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Eight
Bunny wanted nothing more than to collapse into bed that morning when the pair of them got back to her apartment. A couple nights of crazy antics at work had her feeling more than a little worn around the edges, but there was something she needed to do before getting some shuteye. She left Death to get settled on the couch and closed her bedroom door behind herself, leaving the lights off and the drapes closed.
The flare from the match mesmerized her as she lit the candle on her dresser. Her reflection stared back at her through the mirror, bathed in the rosy glow of the candle. Her skin looked better in this light, making it easier to imagine a much younger woman facing this dilemma instead of one who was over fifty and sick of everyone’s shit.
She closed her eyes and exhaled, focusing on feeling her breath slipping from her body. It was a simple exercise, but one that did wonders for quieting her mind. Bunny had learned lots of different coping mechanisms in the ER; using little tricks to keep her head in the game had been super important on long nights and double—or triple—shifts.
These days she used them to ready herself to slip into the Between. She was getting quite good at it, too. Just one or two breathing sequences was usually enough to help her slip into that liminal space between the human realm and every other realm surrounding it. But tonight, she just needed to clear her mind. She needed to find a way forward through this mess, and she wasn’t going to get there by trying to comb through the snagged thoughts in her mind without prepping them first.
Bunny inhaled the soft fragrance of her lavender candle, letting it remind her of the way her mom had smelled. Connie had favored lavender laundry detergent. The memory made her smile, and she let her shoulders sag a little farther away from her ears. She didn’t realize how much tension she had been carrying. Another breath helped her relax a little more, as she started to wonder about her mom.
How had she managed to do everything? Being a midwife was no easy task. While Bunny’d never worked specifically in obstetrics, she knew the kinds of challenges those teams faced on an hourly basis. Add into the mix a young family to raise, a husband in the military, and all the other fun stuff that came with running a household and it was an actual marvel.
Bunny couldn’t imagine how her mom had managed to also somehow be responsible for putting souls into play the whole world over. She’d always assumed her mom was happy with her local job and her small-town life, when in fact, Connie had been so much more than any of that. And now, Bunny knew, her fancy college degree and high-octane career as a nurse paled against the reality that life itself hinged on her being able to complete the same role she had unexpectedly inherited from her mom.
Suddenly a quiet life in Mosswood didn’t sound too terribly unappealing.
What a shocking revelation.
When it boiled down to it, there were three things about the human experience that were absolutes: life, death, and love. Everything else was just window dressing. There was immense power in the realization, and while it was nice to know she wasn’t as helpless as she’d been feeling of late, it still didn’t point her in the direction they needed to go.
Or did it?
Was her newfound respect for everything her mom had been and achieved just another layer of love she could smooth over Connie’s memory? Or was she being nudged to head back in the direction she had come from to begin with?
Bunny opened her eyes. This time, when she looked at her reflection, the woman looking back at her had an inkling of where to begin.
* * *
The crackly soundof the radio changing stations was a road trip playlist that Bunny could have lived without. It sprang from an old school country tune to something more upbeat, then through a few bars of jazz before a cheesy radio announcer’s voice said something about the weather and the station was changed again.
Death fiddled with the dial, enjoying the diverse range of radio frequencies that Middle of Nowhere, Georgia, had to offer.
Bunny? Not so much.
“Will you quit playing with that damn thing already?” she griped, glaring out of Morticia’s windshield at the countryside rolling by.
“Sorry,” Death muttered, only he didn’t sound very sorry at all as he pushed the dial button inwards to turn off the radio altogether.
“Mmhmm,” was all Bunny said in reply, but a little tension melted out of her shoulders after a few moments of silence. She settled back into the driver’s seat, letting the road carry them inevitably back to her hometown. Not that Death would remember ever visiting it before. She just hoped her hunch was right, and they found what they needed in the small community nestled up in the northwest corner of the state.
The thick pine trees of Needlepoint Woods climbed up the steep incline of The Ridge as Bunny navigated the lazy curve in the highway on the outskirts of town, and the unmistakable sense of being home overcame her. The thought of Mosswood being her actual home still didn’t sit well with her. She’d gotten out of the tiny town as soon as she’d been able, but the untimely death of her mom had brought her right back into the fold.
While at one point, Bunny would have considered any time spent in Mosswood a travesty, she had to admit being able to see her family was a nice bonus, even if it meant leaving Atlanta for a day or two. She let the familiar scenery seep into her, trying to absorb as much of it as she could. She wanted to see Mosswood the way her mother had; understand what it was about this place that had made Connie feel like she wanted to put down roots here.
Morticia the Chevy Bel Air hearse coasted past the vet clinic, the old Hayes sugar mill and Granny’s Diner before the highway morphed into Main Street. The lights were blazing inside the Go-Go Mart, the local convenience store. She craned her neck to see if Ben was working, but she couldn’t spot him.
Death noticed her attempt. “Who’re you looking for?”
“My brother Ben,” Bunny explained with a small jerk of her chin over her right shoulder as they continued down Main Street. “That’s his store.” She made a right at the town hall onto Lee Street.
“What does he sell?”
Bunny smirked, falling easily into a Mosswood-ism that was famous the town over. “Anything including the kitchen sink.”
Death frowned lightly. “Do people need a lot of those?”
“It’s just an expression,” she told him, her smile fading. Mosswood sure had a lot of those. Little insignificant sayings that didn’t mean a lot to anybody except people who lived there and knew the lay of the land. “We’re going to be staying at my dad’s house,” she said to fill the silence, before giving a slight shrug. “My old house, I guess you could say.”
