Follow The Daisies

"How’s it feel to finally be an adult?”

“No noticeable difference. Just happy we can finally go on those trips we’ve been dreaming of. Yours is coming up! And the girls’ birthdays are both in Spring, which is in no time. We should start saving up...”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Can’t waaait, man! It’s all finally happening,” he said excitedly. “Anyway, I’ll talk to you later, need two hands on the wheel. The girls and I will brainstorm something cool for Friday. We’re meeting up now. See ya,” Will said, hanging up.

The city in the valley below looks particularly bright; so do the stars. Must be the clear, temperate night. Unclasping the window latch, I push up and a refreshing breeze enters my bedroom. I imagine the current swirling about, pushing the floating dust and debris further inside my room and pinning them against my dark navy blue walls, like the bugs on the hood and windshield of Will’s truck.

Pacing in the dark, the only light in my room comes from the streets below and the night's waxing crescent moon’s reflection through my window. Outside in the backyard, little creatures chatter about endless things I hope to one day understand. Our freshly mowed stretch of grass glows silver-blue except for the parts shadowed by the silhouette of the oak tree. Beyond it, on the horizon, a cargo ship sails west.

Today is my eighteenth birthday and I pace in the dark because I have no clear idea of what direction to take in general. I've been wondering often lately what mom would think of me; what she would want me to do, what she thinks I should do. Would she even like me?

What sort of things would we do together? Would we be close? Could I cry to her without feeling embarrassed or would she make me feel weak for not being tough enough? Would she smell like sweet vanilla or jasmine? Or what about roses? What sort of things would she cook—would she cook? Would she approve of my friends?

I don’t know much about her and it makes me feel so damn incomplete. Come to think of it, I've been feeling incomplete my whole life. But who am I to complain of the otherwise damn lucky cards I’ve been dealt, when so many people all around the world suffer...

Three taps on my door. “Hunter—you ready?” Dad asks, peeking his head into my room as if afraid he might find me doing something he’d rather not see.

“I was waiting for you old man,” I say, teasing him as I grab my backpack off my somewhat made-up bed.

“You want to drive?” he says, dangling the car keys.

“Yeah sure—just don’t be a backseat driver."

He throws me the keys to the Outback; I catch it. Dressed in sweat shorts and a white tee I’ve already worn twice, I question if I should change into something warmer then quickly decide against it. Checking that the doors are all locked, I sprint to my soon-to-be car and turn on the ignition.

“Where we off to?” I ask as soon as he gets in. He tosses my bag in the back with ease and as he reaches for his seatbelt, he points to mine, gesturing for me to do the same. I usually do, but for some reason, this time it went over my head.

“Mom’s favorite spot.”

Although curious as to why, I didn’t prod further. I knew just where to go. Besides, he rarely talks about her to me and doesn’t like to—he always changes the topic somehow. As I got older, eventually I just accepted that's how things were in our family.

During the twenty or so minute drive to the preserve, we talked about my college plans and where and what I wanted to do with my life after graduation. He doesn’t know about my travel plans with Will and the girls but I did tell him that I was thinking of taking a gap year to explore my options a little. When he didn’t protest, optimism of him warming up to my dream of a multi-year backpacking trip all over the world after graduation welled up inside me; I almost told him about it then and there.

The closer we got, the fewer and fewer street lights there were. Eventually, the roads became nearly pitch black, with no one else in sight. I turn the high beams on and pull into the unmarked dirt road, on a shortcut headed for the water.

Among the faint 80s love song playing on the radio, I feared we might wake a bear with the loud crunching of gravel as our tires inched slowly forward. Dad seemed lost in thought. I kept imagining him getting snatched out of his open window into the dark abyss by a disgusting slimy alien creature with bulging eyes, who would then use his semen to create shape-shifting hybrid offspring. I drove faster.

As we approached the riverbank and the end of the dirt path, I drove onto the grass, maneuvering in between the familiar sequoias to mom’s most loved, sequestered camping site. It was private and seldom frequented, with a great view of the river and plenty of space.

The log turned bench that sat overlooking the river which dad and I sat on at least once every year, was to my relief, still there. I don’t know why, but I've always feared that one day I'd come here and the tides would have risen, burying it under silt.

From my backpack, I fetch my binoculars and wear them around my neck hoping to finally spot a swan or nighthawk. Dad hands me the lantern and runs to fetch more things from the trunk. He emerges from behind the Outback carrying a small shovel and a fleece blanket, which he throws over my head.

