Page 112 of Made for Mayhem

I laughed and started splitting stems with my thumbnail. “Flower crowns. My Aunt Maggie taught your mom and me when we were kids.”

Junie scooted closer, sandwich forgotten. I showed her how to thread the stems, how to tuck the blooms so they wouldn’t flop. Her tongue poked out in concentration, the same way Violet’s used to.

Ten minutes later Junie had a lopsided halo of yellow and white; mine looked only marginally better.

“This is cool,” she declared, plopping hers on my head. “Did you know dandelions are one of the first things to grow back after a fire?”

The soft chuckle that left me felt real, and so, so good. I set my crown on Junie’s head, and she grinned back at me. “I didn’t.”

After we finished our sandwiches, I dusted off my overalls and grabbed the two terracotta pots I’d picked up from the hardware store last week. “Next project. Each summer, Aunt Maggie insisted we paint her a new flower pot, so let’s keep the tradition alive.”

Junie tilted her head. “We have paints inside that would work. Mom let me pick the colors when we painted pots last summer. I can go get them.”

I hesitated. Junie hadn’t stepped foot inside Violet’s house since I arrived. Every time we’d been outside, she seemed to ignore Violet’s house altogether. I’d respected the boundary—because boy, did I understand—tiptoeing around it the way you’d skirt a sleeping bear.

But she was already standing, brushing crumbs from her shorts. “They’re in the art cabinet in the living room.”

I scooped up Piggie Smalls and followed, pulse thudding in my ears. The front door creaked the same as always, but inside, the house had changed. It all still smelled like sawdust, but the water-damaged drywall had been replaced, the ancient wiring was fixed, and the remnants of the demolished kitchen cabinets were nowhere to be seen. It didn’t look like Violet’s house anymore; it looked like a house in the middle of becoming something else.

Junie paused in the doorway, one hand on the frame. Her gaze swept the space, careful and quick—everywhere except the closed bedroom door to her right. Rowdy hovered right beside her, her constant companion.

“It looks good,” she said. Then she marched to the corner cabinet, yanked it open, and pulled out a plastic bin of paints. “The mildew smell is gone.”

I let out a slow breath.

We hauled the supplies back outside, then returned to our picnic blanket where Piggie sprawled out to bake in the sun. Junie unscrewed caps with surgical precision, lining brushes by size. I watched her squeeze paint onto a paper plate, the blue bright as the river.

“Mom and I painted the birdhouse this color,” she said, not looking up. “She said it matched the sky.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Tell me about the birdhouse.”

Junie’s brush moved in careful strokes. “It was three years ago, right after you moved to Chicago. We got up every morning to watch out the window, waiting for someone to move in. A chickadee showed up the next week, and Mom bought me a nature journal so I could mark which days we saw it.” She paused, then added softer, “Mom said chickadees are brave because they stay all winter. She stayed all winter too, even when the chemo made her throw up in the snow.”

My eyes stung. I focused on a wavy line of whatever color gold she said mine was, settling for perfectly imperfect.

Junie kept talking, words spilling easy as the river. “Last winter we made glow-in-the-dark slime, and when the house was too cold, she put it in the microwave. It exploded, and the microwave glowed for days.”

I snorted, picturing my sister in that chaos. Junie’s mouth curved—almost a smile.

“She snorted when she laughed too, just like you do.”

“Yes, she did.”

She tilted her head, studying me. “Does it make you sad when I talk about her?”

The question was clinical, the way she always sought facts, but the words themselves felt like a slap to the chest.

“No, cutie. I love it. I missed too many stories.” My voice wobbled, but I didn’t hide it. “Sometimes I get emotional because I’m happy you had her, and because I wish I’d been here for the slime explosion. Was it gross?”

Junie nodded. “It was everywhere. We didn’t make slime again after that.”

I chuckled, drawing another little wavy line in a pattern on my pot. “I can’t say I blame you.”

“Your mom died when you were my age too, right?”

I blinked back tears, then let them fall instead, showing Junie that sadness was okay too. “Yeah. I was really sad, but I had my sister to make it better.”

“Just like I have you.”