Crescent (Old Version)

+ Part 27 +

There was only one month out of every year when the sun would finally melt the snow in Bayport. It was always Rosie's favorite month. It was usually when school was out, and Rosie and I often spent the milder days sitting on the front porch. 

When Dad was at work and Mom was inside doing chores, I usually had some kind of book in my lap and Rosie was diddling away with toys on the porch step or picking flowers from the garden below them. 

I remember one day in particular. It was the summer before senior year. The year that would change everything. The summer I spent studying for something that would never happen.

The sun was hot, rays beaming down and baking the dirt where Rosie sat by the sidewalk. Purple flowers were in full bloom at every yard lining the street, and Rosie sat picking buds from the garden before the forest. She wore a pretty blue dress with stripes down the back and a white ribbon in her hair. She held a wad of flower stems in her hand and she plucked a few more before she came running up the steps to show me.

"They're big flowers," she said, and I glanced up over the corner of my textbook to look at them. I smiled, flipping the page of my book and reading again. 

"They're pretty, Rosie."

I didn't look up as she sat on the porch swing next to me and kicked her legs back and forth to reach the back of the seat. "This one's red. Like a rose like me!" She dropped the fistful of flowers into my lap, and I sighed as she grabbed my book and lifted herself into my lap instead. The book dropped. The smell of fresh blossoms filled my nose, and Rosie smiled as she pointed to the flowers and turned around. "I want them in my hair like you did last time!"

"Rosie-"

"Pllleeeaaasssseeee, Brenna," she whined, lip puckering as she looked back at me. That look made everything seem silly. I had hardly seen her since I'd started studying for entrance exams. She'd asked me to do things with her everyday since then. "Pwetty please? Like a princess?" 

My eyes found the flowers again, tiny iris-like blooms with full green stems. She was right though. Among them, there was a single red poppy bloom, so at odds with the soft lilac petals that grew everywhere this time of year.. I knew it would take forever to fashion them into a crown like I had done once before. If I twisted and twined the stems delicately enough, I could probably fit them around her little head. 

But, I was tired of books anyways. "You want the poppy in the crown too?" I asked her as I gently tipped her head back and unknotted the white ribbon in her hair. 

"Poppy?"

Her soft brown hair fell down her back, so long already, and I rubbed her head, teasing her. "The red one."

She nodded vigorously, singing. "I want the poppy." 

Rosie hummed as I looped the flowers together slowly, and she swung the porch swing back and forth gently as the day went on. At some point, we stopped, went inside, and Mom made lemonade. Dinner was cooking in the kitchen when we went back out and the sun was setting in the west. The sky was bright red, bands of orange and blue now fading with the sunlight.

When I finally finished the crown, Dad's car was pulling into the driveway. "There. Now you're fit to be a princess."

"It's done?" she gasped, and her eyes lit up further when she saw Dad walking up the front porch steps. "Daddy! Look what Brenna did!"

She ran to greet him, and he hoisted her into his arms though we all knew she was too big now. "Well, look at you! Isn't that pretty?" She laughed as he kissed the side of her face and set her back down again. "Wanna go help mom set the table for dinner?"