Ch. 6: Fear Keeps Us Apart

And life can leave marks on your soul.

This is chapter 6 of 8, that I’m publishing one chapter at a time every Friday. I wrote this first draft of my novel in 2022, and I’m sharing it here along with new artwork exploring what it could be like if I turned it into a graphic novel.

PREVIOUSLY: June made a difficult decision about her father's future involvement in her life, Imogen's mysterious letters start coming back, and the ghost behind the little door reveals its name.

You can also listen to me read this chapter—just hit play above.

CW: brief mentions of domestic abuse.

I’m staring, frozen, at the letters in my hand, dug out of my coat pocket. 

I’ve already been in here longer than I probably should be–admittedly the girls bathroom at school may not be the ideal place to do this, but it’s what I have. 

I don’t want Grandma to know.

I’ve waited until everyone else in here has finished washing their hands, gossiping, and touching up their makeup at the mirrors, and now it’s just me, and the weird smell, and the radiator plinking a bit, and the distant echoes of footsteps in the hall.

I reread it for the thousandth time as I sit here, stuck in the shock of it–the name above the address, on the front of all the envelopes, in Grandma’s lovely, old fashioned handwriting:

Fay Petersen.

F-A-Y.

I spent all last night awake (again) trying to communicate with her.

It took me a minute to respond after I translated her name. She waited, listening, as I caught my breath again and searched my scrambled brain for what to say, what to even ask. I was–am—full of so many questions.

Fay Petersen? I asked.

OF COURSE.

I honestly didn’t even know where to begin asking all those questions, but it didn’t much matter. 

It wasn’t easy to communicate–not like a regular conversation, or even one held purely in morse code, like when I was practicing with Gemma. I think she–I mean Fay–flickers a bit, like the light behind the door. I could feel her sort of there and gone, coming and going somehow. We had to start over a lot, and my translation was slow at first, but I know she said her name was Fay. I checked three times.

I’m June, I told her.

There was a pause that I wasn’t sure how to interpret.

HELLO JUNE

Maybe this is just more crazy to pile on top of an already high pile of crazy–the cherry on the top of a crazy sundae–but I think she tapped it softly, kindly. It’s about the closest we could get to any kind of tone of voice and facial expressions–the way we tap. That and… 

…okay, more crazy cherries. The way she feels. I can– sort of, sometimes– feel the way she feels, a little. Like she’s radiating her emotions, also flickering, also faint, but there.

And she kept asking about Mom. Every time I tried to broach a new question or get anywhere past our names, she kept asking:

DAISY

How do you know my mom? It took me a long time to ask, but it didn’t seem to matter.

DAISY

She insisted. My hand on the door felt her desperation. And fear?

I felt Mom’s weight over my shoulders. 

But I couldn’t tell Fay about that. I don’t know why.

She’s not here. I’m her daughter.

She flickered again, and was gone for another twenty minutes.

I sat there, waiting, getting cold, mind spinning–and it hasn't stopped since.

Here I am, sitting in a stall in the girls bathroom, holding the letters my Grandma wrote, that I stole from the mailbox. Letters Grandma intended to send to the ghost in my pantry–to Fay Petersen. 

What is even happening?

I don’t want to do what I know I’m about to. I know this is some kind of line that I’m about to cross. Probably with legal ramifications–at least technically. 

I think back to yesterday, learning morse code from Gemma, and how much of a game it felt like, sitting in the cafeteria with the sound of the whole school buzzing around us, giggling and tapping on the table–like having a regular friend. Like Colleen’s prescribed puzzle hobby. This was a desperate distraction from my life–my crumbling life, where my Grandma has strange memories and my father is getting out of jail in a couple of days and I’ll never see my mother again.

Now I can’t tell where the puzzle ends and my life begins. I don’t even know what is happening here, but I have lots of questions.

And these letters–I hope–have answers.

I take a deep breath, and rip open the first one.

Dear Fay,

I miss you, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you for not telling me–I know you’re scared. I’m scared, too. But we’ll figure this out together, just like we always have with everything. None of this changes any of that, not for me.

