Page 51 of Lily In The Valley
The service unfolded like a play I already knew the ending to. Readings. Speeches. The choir began again. More crying. Then the preacher stood up and said something about my mother’s strength. Her laughter. Her legacy. All I could think was,everybody dies eventually. That was all this was. A slow-motion rehearsal we all had to do. For the past ten years of my life, I’d been trained to break the same news to other families. Families couldn’t get past the inevitable emptiness.
Everybody dies eventually.
So, I didn’t cry.
Not when they rolled her casket out.
Not when they buried her.
Not when people clutched after me like I was the last piece of her left.
Not once.
Everyone else did. Vanessa sobbed so hard, her entire body shook. Xavier wiped his eyes behind his sunglasses. My father fell apart the second they rolled Mama’s casket past the first pew and down the aisle. He would’ve been on the floor had it not been for Uncle Doug and Uncle Trent holding him up. Aunt Viv dabbed her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief like her soul had cracked. She and Lisa held my hands as we marched behind my father.
But me?
I moved through it like a ghost. At some point, Lisa tapped me on the shoulder and led me to the upstairs hallway. Aunt Viv was there, too. We were tucked away from the loudness of people sharing stories of my mother, different versions of a woman that never really was. A woman I never knew. Bonding over plates of baked chicken, green beans, seasoned rice, and Sock-It-To-Me cake. Drunk off church punch and memories too sweet to be true.
I smiled. I nodded.
But I didn’tfeelanything.
Looking at my mother’s best friends, they held something small between them. A folded envelope with my name on it.
“She wrote this when you were a little girl,” Vivian said. “We all wrote one to give to our children on their wedding day.”
“That’s the day we made a pact,” Lisa added. “If anything ever happened to one of us…the others would step in.”
I took the envelope but didn’t open it. What good were words on a paper when the person writing it would never say it with their voice?
“Thank you,” I whispered. They nodded. Each kissed my cheek. I escaped to my bedroom after they left me on the upstairs landing. Sitting at the desk, staring at the now wilting lily, I tucked the letter into the desk drawer.
Hours later, I was finally free to head home. My home. My space. My things. Everything in order just as I needed it to be. It was getting dark, and the sky had a sick, orange glow, like it was trying to lie and say it wouldn’t rain. Khalil followed me with a truck full of floral arrangements my father insisted I keep at my house. He claimed he had a black thumb and they’d die within the next few days. As if I weren’t leaving the state in a matter of days. Said he couldn’t stand to see anymore death for a while.
I stood in the kitchen, watching Khalil bring in plant after plant. At this point, I had enough to open my own flower shop.
“Last one,” he said, placing a peace lily arrangement on the counter.
The moment I saw it, my stomach dropped. My grandmother used to keep them on hand in her flower shop. Said they were good for the soul. Said they absorbed negative energy. Said they bloomed best in quiet corners. Khalil topped off the plant with a bit of water, then took me in his arms.
“You okay?”
I turned and looked at him. “No,” I muttered into his chest. “But I don’t want to feel sad tonight.” He opened his mouth, then closed it. “I want a drink. Take me somewhere. I want to celebrate her life, not sit with all these flowers bringing nothing but sadness.”
He hesitated. I could see the thoughts forming behind his eyes. “Kelly–”
“I’m serious, Khalil. Please. I don’t want to cry tonight.”
I rounded my eyes and pouted my lips, knowing he wouldn’t be able to refuse me. He didn’t argue, just nodded. And that was how you start forgetting your mother died. One drink at a time.
We ended up at our favorite taco spot. The kind of place where the liquor and food was cheap, the lights were low, and the DJ played sets with bass loud enough to forget your thoughts. Perfect. Inside, the air smelled like tequila and grilled onions. The bartender wiped the counter with a towel that probably wasn’t clean. An older woman in a rhinestone headwrap raised her glass at me from the end of the bar. I smiled politely. Khalil found us a corner booth. The seat squeaked when I slid in.
“What you want to drink?” he asked.
“Tequila. Straight.”
He gave me a look but didn’t argue. When he came back, he slid the glass across the table. The clear liquor trapped the colored LEDs of the DJ’s booth.
