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“I am,” I agreed, feeling a little on the spot.
“The one Mike is shacked up with.” This was said by one cousin to the other, as if explaining the situation.
The other cousin nodded enthusiastically, as if this was the most interesting revelation ever to come his way.
The first one said, “Your sister is Amberlynn, right? High school teacher?”
Now I felt slightly defensive. “She is,” I confirmed, wondering what they wanted with my little sister. She might be a pain, but I was in the habit of looking out for her nonetheless.
“She may or may not have broken into our apartment,” the speaking cousin told me. I wanted to tell them there was zero chance my upstanding little sister would break and enter. But Amberlynn had gotten pretty invested in the feud. I actually didn’t doubt she would if she could.
“Yeah,” he went on. “And she may or may not have unleashed some kind of perfume bomb in there.”
The scent suddenly made sense. I wanted to smack my sister. She was perpetuating this insanity. With a bulk buy from Bath and Bodyworks, no less. “I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” the cousin said, agreeing in general, I guessed.
“I’ll have a word with her,” I promised them. “For the record, I think you smell nice,” I added.
“Screw you, Tanner,” the one that hadn’t spoken yet said. He would now be characterized in my head as the mean one.
“Nice,” I said, starting to feel annoyed at these rednecks. “Is Michael here?”
“No,” they said together, and it was clear they were not going to tell me anything more.
“Fine,” I said. “Bye.”
They did not respond, but I could feel their angry glares on my back as I left the store.
I spent the rest of the day in the side yard at the house, pulling weeds and digging out roots where I could find them. I wanted to rescue the rose garden, an idea I’d gotten from the photos we’d found. There had been a woman in a long white dress holding a parasol over her head to shade her from the sun. At her feet were at least twenty blooming rose bushes, forming a beautiful backdrop to the imposing structure of the house. I didn’t know much about gardening—it wasn’t much of a city pursuit—but I remembered a bit from the time I’d spent weeding with Mom as a kid.
I dug and pulled and sweated most of the afternoon away, and when I was close to finishing up, I was rewarded when I found two rose bushes still holding fast in the damp soil. They’d been overgrown and hidden in vines, but they were still there, and I thought maybe there was enough of them left to thrive.
Something about seeing them still there, still fighting for sun and air, gave me hope. We can all come back from hardship. And even if we think our lives might be one way, it might turn out they’ll be even better if we just hang on and open ourselves to alternatives.
“What are you up to out here?” A familiar voice came across the lawn, and my stomach gave a little jump. Michael.
“Just trying to clear out some of the weeds out here,” I told him.
“It’s looking good,” he said, striding across the lawn and coming to stand next to where I was kneeling.
I stood, letting out an accidental groan like a much older woman, and wiping my dirty palms over my jeans. “I’ve been crouching all day long,” I said, stretching.
“You got a lot done,” he said. “Did you go inside? How are the floors?”
I’d dropped my things in the kitchen, and then had spent the rest of the day outside. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that I was still scared to be in the house alone, but that was the truth of it.
“Well, if you’re almost done out here, I brought dinner and a bottle of wine to celebrate a major milestone accomplished.”
I raised an eyebrow. “That sounds good,” I said. It also sounded kind of like a date, but as I considered pointing that out or protesting, I realized the idea actually made me feel warm and giddy. I closed my mouth and smiled. “I might need to clean up a bit before I’m ready for dinner though.”
“No rush,” Michael said. “By the way, the guys told me you stopped by the store today.”
“Oh, yeah. I needed the tools.” I wasn’t sure if I should mention that they’d told me to screw off.
“I apologize for whatever stupidity came out of them.”
“It’s fine,” I said as we walked together toward the back door of the house.
