I check my watch. It’s gone 2pm. I’m officially clocked out.

I look around the shop, and then lift my black apron over my head. Marnie, The Brew’s manager and co-owner, looks up from her book and tucks a violet strand of hair behind her ear. I smile.

“Say hi to Nyla,” she says.

“I will!”

“And tell Lane to get her ass in here instead of chatting up my brother in the back.”

“Will do!”

I push the door open with my shoulder and almost collide with Baz, the other manager/co-owner.

Shit.

Baz sighs. “In a hurry?”

“I’m sorry,” I say, carefully. He regards me with one of his signature I-really-try-to-be-patient-with-you stares. “I just wasn’t looking where I was going. And…”

“That’s fairly obvious.” He says.

I always feel like a bull in a china shop around him… Or a boisterous child. I don’t even know why he hired me; he’s never seemed to like me. Sometimes when I talk his eyelids droop in a turtle-like way, like he’s had a stroke restraining himself from telling me to shut up. When that happens, I usually just let the ends of my sentences fade away. I don’t think he cares.

His pale eyes hold mine for a moment longer, and then he continues on his way. I wait until the door to the office he shares with Marnie closes before I make my way into the kitchen.

I get my bag from my locker and wave at Gabe, the baker. Lane is perched on a stool, munching on a freshly iced cupcake as Gabe talks about his boyfriend.

Lane is the only one here who can get away with doing no work, since she’s dating Baz.

“Lyss, wait!” she calls. “Hang out for a bit.”

“Can’t, I have to go pick up Nyla.”

She pouts and crosses one long leg over the other, tossing a curtain of blonde hair over her shoulder. “Aw, okay!”

“Sorry,” I call, over my shoulder. I start to push the door open. “P.S, Marnie wants you in the front!”

In the back lot, I head towards the midnight blue Vitz parked towards the back corner. It’s not new by any means, but it’s in great condition, and it’s mine. I bought it with the money my dad left me; some of which I was given on my last birthday.

I stop for a moment when I’m in the car, reaching for the moonstone pendant around my neck. I haven’t been able to take it off since I left. Neil gave it to me because it was my birthstone, and because one of his favorite memories was when we lay outside in the grass looking up at the full moon.

That was over a year ago.

I tug gently on the stone, as if it’ll give me luck, and then I turn the key in the ignition and start the engine.

When we moved, Anya unearthed a CD of slow tunes from the early 2000s, and it plays now as I drive home. Green-Apples is a mid-sized quiet college town near New-England. The name is very fitting, because it definitely is green. There are trees and grass everywhere, and it took me a while to get used to the all the rain. I love it because it’s so different from everything and everywhere else; I don’t look out the window and remember Neil.

Almost every traffic light I get to is red. I glance down at the blue crocs on my feet. They’re a relic from my pregnancy. With swollen feet and a bulging belly, anything else felt too constricting. If I’m still wearing them when Nyla is older, maybe I’ll let her decorate them with stickers and glitter.

I make it home to our apartment building, and stop on the Second floor to pick up Nyla from her sitter’s, Mrs. Stuyvesant; an old widow who used to lecture at the university with her husband. I was lucky to find someone who lives in my building and doesn’t charge me an arm and a leg to watch Nyla. This is my favorite part of my day; coming home and seeing her; picking her up again, taking in her sweet, powdery, milky scent.

The mom blogs all say I should talk to her more now; to help develop her speech. I narrate things I’m doing, but I also try and tell Nyla things about her dad, because I want her to know him on some level, and know that he would have loved her. It’s easier now, because she’s little and doesn’t understand.

I don’t know what I’ll tell her when she’s older. When she can ask questions.

“Hi Nyla,” I sing. “Did you have fun?” Nyla cracks a smile and buries her face in my shoulder for a moment, bringing it out and then reaching for my name-tag, which is still pinned onto the black shirt I’m wearing.

I thank Mrs. Stuyvesant and head on upstairs in the elevator.

When I pull out my keys and let us into the apartment, Turtle; the perpetually silent grey tabby cat we adopted, greets us by hopping down from the window seat he spends most of his time lounging on, and strutting to sit squarely in the middle of the coffee table.

“Um!” Nyla bursts out. She squeals and looks at me almost questioningly. Turtle gives her a pointed stare that reminds me of Baz, and then sinks to curl himself into a ball.

This is my and Nyla’s quiet time. We play a little and have lunch and then take a nap… By the time my sister gets home I’ll have dinner started.

“Come on,” I say, “Let’s go help mommy get out of these stinky work clothes!”

