DOGWOOD ✔︎

30 | After Dogwood

I keep my eyes closed to hold onto the image: the dream that wasn't quite a dream.

But even without the dream I'd know Dogwood is gone. There are no electrons buzzing around my heart. No alien emotions. But she left me with a lingering thought—a quote to add to Mom's journal—and also...

"Ginna?"

Dad is sitting up. His long legs are crisscrossed and his eyes are wide. The ground around me is sprinkled with perfect white flower petals—and so am I. And there's a canopy of lush green leaves over my head.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

"Um..." A little fuzzy-headed from Dogwood's calming energy, but I was expecting that. I stretch out my hands. My fingernails are still yellowish, but there's no trace of the root shadow. So that means the glamour... "How do I look to you?" I ask Dad. "Like my face and my hair. Are they back to normal?"

Dad studies me for a moment. Then his forehead wrinkles. "You look worse than you did yesterday," he says, untangling his legs. "Do you feel worse?"

"No, Dad. I promise. You're just seeing the real me—now that Dogwood is gone. I actually feel a lot better." I gather a handful of the petals that have pooled in my lap and stand. Too fast. "Oops," I say, grabbing onto the truck. "Got a tiny bit dizzy, but I think it's because..." My stomach yowls, right on cue. "I'm really hungry."

Dad huffs out a breath. Half laugh, half relief. He hoists himself to his feet and hugs me until I start to squirm.

"She's really gone," I say, when he releases me. "I don't know where, exactly, but she left me with...like...this sense of peace. Wherever she is, it's okay. Like I don't get the feeling she's in a lot of trouble."

"Okay," he says. "That's good." Dad's tone is almost a question and he looks at the tree again, shaking his head like he's trying to make since of it all. Then he scoops up his sleeping bag and says, "What are you hungry for?"

"Anything—no, wait. Eggs and bacon. But first I need to go look up something on my computer. Can I run up to my room real quick?"

"Sure, sweetheart."

Running is not actually an option. But by the time I get to the family room—to grab a thick book off the shelf—my leg muscles have loosened up enough that it doesn't hurt to climb the stairs. It just seems to take forever.

I make a pit stop in the bathroom to examine my reflection. The glamour is definitely gone. My eyes have gone back to their normal chameleon greenish-blue and my hair is dull again. But I think it might be curlier than it was before Dogwood.

My heart thumps out an echoey beat. Am I going to think of everything that happens from now on as after Dogwood?

"Probably," I whisper.

I shuffle into my room, lay the book open on my bed and carefully arrange the flower petals on one of the pages. In a few weeks they'll dry out and I can use them to make a collage, something I can frame and keep forever.

"But for now..." I ease the top half of the book down and move it to my closet shelf. Then I sit at my computer and ask Google if there's an Alice Walker quote about "mothers and gardens."

There sure is. And it's perfect: In search of my mother's garden, I found my own.

As I print the words on the back cover of Mom's journal, my eyes sting. But when I press my fingers against them, I'm surprised to find they're dry.

The smell of bacon calls to me. I hobble back down the stairs, stopping halfway because Dad is in the family room sprinkling handfuls of the white dogwood petals in between the framed photos on our mantle. He doesn't notice me until he takes a few steps back. Then he gives me a sad smile and wipes the tears from his eyes.

I have to sit down. And I should be crying, too—I mean, I am. On the inside. But... "Somethings not right," I tell Dad. "I think...maybe I should see that doctor now?"