South Tree * TWD

11. Talk

"Lillian?" Carol called out her name. Lillian wasn't sure how long she had been back against the tree but it was long enough to where Lillian's tears had dried and she had just been watching the leafs move. "Lillian, what are you doing all the way out here?" Carol questioned the girl softly.

"Thinkin'." Lillian responded short, looking at Carol.

"Well, why don't you come back and eat something?" Carol proposed, Lillian wasn't too drawn to the proposal though. She would likely have to eat canned spaghetti again, it was basically the only thing that they had left.

"I'm not hungry." Lillian mumbled, turning her head away from Carol.

"Well why don't you come sit with me in the RV and color?" She tried to propose again.

"I'm okay, thanks tho."

"Lillian, you really should get back to the main area so we can all keep an eye on you." Carol expressed her concern, not sure of how to convince her.

"I'm okay out here, there's a fence." Lillian sighed as she tried to explain. She knew she wasn't gonna get very far with it, usually her mama would be yanking her up and dragging her by now.

"Sweetheart, come on." Carol, now slightly frustrated, demanded of the girl. Lillian sighed again, as she got up and followed behind Carol as they walked back towards the RV.

Once they had gotten to the RV, Lillian was handed a coloring book and crayons. She sat next to Carol who had been crocheting.

"Carol... Do you think karma is real?" Lillian asked the woman, tired of being stuck in her own thoughts.

"In some ways, yeah. Why do you ask honey?" Carol replied, not looking up as she continued to work on her crocheting.

"Well— Cause i'm bad, like, real often and i was thinking that maybe if i hadn't pushed Carl down or talked back to my mama that maybe she wouldn't have stayed back at the place." Lillian explained, hurt was in her voice as it cracked slightly but she figured maybe Carol hadn't heard it.

"Oh— honey, you do know that what happened to your mama wasn't your fault." Carol stopped crocheting, giving Lillian a concerned look.

Lillian shrugged. "Maybe if i had done something different, she would still be here." She pushed down harder on her crayons as she continued to color. That's when the door to the RV opened and someone had walked in. Both Carol and Lillian looked to see Daryl had walked in, looking around as he did so. But Carol had continued to crochet.

"I cleaned up." Carol told Daryl. "Wanted it to be nice for her."

Daryl nodded. " For a second I thought i was in the wrong place." He joked, it almost made Lillian snicker like it had Carol, but she refrained, ignoring the man who had walked in as she continued to color.

"A flower?" Carol questioned, making Lillian look up. She saw that he had set down a white flower in a beer bottle. It reminded her of the flowers that her mama liked. It was like an Orange? Or monarch? or no, that's a butterfly. Maybe orchid? or something like that. She sucked in a sharp breath, hoping that she would stop thinking of her mama and putting her on the brink of tears.

"It's a Cherokee rose." Daryl tried to point it out, but Carol still looked confused. "The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the trail of tears. The Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much 'cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation. A lot do them just disappeared, so the elders said a prayer, asked for a sign to uplift the mothers' spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow right where the mothers' tears fell. I'm not fool enough to think there's any flowers blooming for my brother. But i believe this one bloomed for your little girl." Daryl explained, with that he left. His story was enough to send Carol into tears but also Lillian as she refused to cry again, holding back her tears. She wondered if a flower would bloom for her daddy.