“Ayayayaya…” Nyla responds.

*

When Anya gets home for dinner, Nyla is sitting in her walker while I wait for the rice to cook.

“Hey!” she calls.

“Hey! We’re in the kitchen!”

She rounds the corner, pulling off her purple stilettos. Her weave falls down in soft waves around her face. Stepping away from the stove with my hand on my waist, I pause.

“I swear I love this weave more and more each day,” I say, thoughtfully.

“Thank you.” She gives me a smug smile, then turns to Nyla. “And how is my favorite, most beautiful niece today?”

Nyla holds up a hot-pink flannel elephant and babbles away giving it a shake.

“-Hands!” Anya and I say, at the same time.

“I know, Lyss.” She sighs, rolling her eyes. I chuckle and turn back to the rice, as Anya goes over the sink to wash her hands with anti-bacterial soap.

She picks Nyla up, touching her earlobes gently.

“These look really cute too,” she comments, alluding to the small gold studs in Nyla’s earlobes. “I had my doubts.”

“I know,” I say. Nyla makes a whining sound and reaches for me.

“Hey!” Anya says, frowning as I take Nyla. “Nyla! That’s betrayal!”

I shrug. “This is why I put her down. She’s going through separation anxiety and god knows I couldn’t cook with her on my hip.”

“Mm.” Anya acknowledges. “I’ll remember this, Nyla.”

She struts off into her room to change. After dinner I give Nyla a bath and Anya cleans up, before we watch a little TV as I give Nyla her last bottle before bed. I breastfed for three months; but it just didn’t take.

Nyla drains about three-quarters of her bottles; and then her suckling becomes less persistent and she starts blinking sleepily, and I carry her into the small closet in my room. It’s just big enough to squeeze a crib and tiny chest of drawers into, on top of which is a changing table.

I switch on the mobile, which plays Disney’s Wish upon a Star as plastic yellow and cream stars dance around a large white cloud and crescent moon. As Nyla starts to drift off, I hum softly along, placing her gently down to sleep and making sure the baby monitor is on even though her room is a stone’s-throw away.

“I love you so much Nyla-Wren.” I whisper.

I find my sister sipping on a glass of red-wine, her feet curled up next to her on the couch. She’s watching something on one of the British Channels.

“Janie, caught between her family and the prospect of raising a child alone,” the narrator is saying in a mournful tone, “Was forced to give the baby away.”

Janie herself appears on the screen, wiping away tears. She pushes back her grey hair, and takes a deep breath, trying to compose herself. “I always looked for him. Always.” She sobs. “That little baby…”

Anya looks at me carefully, and I know she is thinking about mom.

“Don’t.” I say, dismissing whatever she is about to say before she says it. I feel myself bristle.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

I give her a long look. “You were going to say something about mom.”

“I wasn’t,” she denies. I’m sure it doesn’t even sound convincing to her because she back-tracks. “I mean… I just wonder sometimes… if she ever looked for us. That’s all.”

I look away.

Our dad died when I was seven. I don’t remember him being sick; he was always laughing and smiling, lighting up rooms with his smile and his jokes. Everybody loved my dad. I remember. He was in hospital for a little while, but they wouldn’t let me see him. And then he died. Everyone was so sad and sorry.

I still remember how heavy the smell of lilies was in our house, how it made me feel like I was suffocating in the sickly-sweet aroma. Now when I smell lilies, I remember my dad. I remember my mum and how she crawled into a shell. How she never came back. I remember finding her in the bathtub once, and her eyes were empty and staring, like glass… in a way, she died too. It feels like dad was the first to leave, in his own way. Then mum did.

She left suddenly and without explanation. One day she was there and the next, she simply didn’t turn up to pick me up from school. She took half of her clothes with her, leaving behind only a note saying she was sorry.

I used to tell myself that she was just tired, and that she needed a break. It wasn’t easy to lose your husband and to be a single mum to a seven-year-old (Anya was about to start her freshman year of college at the time). But after I had Nyla, any misgivings I had about how selfish my mother’s actions were became non-existent. I simply couldn’t imagine ever leaving Nyla for any reason, and I didn’t understand why my mom left us. Any patience I had with her or hope for reconciliation or curiosity vanished completely. It infuriated me at how unwanted I felt, and I hated talking about it.

What made me angrier was that Anya had a completely different experience. She had mom there throughout her childhood; dad too.

“I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” I say, instead. I cross to the couch and take my sister’s face in my hands and give her a big kiss right in the middle of her forehead. “Mwah! Love you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” she responds, sounding muted.