Chapter twenty-nine

Poppy

I hadn’t seen Theo since he left Everly’s office a week ago. I’d kept my phone glued to my hand that first night, waiting for him to text or call. Crickets. I felt like an idiot for thinking a few decorative touches and a set of dishes would convince him he couldn’t live without me.

When class rolled around on Thursday, I spent the evening icing hearts and flowers for the cookie bouquets. We had so many orders, I had to teach Rowan a few basic piping techniques, so she could help me while the cookies baked. I’d started getting up early to help her mix all the dough we’d need for the day. Little by little, we were learning to limp along at each other’s jobs.

Mom breezed in and out of the house at random hours to catch sleep in tiny increments. As much as it sucked to make all this Valentine’s Day crap with a broken heart, at least Mom was too busy to fuss over me, a role she’d apparently delegated to my siblings, who’d hugged me more in the last week than the last year.

Construction on the new space had ramped up with Aiden stopping by the house with daily updates. Though, I suspected his reports were a handy excuse to check on me.

“I put the sink in today,”

he said, leaning against the prep table where I was icing a dozen flowers assembly-line style.

“How?”

Rowan asked as she slid another baking sheet into the oven. “I thought we were going to Jericho next week to pick it out.”

“Utility sink for the studio,”

he said, reaching for a cookie.

My hand stilled. His fingers hovered over the cookie while he watched me. Usually, I defended my work like a ninja, smacking hands left and right whenever Chris or Aiden or even Mom tried to sneak a sample, but I just didn’t have it in me.

Aiden pulled his hand back and grabbed a paper towel instead. He twisted it for a few moments before he spoke again. “Theo asked me to install it. He thought maybe you’re avoiding the studio because you had to come inside to clean up.”

I gave him my best bitch face and he sighed.

“Yeah, I figured,”

he said. “But just so you know, there’s a working sink, and he keeps the kitchen door shut. You could go in the sliding door and work without seeing him.”

The problem was, I wanted to see him. I was just afraid of how I’d react when I finally did. It was fifty-fifty whether I’d scream at him or fall to a sobbing mess at his feet. Neither one felt like a dignified option, so for now, I was letting his absence fuel mine.

“That was very thoughtful of Theo,”

Rowan said, coming to stand beside us. “And of you, Aiden, for getting it done so quickly.”

Aiden shrugged. “I’m over there every day anyway to check on him.”

I pressed my lips together to keep myself from asking how Theo was holding up. The thought of him alone in that house twisted my stomach.

“Would you like a slice of caramel apple cake?”

Rowan asked Aiden. “It’s a new recipe, and I’d love your honest opinion.”

It wasn’t lost on me that Rowan didn’t ask how Theo was doing either. I’m sure she got regular updates from Cal, but being the excellent sister she was, she didn’t force the information on me.

Aiden picked up Rowan’s not-so-subtle hint to back away from the Theo talk and smiled at her. “I’ll take it to go if you don’t mind. I got a couple more stops to make before I head home.”

“Of course,”

Rowan said, slicing him a huge hunk of cake and placing it in a bakery box. “Let me know what you think.”

The conversation reminded me of Rowan’s attempts at baklava, which of course made me think of how sexy Theo looked eating it. I pushed back from the table, intent on getting upstairs before I started bawling like a baby, but Aiden put his calloused hand on my arm. “Go to the studio, Poppy. Please.”

He let go of me and I ran, shoving Chris aside on the staircase, so I could get to my room before the first tear escaped. I sat on my bed, waiting, ready to bury my face in my pillow to muffle any embarrassing sobs, but my eyes stayed dry. I still felt like crying, but for whatever reason I couldn’t get it out. I stared at the door until it opened and Chris slinked in.

“I thought maybe I could walk you over to the studio, Pop,”

he said, shuffling his feet.

Great. Clearly, Aiden had enlisted my little brother to get his way. But why? Pretty sure Theo wouldn’t be popping in to say hi if I went there to work. I raised my eyebrows at Chris.

“Don’t let him take your art,”

he said, holding out his hand to me. “I promise you’ll have your own space soon if I have to build it myself, but for now, all you have is Theo’s.”

That should have gotten the tears flowing. Maybe I’d finally gone dead inside, my interior as bleak as my wardrobe. Or maybe I really did need to work some shit out in the studio. Nothing made me feel more alive than sculpting, and that lump of clay I was battling in early January hadn’t been touched since.

“You planning to stay with me the whole time?”

I asked, trying my best to sound annoyed even though I wanted to beg him not to leave me alone at Theo’s.

“Yep,”

he said. “I need to take another practice SAT. I’m good for a few hours.”

“You know I don’t like anyone watching me work.”

“Which is why my nose will be buried in my laptop. It will keep me focused. Maybe I’ll even give you my phone.”

