Page 40 of Find My Way Down to You

My only one, truthfully.

“Yeah,” I lie. “Of course.”

I’m staring at a pile of dirt.

Well, not just dirt.Soil.In a garden.

My mom has left her phone lying in one of her flower beds. She video called me “out of the blue.” A big part of me doesn’t believe that. I think Max had something to do with it. I’ve been doing exactly what I told her I wouldn’t: nothing.

Letting the day slowly, painfully drift away.

I study my phone screen. Ribbons of sunlight cascade through a domed glass roof. I imagine being there.

My mom’s greenhouse.

The comfortably warm air. My nose filled with the fragrant perfume of orchids and violets and stargazers. Lemons hanging from a tree in the corner. Dirt beneath my nails.

The greenhouse is a family heirloom. Passed down through generations on my mom’s side. I used to spend almost every day there, even though I’m not half the gardener Mom is.

Through my phone’s speaker, pebbles crunch under boots.

“Sorry!” Mom appears again. Thick curls hidden beneath a colorful headscarf. Deep brown skin drinking in afternoon light. Sweat dewy on her forehead. She smiles. “I had to check on my latest obsession.”

I give her a small grin. “Which is?”

“Agapanthus praecox.”

“English, Mom. Please.”

She studied genetics and plant biology at UC Berkeley. Sometimes, she forgets the rest of us didn’t.

“African lilies,” Mom clarifies. She wipes her brow.

“Sounds pretty.”

“They are.”

Mom walks around the greenhouse. I can see all the new blooms she’s planted. Her delicate touch in every petal and leaf. She was the same way when it came to me. Careful when I was sick or when she wiped my tears after a bad day at school.

But I’m not that August anymore.

She knows that. I can see it in her expression when she looks at me.

“Are you gonna come by the house soon? To visit?”

I hesitate. In the corner of my screen, I stare at my face. The look in my eyes that says,I wish I couldandI miss youandI can’tall at once.

“Maybe,” I say through the thickness in my voice.

Mom nods, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me. “I have a box for you,” she says. “I’ll bring it by.”

In her background, the scenery shifts. She’s still strolling leisurely through the greenhouse. I don’t hear what she says next. My eyes home in on what’s behind her: a beautiful burst of tangerine petals.

Marigolds. London’s favorite.

My world tips. I remember his smile whenever I’d slip one behind his ear. The envy of the sun itself. He wanted his prom boutonniere made of them. He never got it.

Instead, my mom made a wreath of marigolds for his casket.