Page 6 of Forget Me Knot

“Hello, Owen,” I murmur, rubbing my temples. “Don’t say bro. You sound like a teenager.”

“Ohhhhhh.” He releases a knowing sigh, and it frazzles my nerves more. “Hello, Jack. How’s it goin’?”

“Fine.”

“Clearly.” There’s a pause, like Owen doesn’t quite know what to say, which is fine, because it’s finally quiet in my head, and I realize the music next door has blessedly stopped for now, too. “Headache?”

“Yup.”

“Sorry, Jack. Need anything?”

“Nope.” I brush my fingers over the top of a few carnations before I add them to Mr. Cotten’s bouquet. “You playin’ today?”

My little brother plays minor league baseball for the Honey Hill Badgers. Spring training should be starting about now which means I’ll be seeing less of him, and these morning phone calls will taper off in relation to his schedule. Even though, in so many ways, I wish we didn’t have these little chats, I know I’ll miss them.

Winnie, our baby sister, will likely be the one to take over the morning phone calls in his stead, and I’ll have to be much more careful with her than I am with him. With Owen I don’t have to pretend. He may not like me very much, but he never asks me to be anyone but myself.

“Nah, practice starts tomorrow,” Owen answers. “I’m meetin’ Winnie, Mama, and Pop at the shop and headin’ to lunch. Thought you might wanna come with.”

When I stay quiet, finally feeling as if my headache might be easing, Owen takes it as an invitation to keep trying.

“I can pick you up on my way. I might swing by and see Brooke anyways.” Brooke, his longtime best friend, who’s about as peaceful as a cyclone ripping through an antique store. “So I’ll be downtown anyway. She got a job at the salon, and it’d be no trouble—”

I clear my throat, but don’t answer. He knows how I feel about this topic. About the family’s need to include me when they don’t want to. When I’m like… this.

“It’s alright, bro—I mean, Jack,” he quickly corrects. I imagine the ridiculous way his face slackens when he’s bummed out, and I feel a familiar guilt press up against my sternum. “Maybe tomorrow, right?” There’s little hope in his tone.

“Sure.”

I pick a light pink, velvet ribbon that reminds me of a distant memory I can’t quite place. After wrapping the carnations, eucalyptus, and baby’s breath in brown craft paper then reinforcing it with the small ribbon, the faint sounds of music play again on the other side of the wall.

“Okay, then.” Owen’s voice nearly makes me jump. I’d forgotten we were still on the phone, but somehow the clipped conversation managed to settle me in a way the calming words hadn’t. “I’ll let ya go, alright?”

I hum in agreement.

“Wait. Before you go, did you get the notes?”

“Yes, Owen. I got the notes.”

He sighs again, a sound I’ve grown used to over the last year—and one that grates me more than I want to admit. I hate that our relationship looks and sounds like this now. I just don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know what more I can do, but I won’t have my little brother losing sight of himself or his dreams for something he has no control over.

“‘Kay,” he says quietly. “Love you, Jack. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Hopefully when you’re you again, is what he doesn’t say.

“Love you.”

I end the call before he can say anything more.

My morning continues as usual. Crafting in the quiet usually helps. Though when I manage to drown out the noise of my new neighbor with headphones, my own clanging thoughts won't give me a moment of reprieve. This is the way things always seem to go. Every morning Owen calls, or my mom or dad, andon rare occasions, Winnie. I spend the rest of the day analyzing the way I spoke to them. My clipped words. My refusal to engage. Knowing they prefer a specific version of me, and I am not it.

A couple flower hand-offs make me feel productive in a way that I lack when I’m not here, working with purpose. Mr. Cotten, who buys his wife the same bouquet once a week, is first. He always rambles on for a while, discussing the intricacies ofcourtin’ a womanproperly. There’s quite a bit to be said for someone who’s been married for thirty years. And who am I to argue with him? But he’s a textbook oversharer.

I could know far less about how Mrs. Cotten likes her morning coffee—hand-delivered while still in her nightgown. Or her daily calf rub—lathered up with vanilla-scented lotion and spa socks covering her feet. No matter how many times I ask—politely, mind you—for him to stop, good ol’ Mr. Cotten just won’t take the hint.

After an exposition onnecking in marriage, I kindly kick the old man out of my store before he paints a more repulsive picture than he already has. Then I prep and hand over a couple simple arrangements to my delivery guy, a teenager who lives in Sugartree but works here for a business class two days a week. I miss delivering them on my own, but am glad to have found someone who seems genuinely appreciative of the low paying job.

Everything goes smoothly, and I’m feeling almost normal by noon. So when Charlie trots into the shop, right on schedule, I know I’ll regret taking off my headphones but do so anyway.

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