Hank said he can open on Sunday. It’s blueberry pancake time soon.

You’ve always been braver than me. How do you always know what to do? How did you know what to do in the maternity home?  I try, Fay, but I think I’m failing. I don’t know how to talk to Daisy. I wish you could tell me what to do.

I know you’ve had to be so brave lately, but you’re not alone. Hang on, Fay. We’re going to get you out of this. When you get back, we’ll make more of a plan, okay? We’ll get you out, and you can go see the world and write about it, like you wanted.

I’m worried about June. I won’t let him take her like you and Daisy and the baby. I want to do better this time.

When you get back, I’ll still be here, like always. You know me.

Love,

Imogen

Reading this is sort of like talking to Fay through the door–I can almost feel Grandma’s thoughts fading into eachother from here, jumping time between sentences. Flickering in and out. 

And why did she write the letter? Does it matter? How much of this is real?

Whoever Fay is, she’s behind the little door in my pantry.

And… dead. Right?

I re-read the letter, hearing Grandma’s voice saying every word to me, and stop when I get to “we’ll figure this out together, like we always have with everything.”

In my head, I hear her–remember her–saying something else, yesterday, at the diner:

“We did everything together. Grew up, got married, bought houses, had babies…”

In a flash, it all clicks together, like Colleen’s puzzle. The bricked-up wall, the fire, the smell of smoke, and the flickering light.

And in the middle of such a strange realization, in the middle of a stranger mystery in my utterly bizarre and crumbling life, what I feel most in this moment is guilt–that I didn’t ask what her name was before.

Fay is Grandma’s best friend.

That died, years ago, in a fire.

That lived in the house next door.

And still does, in a way.

Someone bursts into the bathroom, giggling, and I shove the letters back in my backpack. The rest will have to wait.

I sit back down in English, next to Gemma, and try to stay focused as she taps me a message:

ARE YOU OKAY?

I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s happening.

Yes, I tap a reply. 

I lie. But I don’t know what else to do.

She gives me a pointed glance, and I wonder how long I was in the bathroom. Maybe too long.

I shrug and smile, and she turns back to her book. I hate lying like this, and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be real friends. To have someone who would do everything with you–everything–all the way through life, like Fay and Grandma?

Or at least, until they couldn’t.

Later that night, I’m back in the pantry, and Fay’s waiting for me. 

I’M  HERE 

She announces herself.

Me, too, I tap back.

DAISY

No, I’m June.

I’M SORRY JUNE

She starts to tap something else, but then she flickers, and disappears for a moment. There’s a whiff of smoke again, and when she comes back, she’s tapping, urgently:

WHERE IS DAISY

I know we covered this before–that I’m Daisy’s daughter. But things aren’t always straightforward with Fay. It feels sort of like with Grandma–how she can be so clear and present one moment, and a million miles away the next. I don’t know how much she remembers from one conversation to another.

She’s… not here. I give a vague answer again. I don’t know fully why, but I can’t bear to tell her. She seems so desperate to know, to talk to Mom, that I don’t want to hurt her with the truth. 

And maybe it feels less painful that there’s someone I can talk to who doesn’t have to know, every moment of every day, that Mom is dead. 

DID SHE MAKE IT

I don’t know what that means.

Make it where? I tap back.

THROUGH THE DOOR

The door? This door?

What door?

OUT OF THE FIRE

This fire? The house fire? I feel like I’m all questions–a little kid following up every statement with a million more inquiries.

Your fire? I don’t know how else to ask it quickly, succinctly.

IT’S MY FAULT

She’s tapping fast–it’s bursting out of her now. I can barely keep up, and I struggle to translate in time. Her desperation mingles with my own as I feel it rising.

I SHOULD HAVE LEFT ALFRED SOONER

Her emotion is overwhelming–the feeling of falling into something deep and black and comfortless. Something about her words hits me hard. I know this feeling–I’ve felt it before. 

I’M SO SORRY JUNE

Fay begs it, pleads it, for something I don’t understand, her anguish spilling over the door and washing over me as I’m lost in my own remembering:

I’m with Mom on the swings in my old backyard, the rusted chains squeaking. Her face is pleading, her fingers clenched on the plastic of the seat below her as she swings next to me, waiting for my answer.

