Muddy boots clunked against the wooden floorboards, the echo of a laugh resounding in a warmly lit doorway. The metal of a zipper came loose, strewn along with its fabric carcass onto a hook in the hallway.  

But then Lily woke up. 

And there was no coat, no work boots. 

From the faux leather couch she could see the empty entryway, one more coatless prong outside the mud room. Lily took a breath before the wool blanket she had been napping with formed ripples around her waist and trailed like a cloudy shadow towards her green cupboard kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee from the pot she had left before her unplanned nap, letting the bitter taste of it wash out the dryness of her throat. 

Coffee was never really her thing but then again, grief can make you do unusual things like that. 

But grief wouldn’t control her life. Not today at least. 

Instead she cleared her throat. Instead, she got dressed in a new flannel, a new pair of pants, and instead, fastened her hair into a new braid. When she was younger, people often told her it looked like the rays of sun in the morning or the yolk of a freshly farmed egg. But since she dyed it brown the comparison game ended as less people began conversations over the state of her hair. Though Lily continued with the simple game and deemed that it looked a lot like crisp autumn leaves. 

Maybe it was a bad habit of hers, finishing an already ending conversation. 

—

It didn’t take long to leave the house, most days it would take much longer, the hours bleeding into the sunset until it was too dark to really do anything and she was too tired to put up an argument about it. But the sun was at its climax, willing the world to wake up out of bed and begin the day. The force that makes so many middle aged people sniff the air and comment about its freshness like it’s never been fresh before. 

And then she was in town square, a place where everyone knew more about how much you knew yourself. A place where the phrase “I told you so” first began. 

“Morning Lily,” Mary said without looking up. 

Mary had a lot of occupations in her life as the busiest woman in the town. Firstly, she was a cashier at a bakery on the corner of West Street, a worker at her parent’s pet clinic, and, Lily’s personal favorite, Lily Mesner’s best friend. Except today, she was mostly just a cashier at a bakery. 

“Good morning Mar,” she said, pronouncing her equestrian nickname while sliding down one of the bakery’s black booths. 

“You know one day I’m going to kick you out for coming in here and reading on my shift.” 

Mary had a funny way of saying things she truly means. Lily wasn’t oblivious to the fact that Mary was urging her to move on or out or something. 

So Lily kept it humorous. Saying, “You go do that to your paying customer Mar,” and welcomed the sigh in her breath, the sound of the booth creaking as she rested her head, pulling the book in question from her tote. 

Lily read but the words got lost in translation, never quite comprehending in the part of her brain that’s supposed to somehow comprehend things. It’s a funny thing though, how brains work. They don’t even know that they pull the majority of the load. Lily wished she could be as oblivious as a brain, a tiny little organ sloshing around in someone’s body. 

But she couldn’t, and she knew. She was prone to dream about impossible things. And she was prone to do nothing about them. 

“You know you should go on a date with that one guy you were talking to last week, you know the redhead?”

Another thing about Mary, or maybe just people in general, if you know them long enough they somehow always find a way to read your mind. 

“Just because I dyed my hair brown doesn’t mean I can date my brother.” 

“You can if you truly love them.” 

Lily had almost forgotten about another thing Mary was though she wanted to forget about it more. Mary was a girlfriend to none other than their childhood classmate, Joshua Sanders. 

When they were five, he was a pest. When they were fifteen, he was egotistical. At twenty five, he’s both egotistical and a pest but now he’s able to control it like the different ways a man can style his hair just with a simple sweep. 

“You’re a sick man, Joshua,” Lily called out but was ignored as he grabbed Mary’s waste, leaving a freshly brewed coffee on the wooden counter next to the register. “You know you can get arrested for harassing your employees like that.” 

Joshua looked up from Mary’s shoulder, resting his chin on the crook of her neck. He rolled his eyes as he kissed the side of Mary’s cheek. 

“Isn’t she chipper?”

“She’s been an angel the minute she’s gotten here,” Mary breathed out, closing her eyes as she grabbed Joshua’s hands that rested on her waist. 

It had been a while since she’d seen Joshua and Mary together. Though it was partly her fault for not leaving the house as much anymore. Still, it hasn’t been that long since they’ve truly established that they were together. For years, it was on and off, choosing someone else to date for a period of time, things like that. But ever since Joshua had decided to place his college funds into opening up the bakery that closed down when they were ten, things were different between Mary and Joshua. 

There was a future between them now, a road both of them were beginning to walk, unknowingly or not. 

“What about Mick?” 

“Hm?” Lily sat up, Joshua now walking towards the back of the bakery as Mary wiped down one of the customer tables. 

“Were you listening to what I was saying earlier?” 

“No,” she said honestly, “sorry,” she said apologetically, “I’ll listen now,” she said to cure her curiosity. 

Mary let out a scoff before continuing, “He’s one of Joshua’s friends that works at the bar down that one main road with Mr. Manson’s house. I think he pointed out that he saw you sometime after the funeral.” 

Lily could tell by the way Mary’s mouth had twitched when she said it, the way her eyes instinctively looked to the floor that she wasn’t quite ready to talk about it. And neither was she. So Lily would do what became her normal. 

She ignored it. 

“I’ll try and see if I can go visit the bar this Friday,” Lily said after a pause, picking up the book she was trying to read once again. 

“Will you really?” She said, doing nothing to conceal her hopefulness. 

“Yes Mary, I will.”