Page 11 of Bloom

“Very handsome,” Aldo continues, and I swallow a groan. “Smart. A good boy. His mother raised him well.”

My eyes narrow. “Good to know.”

So do his. “He's single.”

A scoffed laugh escapes me as I climb behind the wheel. “Bye, Aldo.”

“Think about it, Lina!” He stoops, forearms propped against my open window as his eyes twinkle like a freaking cartoon character’s. “We could be family.”

Scratching my chin, I pretend to think. “You know what, on second thought, I'm really busy next week.”

Undeterred, Aldo flicks my scrunched nose. “He’s here for the whole summer.”

Ignoring his sung words—and the pit of dread they ignite in my belly—I start the engine, only barely waiting for him to step back before speeding into the distance, far, far away from him and his attempted matchmaking.

In the back of my mind, I make a note to Google if there’s something scientific behind graveyards always feeling a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of the world.

Being early summer in Northern California, there shouldn’t be goosebumps pebbling my bare arms, no reason behind the oddly chilly wind nipping at my skin. Maybe it's just in my head. It probably is. I never liked graveyards. Not that anyone likes graveyards, but I've always harbored a special abhorrence, and it has everything to do with the abundance of dead flowers truly hurting my soul.

That’s why I make sure the flowers I leave on my mom’s grave never sit around long enough to even wilt.

“Hi, Mom.” Brushing my fingertips against the cold granite of her gravestone, I bend down to replace the lilies I left earlier this week with the daisies from this morning. “Gerberas. Pretty, right?”

I don’t usually visit twice a week, but I like coming here when I have a bad day. It’s ironic, I know, that a place that gives me the heebie-jeebies has a weird knack for making me feel better. I guess I just like talking to someone who can’t tire of the sound of my voice. Who wouldn’t, even if she could actually hear it. Who loved me and didn’t leave on purpose.

Sometimes, though, it only makes me more sad because it reminds me that she doesn’t exist anymore. That she hasn’t for a while. That my mother can’t hear my voice, and I can’t quite remember the sound of hers.

I shake that somber feeling off. She wouldn't want me to be all sad and weepy. She was a decidedly not-sad-and-weepy person, from what I can remember. Every memory I have of her, she's smiling. Laughing. Encouraging everyone around her to smile and laugh too, and they did because she was just that infectious. I picture her doing just that as I relay the happenings of my life, picturing a blonde woman with the same brown eyes as me in place of a slab of granite.

“I moved out,” I quietly admit when I run out of good things to say—not that there were much of those to begin with. “I know you would've wanted us to stay together but I couldn't anymore. I think you'd understand, if you were here.”

Except if she was here, she wouldn’t have to understand. Everything would be fine.

“I'm sorry I let him get so bad. I tried—” I cut myself off. I'm not sure what I tried to do. To get him to stop drinking? To notbe so aggravating of a presence, he had to drink to be around me?

“Anyway.” I swipe underneath my eyes, frustrated when the pads of my thumbs come away wet. Getting to my feet, I pat the gravestone once more. “I'll see you next week. Love you, Mom.”

I don’t head for the parking lot right away. I have one more stop to make, and I weave through the sea of headstones until I find the one I’m looking for. A simple slab of marble, only inscribed with a name and two dates. Noloving motherordevoted wife—probably because neither apply to her. Nothing more than ‘Ayana Higa,’ the date she was born, and the date she died.

Fishing out the five daisies I saved from the main bunch and secured together with twine, I crouch and set the small bouquet on the otherwise barren grave as if I have any right to be here. “You have a grandson,” I say quietly, trying to imagine the woman I've only ever seen in photos.Photo, actually. Singular. The one that used to sit on the kitchen windowsill before a photo from Jackson’s graduation replaced it. “A beautiful grandson from a beautiful daughter that you very much don't deserve.”

“Caroline?”

Scrambling upright so fast I almost fall on my ass, I spin around, my brow furrowing when I find the last person I expected—or one of them, at least. “Lottie?”

Charlotte Jackson scowls something fierce, her ire a perfect match to the flaming red hair fashioned in two deceptively sweet braided pigtails. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Pretending I’m not intimidated to the point of fear by a nineteen-year-old, I gesture vaguely in the direction of my mom’s grave. “Visiting.”

Lottie huffs. Light brown eyes flick to the gravestone that definitely does not belong tomydeceased mother. When theyreturn to me, they darken with enough blatant hatred to make a girl nauseous. “Did you do that?”

I nod timidly.

“Jesus Christ, Caroline.” Shouldering me aside, she stomps on the flowers, and I get the distinct feeling she wishes I was being crushed beneath the sole of her intimidatingly thick platform boot. “You just can’t leave us alone, can you?”

“I—”

“You’re pathetic,” she interrupts, nothing but malice in her tone. “And creepy. Get your own fucking family and stay away from mine.”

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