Pushing Up Daisy--A Preview by Nova Haggis (read ebook pdf .TXT) 📕

Feeling a presence near you while you’re sleeping is so unusually comforting. Our old sun coloured cat used to do this ritual every night where he would stand at my doorway, then slowly inch toward me as the night progressed, to finally end up right next to me, laying on my old mattress. If I got worried or scared, I would just search for his warm fur, and feel it on my fingertips. When mom left and took him with, that was the only thing I could think about. The little things. I mean, a volcano could erupt and cover all of North America in a volcanic winter killing half the population, but because I had a fluffy little ball of encouragement it felt like everything would totally be okay.

Even though I was aware no yellow cat would show up in the middle of the night to comfort me, tonight I searched for him anyways. Tonight I went into my dads room and sat where my mom would sit, her slanted glasses looking at me slyly as she was reading about different bridal flower arrangements, and told the air in her place I wanted a glass of water and needed someone to come with me. Tonight I presume the old, worn scent of musky perfume, various flowers, and cigarette smoke embodies her, and went to bed tugging at my fading image of her from my head. Tonight I need her, even though I haven’t for seven years. Tonight I close and bolt the always open book that is my life.

“Good morning, sunshine,” my dad quietly beams, hovering over me. He looks at me, with a slightly grim smile and red, puffy, bloodshot eyes.

“Dad-” I begin to say. He looks at me as if I offended him in some way.

“Im fine,” he states slightly irritated, then after a couple of moments, goes back to smiling.

I get up from my bed, and overlay my situation. There’s a yellow dress-or what used to be, after numerous cocktail parties, rainy days and smoke the colour faded from what used to be a perky yellow to a stained honey colour. I take of my t-shirt I wore to bed and slip into the dress, which is a little big, but I really don’t care. I put on some sandals I found lying around and walk out the bedroom door.

Dad was in the kitchen, smoking with the window open and flipping burnt pancakes. He looked over at me and the cigarette he was holding up with is tobacco stained teeth dropped to the ground. “You look so much-”

“Like her,” I finish for him. “I never knew you were so cliche, dad.”

I pick up the cigarette, put it out on his dismembered looking pancakes, and walk down the carpeted stairs to the florist shop.

The shop smells like wine, pollen and old rotting wood. Dad bought it when he was still with Myra-his first wife, and when she died he married my mom. I wonder if they have a term for being widowed twice?

I flip the sign on the door to show that we’re open, and sit at the stool behind the counter. I help people buy simple bouquet’s and singular flowers, and jot down the bigger orders for the new florist-Brittany. My mom would’ve handled all of this, but now that she’s dead, we had to make quick business hiring someone else. She had taken over moms job before, when she left for seven years with no explanation. I guess that's why I’m not broken down with grief. She was like a popsicle. It was so good and delicious and perfect when it was there, but it lasted too short for you to miss it. And I kinda hated her. She just seems so selfish to me. Don’t show up out of the blue and then go away for good, you know? Did she just want to hurt us?

“Hey, Mar- wow, you look like crap,” a voice said to me, entering the shop with a ding of the bell.

“Thanks,” I retaliate. “I’ve really got to try to look my best, as obviously that is top priority right now.”

“Mara Holly Baker, hasn’t anyone told you you won’t get very far in life with that sarcastic behavior?” he says, picking a daisy from a bouquet and putting it in my hair.

“That’ll be 24.99,” I say with gritted teeth, opening the cash register.

“Woah! For a flower? That’s crazy!”

“Alan Cerys Higgins, hasn’t anyone told you you won’t get very far with that prissy behavior?” I say.

He hands me five bucks and punches me in the arm light heartedly, when he notices the dress I’m wearing.

“Whoa Mars, what’s the occasion?”

“I don’t know, my mother’s cremation,” I say bluntly. People say I’m heartless, but it doesn’t help the situation if you treat everything like it’s taboo. She died, I know. I feel really bad about it. But it makes no sense to not say it upfront. Tear the band-aid off.

“Oh. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it mattered. You rarely saw her.”

“I know, but-gee I thought, you know, since I’ve been your friend for seven years, you’d tell me about something like that.” He sounds upset. I mean, we’re all upset-but he just went from being all perky and sarcastic to being cold and hurt.

“Well, there you go.”

“Thanks.” he says sarcastically, heading for the door.

“Well what am I supposed to do, Al? Apologize for not wailing into your arms about my mom?” I yell at him.

“Kind of!” he yells back, slamming the door, the little bell chiming loudly. I sit back down and take the daisy out of my brown hair and throw it at the door, only to find it stopping midway and unsatisfyingly fluttering to the ground.

I wanted to scream at him-not a rare feeling, I just don’t understand why someone could be so selfish.

I hear the stairs up to our house squeak and lean, and heavy footsteps following. It’s dad, shuffling down the old steps in a yellow button down, with white pants and dress shoes. She wanted us all to wear bright, yellow colours at her funeral, and even though  much of her family scoffed at the idea, a unanimous vote that included all her immediate family proved that it would be the dress code.

He looks down at my sandals with a disapproving glare. “Don’t you have dress shoes?”

“Yeah, they’re black though,” I say, knowing they aren’t. “Hey, dad, can Alan take me? He has his license.”

“Hon, why don’t you drive with me? I don’t think this is the time-”

“I need...some time. To myself, you know. And I know you have to be there earlier. It would really help my uh, grieving process if I just show up later,”

He looks at me with heartfelt eyes, on the verge of tears. “Okay,” he says in a quiet voice, then makes his way outside to the car.

I take a rose from the little stand of singular flowers, and put it near the door so I won’t forget it, and start walking up the stair to my room, to grab a hair band to put my hair up. I grab my phone and sweater, then go back down and out of the shop door, on my way to Alan’s house.

He lives in the apartments across the street from the shop, so all I have to do is walk down the busy street and cross to his building, a dreary sky-after-a-storm colour, and walk up to the door. I push it open, and sit in the lobby, pulling out my phone. My contacts list only has 3 people listed; “Dad”, “Mom”, and “Al”. I pressed Alan’s contact to call him, waiting irritatedly only to be met with ‘This is Alan. I dont really check these voicemails so don’t bother.’

I put my little flip phone in the pocket of my sweater, and curl up on the uncomfortable lobby chair. I didn’t know what I was doing-what was I doing? Alan has always been there for me, always dealt with my crap. I owe him an apology.

Publication Date: 03-25-2014

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
To Crete, and The Forum.