The sun shines down through the branches of the big tree in front of us and it feels strange–too cheerful for this moment. The moment everything in me wants so badly to forget, that is stamped irrevocably into my bones.

Kicking my feet on the swing, I open my mouth to speak, and I’m already plunged into the ice cold water] of self-hatred, knowing what I’m about to say–I’ve heard it over and over again in my mind like a bad song I can’t escape.

But walls spring up in my head, pushing the memory out.

Go back.

Go back.

It’s not safe here.

Back in the pantry, I grip my head in my hands and take deep breaths. Pull myself together. Grab my pencil–almost snap it by accident–and try to figure out where to start. 

Ask questions, June. Don’t think about that–figure out the puzzle instead. Distract, distract, distract.

Fay feels calmer, now, and I wonder if her memory has passed, too. Does she have to fight it off, like me?

I settle on something to ask, but there are too many questions swirling around, and it takes so long to tap everything out in code. I’m getting lots of practice, but I’m still slow to translate, and with Fay flickering in and out, it feels like playing that telephone game with a whole line of people whispering in each other’s ears, and by the time you get to the end it’s garbled and lost–except in this game the answers feel terribly important.

Can you come out? I ask.

It scares me a bit, to ask this. But maybe if she did we could talk better? 

NO

I pause. Would it be rude to push? I don’t know what the social rules are with ghosts. Are there rules? I feel silly as I tap out:

Please?

The answer comes quickly, emphatically.

NO

There’s a pause, and I’m not sure how to proceed, but she’s back in a moment, tapping more softly.

TOO SCARY

I can’t help it–I feel a chill up my spine, alone in the pantry in the middle of the night, talking to a ghost on the other side of a door to a house that burned down over thirty years ago.

Why?  

She doesn't respond, and I almost leave it there. But I’ve come this far, and there are so many questions that need answers.

Because of the fire?  I ask, and try to be as gentle as possible as I tap it out. Does how you die affect what you look like as a ghost? 

A LITTLE

There’s a pause, and I wait. 

AND LIFE CAN LEAVE MARKS ON YOUR SOUL

I think of all the people I see invisibly bleeding out in the diner day in and day out, and the way I trail Mom’s blood around all day, every day, and the way grief hurts in the middle of your chest, like you, yourself are dying, and how guilt eats you, corrodes you, from the inside out–and I know what she means. Not exactly for what it means she looks like. But I know how life can break and burn and rip you apart inside, and change you in ways you didn’t know were possible. How you can feel irreparably marked by what you’ve been through–and what you’ve done.

And maybe that’s her on the outside now, too.

I nod, forgetting for a moment that she can’t see me.

I understand. I tap.

THANK YOU

I’m marked too, I tell her. I can’t speak. Not anymore.

I’M SO SORRY JUNE, FOR ALL THAT YOU’VE BEEN THROUGH

She doesn’t even know what it is, but she’s so kind. She doesn’t expect me to talk.  She doesn’t question whether what I’ve been through is really bad enough for me not to speak.

There’s no mention of anyone else having it worse, or silly “well at least”s.

I’m sorry for you, too, Fay.

I don’t know fully, either–what it is that’s scarred her.

But we sit together, mangled by life, in silence.

And it’s enough, for now, for both of us.

After awhile, I move to tap on the door again, but I can tell she’s gone. 

I sit in the pantry for a long time, alone, with my hand on her door, before heading upstairs to try to get some sleep.

On our walk to the diner the next morning, I keep almost opening my mouth to speak, and catching myself.

I have so many questions. 

If I know more, will it help Grandma? When she sends letters to Fay, a big episode (with Grandma worrying about a baby, or panicking about something else I don’t understand) is never far behind. I wonder sometimes if they’re connected–if some memory of Fay gets confused in Grandma’s head, and she starts worrying about something that isn’t real. I wonder if I could calm her down better when that happens, if I know more about them both and their history. 

