cinnamon and apples

She hadn’t even thought it was a real number. Apparently her grandparents had actually been properly loaded, and her parents didn’t touch much of that money. She assumed that they had planned to retire on all of it, but she was never going to be sure now. The pen sat heavy in her hand as she stared uncomprehendingly at the signature line in front of her. It meant she could actually keep the house, meant that she could take the time off from school, and would actually be alone in that big, empty house. 

The sun was shining just a little too bright in the office, and it was making everything else it touched a little too intense to look at for too long. This paper she was staring at was an incredibly bright white, and that carefully typed “signature” looked like it was suddenly too dark. Her heart was starting to beat a little too much, a little too quick. She could feel her whole body just a little too much and it was freaking her out. Signing this really meant that everything was hers now. The house, the money, the cars, everything. There were boxes of quilts that she would have to go through now, scores of pictures that she had no idea what she was going to do with, all just sitting in the attic, waiting for her. 

Her hand finally lowered and then stilled. One last signature and this part was all over. No more realtors trying to convince her to sell the place, no more lawyers calling about the messages they were getting from her aunt, no more people asking her to make big decisions every second of the day. No more looking at things her parents had written, had thought about so carefully and signed, no more sifting through documents in her dads office or recipe cards in the kitchen with her parents handwriting burning memories fully into her mind. It would all be done, for now. 

“Evs?” her hand automatically moved to finalize this whole ordeal. She immediately dropped the pen on the desk and stopped feeling her hands. 

“Sorry. Is there anything else I need to sign while I’m here?” Waylon shook his head. He pulled the will towards him and tucked it back into the locked drawer in his desk. He had been the only person to truly check on him since she got the call from the hospital. He had picked her up from the airport, and his mom had been at the house non stop to make sure she wasn’t alone in a real way those first few weeks. 

“Do you want an escort out to your car? We don’t have proper security, but the new paralegal looks properly intimidating.” 

She sighed and looked out the window at the parking lot. None of her family’s cars were in eyesight, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t hiding and waiting to ambush her the moment she stepped out of the building. There was a higher chance of one or all of them waiting at the house, however. Hopefully Jasper and Sawyer had convinced her to not make any moves for right now, but she couldn’t be sure. Her aunt Jess had already screamed in her face at the funeral and left so many messages threatening her that Evangeleine had blocked her number. 

“I can follow you home if that’s what you’re worried about. Your aunt was always the crazy one between the two of them.” She knew that her father’s death had also been hard on him, and she could feel the tears welling up in her chest as she exhaled shakily. Waylon’s father had been her dads best friend, and when he had died her dad had practically adopted him. She knew that look of sadness on his face wasn’t just a mirror or sympathy. He understood and felt the pain she seemed to be constantly in.  

“Honestly, I would appreciate it. Just make sure I actually make it into the house?” He nodded and stood up, motioning towards the door. She stood and followed the direction he was pointing – and immediately had no idea where to go. 

This had been something that she was getting a little too used to over the last month. She had been to places so many times and knew she knew how to get out or where she was going but she had these moments where it all looked like a labyrinth she had never encountered previously. Had she not been in Waylon’s office at least twice a week since coming home? Hadn’t she made the correct move confidently to leave the building every single time? Hadn’t she been through enough in the last few weeks? 

Evangeline felt a hand between her shoulder blades and heard him murmur “left and two rights” softly near her ear. She felt almost embarrassed that she needed direction to get out of this office, but also that she knew that there was a really high chance her aunt was waiting for her at the house. The heat of the midday texas sun hit her straight on as she exited the building and beelined for her jeep. 

“Oh good if I lose you, all I have to do is follow the sound of that old thing falling apart.” Her mouth tugged upward and turned to see Waylon with a small smile standing next to his shiny new truck. 

“I’ll get rid of this when Lissy tells me it’s dead.” She could hear his laugh from inside the car as she got in and turned it on. Evangeline knew that would probably be sooner rather than later, but there was no way she was getting rid of her dads jeep anytime soon. Waylon tucked himself into his truck and gestured for her to go first. 

“Just reverse and turn left, Evs.” she muttered to herself, “How many times have you done this? Just get home, you can fall apart there.” 

Thankfully her car remembered the way home. Her hands were still numb, but they turned the wheel just the right way, just the right amount of times to get to her parents house. Her house now. 

Blessedly, she had been wrong about her aunt waiting for her. Waylon’s car parked right in front of the house and she gave him a little wave as she walked up to the front door. Her hands shook as they put the key in the lock and turned with greater might than she was used to using to perform such a simple task. 

“I’ll call you later to check up on you, ok?” she heard him shout as the door swung open and she felt herself nod and wave at him as he drove off. 

The door was cool on her back as she slid onto the floor. 