“Wow, your other practice scores must be awful.”

He smirked, which meant his scores were stellar. I doubt he even needed another practice test, but I crossed to my dresser and yanked out one of my dad’s old, oversized shirts that I liked to wear when I worked. “Let’s go,”

I said, tossing the shirt on over my clothes.

Chris chattered about school, how much he missed football season, and the SATs as we walked to Theo’s house. I’d been so busy with baked goods and self-doubt, it’d been a while since I’d checked in with my little brother. Even though I knew he was trying to distract me so I didn’t bolt home, I appreciated hearing about his life. Everyone had been treating me like spun glass, so listening to someone complain about vocabulary-in-context questions and Shakespeare felt amazing.

We cut across Twill’s backyard into Theo’s. Several lights were on in the house, including the studio lights. Through the bare windows, I saw the room was empty and the door to the kitchen was closed. I unlocked the slider with my key and motioned for Chris to go in ahead of me.

Everything looked exactly as I’d left it, except for a deep stainless-steel sink in the corner and a wooden chair, which I’m pretty sure came from Cal’s house, placed in front of the closed kitchen door. I wondered if that subtle gesture was Cal’s idea or Theo’s.

Chris lowered himself into the chair, which gave an ominous creak, and started pulling crap from his backpack. I yanked the long-neglected clay from the sealed bucket and began rolling it in my hands. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Nothing.

“What’s this?”

Chris asked behind me.

I spun to find him peering under the drop cloth that hid my failed sculpture from last fall.

“Stop that,”

I said, tossing the clay on the table and smacking his hand. “You know I don’t like y’all to see anything until it’s done. Besides, that piece didn’t work.”

“Why not?”

Chris asked, putting his hand on my forehead to hold me off as he ripped away the cloth. It was embarrassing how easily he held me back. I used to change his diaper for crying out loud.

“It just didn’t,”

I said, stepping out of his reach and crossing my arms over my chest.

He tilted his head. “What was it?”

I sighed. Now that he’d seen it, I might as well talk about it. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed talking about art. Theo had always been the best sounding board for ideas and the inevitable problems that came with each piece.

“It was supposed to be our family but as a tree.”

Chris squinted. “I see it. But it’s a little confusing with the pieces wound together. Maybe we should be the roots to your tree.”

I smiled at him. If I were a tree, he, Rowan, and my parents would be the roots, but that wasn’t the point of the piece. I’d sculpted a tree with separate trunks, twisting together to grow.

“Plus, you left out Dad,”

he said, matter-of-factly, before walking back to his chair.

“I did not,”

I said, walking around the piece. Much of my work examined the grief of losing my father. I’d been old enough to remember him, unlike Chris, but young enough that his death left a gaping hole in my childhood. There were no holes in this family tree and only four trunks.

“I did leave him out,”

I said, quietly.

“You should have left mom out too,”

he said, typing on his laptop. “Or put her in the roots with Dad.”

I could see it. A tree with two roots and three entwined trunks.

“But honestly, it’s a little creepy,”

he said, still pretending to study. “I mean, I love you and all, Pop, but the whole twisted together part is gross.”

“Yet another reason why it failed, I guess,”

I said, covering the piece again. I must have felt the mistakes without being able to articulate them.

“Yeah,”

he said, “It’s too sexual.”

“Ew, Chris,”

I said, walking back to the worktable. “Don’t ever say that word in front of me again.”

He shrugged. “It could work for a wedding gift for Rowan and Cal if you trim it down to two trunks with separate roots.”

“I don’t want to think about Rowan and Cal’s sex life either,”

I said, rolling the clay in my hands again.

My fingers started to work and before I knew it, I’d created a rough version of what Chris had described, except the two trees had split in half before twinning together. Two fragile pieces finding strength in each other. I could leave the broken parts bare and add leaves to the sections of the trees that supported each other.

I grabbed a sheet of drawing paper and started sketching the image in my mind. I’m not sure how long I worked before I sat back and stared at the page. At some point, the trees had morphed into actual people, their shadows images of the damage they’d left behind to be together.

“That’s incredible,”

Chris said over my shoulder. “But that’s not Cal.”

“I know,”

I said. “It’s Theo.”

“You have to make that, Pop. I’ll bring a sleeping bag and camp out here if you need me.”

“I know you would, but I want to do this on my own. Plus, if Theo was going to come out here, he would have by now. You can head home.”

“Great, because that chair is really uncomfortable.”

Chris pulled me into a hug before he slipped out the sliding door. Just because I wasn’t ready to see Theo, didn’t mean I couldn’t show him how I felt. It’d be tight, but if I skipped a ton of sleep and the handmade cards I’d planned, I might be able to finish a clay model and ice all those damn hearts-and-flowers cookies before Valentine’s Day.