But I don’t want to cause problems. I don’t want to make Grandma upset, and trigger more bad moments by trying to stop others. 

I go back and forth many times in my mind.

Finally, as we pass the cemetery, I decide to try a simple question–not too deep. I get Grandma’s attention and she turns to watch as I sign.

“Grandma, what was your best friend like? The one you said you were pregnant at the same time together?” I try not to cringe outwardly as I sign, and hoping and praying it’s not a mistake.

“Fay?” Grandma asks, and I hear the sadness in her voice, “She was… fierce. Such a firecracker, that one.”  She keeps walking.

All my muscles are tensed as I fall into step beside her, but her voice sounds calm and clear so far. She’s just remembering, for now.

“Our teacher, Mr. Hendricks, had this souvenir in his classroom–a little plaster statue– from this one time he went to England, ages ago, and he wouldn’t stop talking about it, and was so proud of how well-traveled he was from this one trip, and everyone was so annoyed at him,” She laughs, remembering, “and Fay, she wrote this fake news article about how he stole the statue from the Queen, and was wanted all over Europe, and everyone read it.” 

Grandma shakes her head, smiling.  “He was so mad. She was such a troublemaker sometimes. But loyal, and kind. And so smart. We all knew she was going places– for real, not like Mr. Hendricks.”

Did she? Go places?

I don’t think it’s a dangerous question, but it hangs for a minute in the stillness of the early morning, and Grandma’s face falls. Her pace slows.

“Not really. She didn’t get that far.”

 I’m about to change the subject, just in case, when Grandma speaks again.

“They sent her away, for a bit, when they thought she was… having a hard time. But she wasn’t what they said. She wouldn’t lie like that.” Grandma’s voice is feeling further away, and her anger carries her ahead of me on the sidewalk. I panic, running a few steps to catch up and matching her stride so we can walk side by side again. 

“Gemma taught me morse code!” I interject before she can go any further down that train of thought. It was the first thing I could think of.

“Oh! How about that?” Grandma comes back to herself, and smiles at me, “You know, that’s been the secret language of friends for longer than I’ve been around. Fay and I used to use it, too. You could hear it through the door.” 

The door?

I ask it before I can even think about whether it’s a good idea.

The pink door?

Fay’s door?

“The little one in the pantry,” Grandma says, so matter-of-fact, like it’s nothing. “We discovered it early on after we all moved in.”

So that’s why Fay’s using it now. 

I picture Grandma, sitting on my same tall stool, tapping out a message to Fay on the other side when they bought the houses at the same time. Sharing lives through the pantry, still giggling like they probably did when they were girls. And later, too, when they both, separated by the wall, reached hands back to press on their lower spines as their bellies bulged and they crocheted little clothes for their babies to come. Of course they probably wouldn’t have had to use the code then, but I wonder if they still did, anyway, for the fun of it.

Wait.

The door.

Fay said something about Daisy going through the door. 

But I shake myself out of it–it’s not important right now. My plan of distracting Grandma didn’t work, and I’m worried I’ve pushed too far for one day.

We’ve reached the diner, anyway. Grandma unlocks the door, and I help her with her coat in the dim morning light, placing it on one of the long line of hooks by the door and praying the familiarity of this old building, and the routine of another breakfast shift will keep her safe.

She bustles off to put on her apron and get the coffee started, but I linger by the coat hooks for a moment, staring at one of the old photos hanging on the wall. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.

I glance into the kitchen, where the string lights glow warmly. Grandma’s busy turning on some music and getting breakfast started. I’ll do my part of the morning chores in a second, but I steal a moment here in the dark of the entryway to look for Fay.

She must be here, somewhere, in the dozens (hundreds?) of photos and newspaper clippings lining the walls–a sort of community refrigerator door, strewn with achievements and special moments. These walls, these photos, have been a part of Grandma’s life since she was my age–there’s no way Fay isn’t here somewhere.

There’s the day Grandma’s parents bought the diner–little Grandma, posing with a cheesy grin, pointing to the neon sign in the window. And Grandma as a teen, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with those two pencils in her ponytail, wearing the old diner uniform, leaning against the booth and laughing with some regulars.

