Her face was so pale, so swollen. She looked like a dying person. The flowers and balloons had grown overnight as well. Now they were the first thing you noticed when you came into the room. I caught an orderly leaving with a cartful of greenery as I was coming in, my ankle nagging me with every step. He grinned, shrugged one shoulder. “Doctor’s orders,” he said. “Too many.” I remembered my mom’s funeral. There’d been flowers. What had seemed like so, so many of them. Enough that my dad had to enlist the gardener to pawn some off on friends and family. I don’t want them here, I remembered him saying, his voice ragged, a sweating glass of whiskey in his hand. That smell is depressing as hell. But even though there’d been a ton of flowers at Mom’s funeral, there hadn’t been as many as were in Peyton’s room right now. How many would there be when Peyton died? If, Nikki, if! I tried to correct myself. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the crimson to make it easier to believe.