Somehow, the house still smelled like the apples and cinnamon wall scents that her mom loved. She couldn’t figure out how the smell still lingered, especially since she had ripped them all out of the walls the first night she had come back. That familiar, comforting smell filled her lungs as she tried to slow her breathing. She tried to ignore the burning sensation from a cry caught in her chest, tried to will it away. She had already cried so much in the last day, let alone the last month. There were three tubes of used mascara in the bathroom upstairs to prove it, and she wasn’t going to blow through this new one as quickly, she had promised herself that at least. 

She felt herself release the death grip she had on her purse for some reason, and threw it across the room at the couch. There were too many things near her, too many shoes that weren’t hers on the mud pad, too many layers on her body, too many bracelets and rings, and everything was starting to feel like it weighed too much for her to bear any longer. 

Evangeline couldn’t stop the sobs from erupting from her chest. True pain ripped through her for what felt like the thousandth time as it started to settle in that her parents were well and truly gone. No longer would her mom be in the kitchen on Sundays cooking for a huge sunday dinner, no longer would she have to search for wherever her dad was working on a different project in the house. The only running shoes by the door would be hers, the only kind of coffee that would be brewed first thing in the morning would be hers, the only person who would need the laundry machine would be her. There wouldn’t be the annual argument about which 5k her parents were going to run, no more settling those arguments over card games, no more lectures from her mom about how she needed to find something to fill her soul. No more chess games with her dad in the evenings, and no more comparing morning run times at the dinner table. 

She could feel the tears continuing to fall, and she wanted to stop crying desperately but she couldn’t. Never in her life had she cried so much, felt the same kind of pain over and over every time she was left alone for more than five minutes. The past month had been a whirlwind of funeral planning and trying to make sure the last party her parents ever got was at least a decent one. There was no handbook on how to move on when your parents die before their time – she had looked. As she tried wiping the tears away, she thought about how she was going to have to replace all those wall scents her mom had loved so much. She suddenly felt the need to vomit. She knew she wouldn’t make it to the bathroom, so she ran to the kitchen and threw up in the trash can. 

Her knees hit the floor as she dry heaved and inhaled the smell of what she had eaten for breakfast that morning. How long was she expected to live without her parents? How could she live without those deeply kind, wonderful people who had raised her in this home filled with love and football and books? In what world was it fair for her to move on while the dirt near their headstones was still red? 

Evangeline laid flat on the ground and tried to even out her breathing. Her dad had always hated this tile and was excited to rip it out, but she had always loved how cold it was. It was tiny black and white checkered and when she needed to cool off on hot summer days it somehow was always freezing cold. It was the one major disagreement her parents had had about the kitchen remodel – her mom had loved how classic it was and had wanted to keep it. 

Years ago, when they first bought the house from her moms parents her dad had been helping her mom in the kitchen and had sliced his thumb open making sandwiches. They had had to take him to the hospital to stitch him up, and the blood from the accident had stained a few of the tiles red forever. She turned her head to see the offending pink stain on those tiles. She felt herself breathing until the shadows from the sun had disappeared in the kitchen and the stain on those tiles looked more red. 

There had been a knock at the door, but she couldn’t quite make herself move. If she moved, the tiles might clean themselves magically and become white. They weren’t allowed to, she had to remember knife safety. How was she expected to remember to be careful around knives if she couldn’t point to her dad’s blood stain? 

There was a hand on her shoulder, shaking and squeezing. A voice above her sounded slightly panicked. It sounded like it was saying her name over and over again. She blinked a few times until Waylon came fully into focus. 

“I thought I changed the locks.” he exhaled and pulled her up into an awkward, kneeling hug. 

“Jesus Christ, Evs. I called you ‘bout a dozen times and you didn’t answer so I came to make sure you were ok.” he pulled her fully off the ground and sat her in a chair at the kitchen table. She saw they still had the pink gingham cushions and thought that her mom would want her to change them to the summer green soon. 

“You did change the locks, you gave me a key. Remember?” He sounded worried. Looked it too, his eyebrows were too furrowed to be anything else. She reached for one of his hands and took it in hers. Her head was heavier than it had been earlier, and she saw that it really was dark outside now. 

“I need to sleep, I think.” her voice sounded hoarse, even to her. Waylon nodded and stayed right behind her as she walked upstairs to her room. 

“I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. I’m not fighting with you about it, and I’m going to make sure you’re ok in the morning. Evs –” he hesitated as her hand turned the knob. She looked at him and knew that she must look a mess. He shook his head.

 “Goodnight Evs. I’ll see you in the morning.” he turned and headed back down the stairs. She pushed into her room and slowly removed all the offensive things that had suffocated her earlier. The oversized t-shirt from the last family vacation to the Grand Canyon lay on her bed and she pulled it on. She climbed into her bed and pulled the duvet right under her chin.

This, at least, didn’t smell like cinnamon.