Kneeling down close to the shore, by the base of one of the two sequoia trees framing our water view, he seems to have found something. “Hunter, look. Do you see the daisies?”

“Uh... yeah?” I say, puzzled. Mixing two piping hot chocolates in our tumblers, I make sure the steel spoon doesn't clank too loudly against the side as to not alert any predators. “What about it?”

“Daisies don’t normally bloom until spring,” he said, examining them, shovel in hand. “These have bloomed early. Your mom always said to follow the daisies, then I’ll know.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. His previously stern expression was slowly escalating into elation. That's the first time he's mentioned her in years...

Using the small shovel to measure away from the daisies at the base of the towering sequoia, he started digging like a mad man. Not long after, the sound of Tink tink tink! reverberated all across the woodland. It was the sound of metal against metal, the same sound I was so careful to avoid. The shovel had struck something.

Within a matter of minutes, a soiled, scratched, and dented silver aluminum box surfaced. He looked at me and it was the first time I ever saw real joy in his eyes—yet it was welling up in tears—something I've never seen before either. Cradling the box like a precious baby, he wipes as much dirt as he could off of it using his hands and the sleeves of his flannel. Still crouched, without a single word, he extends the powdery and battered silver case towards me.

It's much heavier than I thought. As I follow him to our log, something small clangs inside. We both sit silently, with our respective yet unneeded fleece blankets draped over our shoulders. Dad takes his first sip of the now lukewarm hot chocolate and stares blankly ahead at the moon-lit river. Tracing the cool rectangular box gently with my hands and feeling all of its indentations, I take my time to sit with it; I know there is something significant inside. Dad says nothing. Finally, after long minutes of mental preparation, I open it.

Inside, newspaper and map clippings and what must've been over a hundred folded papers and notes, were kept in a clear resealable bag. Dried pressed daisies, trinkets, and coins were super glued on the aluminum's inner surface. It was a memory box.

“Your mom and I wanted to be parents more than anything. She would be so proud of you, man,” Dad said, squeezing my shoulder. “We were planning out your eighteenth birthday before you were even born. She wrote you letters while she was pregnant—they're in there.”

He stops to take a long sip of the lukewarm, marshmallow hot chocolate I made him. When he doesn't continue, I know it's because he's about to burst into tears and crying is just something he doesn't do, at least not in front of me.

When Dad gathered himself together, he finally admitted why he was so hesitant to talk about her. “I miss her every day. When she died it was like I did too. I'm sorry if I took my pain out on you sometimes. It was so hard not having her here with us because she wanted you more than anything in the world," taking a deep breath, he continued. "I was waiting for this moment, I guess. Everything we are is in that thing… it says it all.”

Fighting back tears or saving them for later, I discover a flash drive under piles of my parents’ love notes. "What's in here, dad?"

"I have no clue," he says, examining it. He looks confused. "It must be your mom's... I don't remember her putting that there."

Hiding in between letters was a small blue notebook with a piece of paper sticking out from it. It was a photo of her—the first I’ve ever seen. It was blurry but I could see she had beautiful, long brown wavy hair and caramel skin. In the photo, she was looking out the window from... my room! Sometimes as I looked to the horizon, on that very same spot she stood, I would feel her presence there. Like she was protecting me or loving me from afar, wherever she was. Maybe it wasn't just my imagination after all. I couldn’t wait to dive into everything—the notebook, the letters, the flash drive, the photos—everything.

“Why didn’t you have any photos of her at the house?” I asked him. Ever since I was young, he just told me she died in a car crash and that was the end of the discussion.

I used to come up with all sorts of crazy explanations in an attempt to fill in the blanks; maybe she left him, maybe she was alive somewhere but didn't want anything to do with me, or maybe she was abducted by aliens. Terra, a close friend of mine, once speculated that maybe mom was a mermaid and was called back to the oceans and that's how I got my swimming talent from.

Maybe now, I can talk to dad all about her, that way we can both heal. Talking about it could help bring us closer. I'm not angry at him for keeping her to himself all these years—I just believed that someday the truth would come to light like it always does. I guess I was right.

“It was easier for me to bury everything. When I came here the other day and saw the daisies... with your birthday was coming up... I knew then it was time to dig things up again,” he explained. "It was like your mom was giving me a sign."

“I want to go home so I can go through and read all of this,” I say. Dad nods in agreement and gets up to start packing. As I fastened the elastic band around my mom’s diary, a sliver of an iridescent crystal, slightly larger than a quarter, fell into the tin box. Inscribed at the center was a symbol resembling a labyrinth. “What the…”