Free The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas

fall and winter. “It was a far more modest endeavor. Pea shoots in cups. They kept them by the window and checked on them constantly. My mother loved how excited the kids got at the first sign of green.”
    “Pea plants are perfect. They grow fast and they’re difficult to kill.”
    “They’d have to be easy or you’d have traumatized children by the armful.”
    Will looked at me hard. “Peony plants are a lot more difficult.”

    “Are you preparing me for disappointment?”
    “No. Just stating the truth.” Then, like always, Will began his march around the house toward the front yard. But this time, he stopped.
    I waited to hear what else he would say, warming my hands around my coffee mug.
    “These will turn out fine,” he told me. “You’ll see. Come spring, they’ll be beautiful.”
    “I hope so.”
    “Believe it,” he said, and continued on his way.
     
     
    After school Krupa drove me home and during the ride I decided to show her the peony bed. It was only dirt, but it felt like an accomplishment, and after the last month, I wanted to share something that had gone right in my life. “Do you have a minute?” I asked when she turned into my neighborhood. “There’s something I want you to see in the backyard.”
    “Of course,” she said. She pulled into the driveway. The car rattled and sighed and clanked before quieting.
    “Follow me.”
    We cut across the lawn and wound our way through the gardens until we arrived at my mother’s roses, where the new flower bed pooled out next to the patio. “So this is it. It’s not much, I know,” I said.

    Krupa stared. “What did you plant here?” she asked, her voice almost a whisper, and I wanted to hug her. When we were growing up my mother was always planting and pruning and digging, inviting us to pick bouquets when there were so many flowers she didn’t know what else to do with them. Krupa knew that whatever I’d done here must be special because anything to do with the gardens at our house was about my mother.
    “Peonies,” I said, pointing at each individual mound of compost where Will and I had the roots. “In the spring this will be full of flowers. Hopefully,” I added.
    “Peonies are beautiful,” Krupa said.
    “They are,” I said.
    “It’s going to be gorgeous. Your mother would have loved to see this.”
    My eyes started to fill. I’d managed not to cry for a long, long time, but I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They slid down my cheeks and I wiped them away with my sleeve. “Thanks,” I whispered.
    Krupa reached over and took my hand. “This is good, Rose,” she said. “It really is.”

13
    ONE OF THOSE DAYS
    “Roooseyy.”
    “Jim, will you wait a minute? It’s not like I forgot you were there.” My brother was on speaker, which he hated, while I sprinkled salt and pepper across the top of a chicken. “Your face is glaring at me from the phone anyway.”
    The wind whistled loudly outside. Every day for the last week it rained, so my trips to the flower bed had ended. We changed the clocks and it was getting darker earlier, making the atmosphere feel gloomy, the sky already black outside the windows.
    “Roooseeeyyy!” Jim’s voice bellowed again through the kitchen.
    “I’m still here. I told you I’m kind of tied up.”
    “What picture of me is on there anyway?”
    I laughed and glanced at the screen again, making sure to keep my messy hands away.
    “Rose. What. Picture.”
    “Remember how in eighth grade—”

    “Not the one with the braces—”
    “—And the headgear and the long hair. Yup. Just before bedtime and you are wearing pajamas. I love this picture.”
    “Get that off your phone. Every time I call you whoever is around sees it.”
    I opened the oven door and slid the roasting pan onto the rack. “Stop being melodramatic.” The timer was set for fifty minutes and I started it counting down. I washed my hands before picking up the phone, cradling it between my ear and