me, Lily draws breath—in for five, hold for five, out for five.

Moving from one pose to the next, we breathe, falling deeper into ourselves, the calming music, becoming one with the universe, opening ourselves to its wonder, its flow.Lily is right there with me, embracing the connection, the calm, the strength.

When we finish, lying on our backs, breathing in corpse pose, the sun beaming through the glass ceiling panels, we exhale our final breath and release all the bad, all our fears, and all our pains into the ether. For the first time in days, I feel steady. I feel good. I feel myself.

Lily and I move in unison as we get up from the ground, roll up our mats, and set them against the base of the koi pond.

By the entrance, we don aprons, grab buckets (mine black, hers pink), slip on floral-printed gloves, and secure our tools. We work in tandem for a few short hours, clearing away dead leaves, loosening soil, and communing with nature as the calming music continues to play.

“How’s school?” I ask to initiate a conversation. I know the deeper issues are floating below the surface, but I won’t wrestle anything out of her. That accomplishes nothing. When Lily wants to open up, she will.

She crumbles a handful of dead leaves in her palm and watches them cascade from her fist into the bucket. “Dad came home last night with Pops.”

“That’s nice.” I don’t tell her I already knew that because she’d ask questions, and I won’t tell her what happened last night.

She bobs her head slowly. “Mom stopped crying.”

My stomach clenches, hating that she noticed, hating that she has to deal with any of this in the first place. Adult matters interfering with kid life always bothers me. It bothered me when my sons were going through with it when Dark returned with Abby, just as much as it bothersme now with Lily. “Did Dad bring you home anything good?” I ask instead, knowing Dark rarely returns without a gift for his girls.

Staring at the flower beds, Lily shrugs up a shoulder and drops it hard. “I… guess.”

I wait for her to tell me what he brought, but she says nothing and continues to stuff dead leaves into her bucket.

Hating to see her sad, I move on to something happier. “Todd’s taking me to a later dinner tonight,” I announce. I’d made the plans with him earlier in the week. Fridays are girls’ time, so I always plan boyfriend time after, when it’s closer to Lily’s bedtime. It’s an hour or two past regular dinner hours, but Todd never seems to mind.

This information perks the nosy girl right up. She sits on the ledge of a raised planter box and stares at me as if she’s waiting for me to give her all the exciting details. Unlike everyone else I associate with, Lily actually likes Todd. He brings her flowers when he brings me flowers. He brings her new toothbrushes when he brings me new toothbrushes. He doesn’t have any kids, but Todd’s surprisingly good with children. He’s a dentist, so that must be part of the job description—be nice to everyone, which checks out because Todd is a bona fide golden retriever.

“Where’s he taking you?” Lily asks, sweeping a mess of dark, sweaty hair from her forehead. She blows at it as if that’ll somehow keep it from sticking. Then, she frowns and throws off her gloves to deal with the issue.

I chuckle, and she rolls her eyes, getting more frustrated by the second when her elastic band won’t come loose. Having sympathy for the kiddo, I throw my glovesin the dirt beside hers and round the flowerbed. I push her hands away from her hair and untangle the band from the nest she’s created.

Lily hisses in pain, but I do my best not to pull too hard. “He’s taking me to some fancy place a few towns over,” I explain, trying to distract Lily long enough to get the pain-in-the-ass tie from her locks. Holy Mother Earth, how did she get this twisted in such a short time?

My companion huffs a frustrated breath. “Kali,” she whines as I carefully pull strands from the band.

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