Buttercup Braids

I remembered the days in the schoolyard, sitting on the grass with my friends. The sun shone brightly on the uncovered blacktop, so it would quickly become too hot to the touch for the bare legs that stuck out under our skirts.

We would run towards the fence as soon as recess began, specifically the far right corner, where the weeds grew freely, having won the battle for territory over the groundskeeper, whose riding lawnmower could not quite fit. From there we rooted through the tall grass for dandelions, both the kinds that dawned bright yellow petals, and those that granted wishes and made Katie sneeze.

Satisfied with our bouquets, we'd return to the well-cut grass near the blacktop, so we could the boys who made feeble attempts at throwing half-deflated basketballs through the "big-kid" hoop.

On most days, save the ones where dentists appointments and colds weakened our numbers, there were five of us girls, wearing skirts that barely passed as matching and brightly colored tee-shirts with characters from the shows we all watched.

It'd been too many years to count since I'd last seen Michaela, whose family moved away after that year in third grade. In my mind, she still was the eight and a half year old girl with pink beads in her dark, frizzy hair, the girl who always hummed little tunes as she would pick flowers.

Aster and I hadn't talked in a while, but she had a daughter a few years younger than mine. When we were in third grade, she would talk about naming her first daughter Butterfly, a name that probably came from the sequin design on her favorite shirt. Aster's real daughter was not named Butterfly.

Lin and I parted ways after we graduated high school, though our friendship with each other had been burning out since middle school anyways. Lin's third grade self lived in my head as a short girl with an awkward bob, who always wore the same pair of dusty blue light-up sneakers, even when the lights would only work if you hit them against the ground hard enough to make your ankle hurt.

Katie died.

We were in our Freshman year of high school, and we laughed and went to class together one day, and the next she simply didn't show up. My parents picked me up from school, drove me home, and told me that she was gone.

I still didn't know how it happened. None of the adults wanted to tell me, and when I was finally old enough to know, I didn't want to hear it.

While Michaela, Aster and Lin all lived in my head as the last time I saw them, Katie's memory bounced around in a way no other did. I sometimes saw her as an adult, mother to the three kids she always wanted to have, working as a police officer. Other times she was just how she was before she died, a teenager with brunette hair dyed purple at the ends.

But most often, she was the Katie from third grade, who came to school everyday with at least three different hair clips in her hair, who sneezed when we blew dandelion wishes into her face.

Third grade Katie's favorite game was to scrounge around the field for small patches of buttercups, then hold them up under everyone's chins, laughing at the yellow glow. While it was no longer a priority, Katie always liked to find buttercups and play the same game with me long after that year, and perhaps that's why I felt called to collect buttercups when I walked down to visit her grave, why I loved to arrange them in little patterns around her name.

I thought of Katie all the time, of all the memories we shared and all the time that was stolen. I thought of her whenever I wrote out my daughter's name, Lillian Katie. It's cheap and unoriginal to have made her middle name something that only held meaning to me, but it only seemed fair let her name live on a little longer.

I sat in my car, parked against the same fence of my past. It'd been twenty-two years since those days with my friends, but the fence was still intact, though sagging slightly at the top, and the same corner of long grass grew wildly, adorned with pops of color from the flowers.

I checked the time on my phone. I'd driven there to pick up Lillian for an appointment, but decided to wait a moment before stepping out of the car to enter the building. I'd seen Lillian's class outside, and just wanted to spend a moment remembering how I'd been at her age, in the same schoolyard.

I watched Lillian herself, and noticed that she is not quite the same as I was. While my hair was mostly unkempt, she had me put hers into two neat braids every morning. She didn't have a large friend group like I did, rather, she played with her best friend, Lavender.

They did, however, run to the same patch of grass that we once did, picking flowers and running back to the grass. Lavender started by taking a few smaller flowers, often buttercups, and loosely shoving them in Lillian's braids. Though Lavender's hair was cut off at the neck, Lillian shoved small daisies into the hair clip that held back her growing-out bangs.

They combed the field for dandelions, and blew them right towards each other's faces, laughing as they spit out the seeds that fly onto their tongues.

For a reason I couldn't place, there was something I loved so dearly about watching them play with the flowers. When Lillian came home at the end of each day, I loved listening to her stories as I pulled the braids out of her hair and collected the shriveling flowers that fell out.

I finally stepped out of the car and walked into the building, asking the woman at the front desk for Lillian.

Lillian walked into the main room to greet me, a small buttercup in one hand and a daisy in the other. Her hair was adorned with the yellow blossoms that day, and she handed me the one in her hand, and told me it was so we could match.

I thanked her, and tucked the flower behind my ear. The stem was a little too short to stay there comfortably, but I made it work.

We walked back to the car, and she buckled up before I started to back out of the parking lot. I heard her not-so-quiet whispers as she addressed the daisy she held, and I glanced back for a second to watch her pluck individual petals from it. She dropped them onto her lap, not daring to break her eyes from the flower as she played, "She's my best friend, she's my best friend not. She's my best friend she's my best friend not."

She played her came through the entirety of the short drive, letting the little white petals litter her car seat. As I pulled into the parking lot of her appointment, she pulled the final petal from her daisy, smiling as she whispered.

"She's my best friend."