And Grandma, with Grandpa, at their high school graduation. I pause for a moment to take in his smile, and hers. 

So much has happened since this was taken. Their faces are so young, so full of excitement for whatever comes next. I wonder what they would think if they knew, then, that they would lose Grandma’s best friend, and their only child—both so young?

I scan the group of friends they’re with, suddenly realizing I have no idea what Fay looks like. That’s Hank, there, pre-mustache. I’ve asked Grandma about this one before, both of us giggling over Hank’s baby face. But it’s not too hard to tell it’s him–in the photo, he’s a bit camera shy, hiding a little behind Grandpa, but still smiling. There’s another boy I don’t know, and…

…is that her?

For a moment, I’m caught by her dark eyes, and a fierce kind of joy. 

“Such a firecracker, that one.” Grandma had said.

I think it’s her–this feels like Fay–but I have to check.

I scan the other photos of Grandma–the ones I’ve traced with my eyes a million times–and see them anew, looking for the completely unfamiliar face of someone I think I can consider a friend. She would almost certainly be in more than one photo–if I find the same person in several with Grandma, the odds are good it’s her, right?

There she is again, in the booth Grandma’s leaning on while she laughs and takes orders from–it must be–her school friends. 

This must be Fay.

I stare at her face, leaning in. That same spark is there in her eyes as she grins up at teenage Grandma.

I smile.

Hello, Fay, I think, touching the photo with my fingertips.

And next to her, is that same boy from the graduation photo. He’s smiling at Fay, his arm around her shoulder, looking at her like she’s his whole world. 

Alfred?

I lean in closer, searching his face for answers. What went wrong here? Fay said she wished she had left him sooner, but Grandma said she died in a fire in the house she shared with him. That would mean she never left.

What happened?

He looks charming and kind here, and for a second I could swear I catch a whiff of cedarwood as he almost reminds me of—

“Order up, Junebug!” Grandma calls me from the kitchen–it’s time for breakfast. 

Alfred will have to wait.

Later, I lay in bed, trying to will myself asleep–it’s always a horrible dance of desperately needing to sleep, but not wanting to for fear that nightmares will come, and often unable to fall asleep anyway.

I wonder what happened to Fay. What did people think she was lying about, to be bad enough to–what? Send her to a mental institution? How is that even possible?

I remember that photo of Alfred in the diner–a perfect moment, frozen in time. How nothing seemed wrong. And I think of Mom, in the shadows of the front porch, hiding bruises, while Dad smiled from every photograph.

There’s a lot that can happen behind closed doors–that can be kept secret. That people can keep hidden, somehow, from even themselves.

Maybe Dad and Alfred had that in common.

I’m just about asleep, and my thoughts give way to half-dreams of Fay on the other side of the door, in a flickering orange light, her face covered by a veil, and a baby crying somewhere, when I jolt awake.

I hear Grandma in the hallway–but not quiet and careful like she usually is at night. She’s talking to herself.

“My baby… my baby…”

I leap up, guilt catching fire in my gut, and reaching into my lungs. This is my fault–I pushed too hard. Asked too many questions. I hurry out into the hallway, knocking on the walls a few times as I go, so I don’t startle her–I can’t call her name gently, like I want to.

She’s in her pajamas, her robe hanging half off her, trailing on the floor, and she wanders aimlessly toward the stairs.

I reach out to grab her arm as gently as I can, and slide around her so I’m between her and the top step. 

Grandma, I sign.

But like before, in the woods, she doesn’t seem to notice, or maybe even remember sign language. She’s looking at me, eyes wide, but her signed name is lost somewhere on its way to her, in the cobwebs of her mind.

“They took him. They took him. I wasn’t ready!” She begging, pleading with me, gripping my arms in a panic.

I shake my head, but I don’t know what I’m even trying to say, or how to say it in a way she’ll understand.

“There’s no baby,” I try to sign, but she’s holding my arms tight, and it’s garbled at best, even if she could understand it. 

“My baby! He… died, didn’t he?” She’s crying now, crumpling in front of me, and it’s breaking me in half. 

It must be shattering her.

I heard her back toward my room, patting her back and comforting her as best I can. I get her settled, still crying, on my bed, and fumble about in the dark room for the pull on my nightstand lamp. In the glow of the light, casting giant shadows on the wall behind her, Grandma looks so small, and so scared. My own fears shrink back somewhere into the depths of my mind as I scramble in the nightstand drawer for something I hope will help. Something I haven’t physically been able to touch for a year now.

My fingers find its smooth metal and I snatch it out, ignoring my own reflexes to jerk my hand away.

The yellow tin is chipped and faded a bit at the edges, but the red label, “Moxie,” still reads clearly, and the old-timey illustration of a man pointing at you–daring you to try it, I suppose–accuses me, convicts me: This is your fault.

The tape on the side of the tin announces the owner: For Daisy. I open it, and the familiar smell of licorice and lavender hits me–the faint scent of the long-gone candy, mixed with Mom’s shampoo.

It stuns me for a moment. It’s been ages since I’ve smelled it, but I know it. I feel it. It hits somewhere deep in my gut and I don’t know if it’s comforting or wounding, but there’s no time to think about that now.

The two locks of hair inside are my best hope: one is Grandma’s, the other Mom’s. I try not to look at the photograph underneath–the one with Mom and Dad and me. 

I hold the open tin out to Grandma.

Sniffling, she takes it, and studies it.

Daisy, I sign. You had a baby girl, Grandma. Daisy.

I’m not sure she’s seen what I’m trying to say, but she’s read the name on the tape. And she knows the tin. She fingers its contents gently.

“Daisy,” she says her name sadly, touching Mom’s lock of hair–slightly lighter than the lock of Grandma’s from decades ago, although Grandma’s hair has been silver as long as I’ve known her. 

“She took this when she left.” Grandma chokes it out, and she’s in so much pain, remembering. “I… I tried, but…. I didn’t know how to give it to her, but she found it anyway.”

She must have wanted to have part of you with her still. I try signing again. I don’t know what she’s catching, but I have to try. 

In a memory that feels like it’s from a whole different world from this one, I remember a night when I couldn’t sleep, and Mom pulled this out to show me and give me the rare gift of a story from her life, while I sat in a pile of stuffed animals on my little bed and asked a million questions. She must have been feeling nostalgic about home, and as I picture the scene in my head, I know what that’s like. I see it in the warm glow of the cloud-shaped lamp that lived next to my bed in our house–how she stroked my hair, and told me about finding this tin somewhere in the attic as she was packing up to leave town–probably when she left the cardboard box of things that’s still sitting, untouched, in the corner of my room now. The day she left town, climbing up to the waterfall to meet my Dad, even though Grandma begged her not to.

I wonder if Mom cried that day, taking this tin and leaving Grandma and Grandpa behind, for Dad. If she wondered if she was doing the right thing. If she thought it would get her closer to her dream of being a writer, getting out of this place. She never told me about that part–just about the tin.

“I don’t remember ever seeing it before then,” Mom mused as my little fingers turned the tin over and over and looked at every little detail of it. “I didn’t even think your Grandma liked Moxie. It’s weird, right?” 

She laughed as I opened the tin, sniffed it and made a face.

“But she must have saved this for me, maybe when I was little–like you, chick.”

I had forgotten she called me chick, too.

How had I forgotten that?

My heart is aching, and I can see Grandma’s is, too. But I hope, as she stares at the tin Mom stole for a reason, she can feel it: how much Mom still loved her.

But I know there’s pain in that, too–there’s always pain in love.

I feel it myself as I watch Grandma remembering. And I remember, too–a different night, many years after the day Grandma is thinking of, and after the night Mom sat on my bed and let me smell the licorice smell and touch the soft lock of Grandma’s hair to help me get to sleep:

I remember the day before Mom died, after she kissed my forehead goodnight, when I found this tin under my pillow –this time with a lock of her hair in it, too. I felt so special, and loved, to have a part of her with me. 

I remember the strange mixture of licorice and lavender in the twilight. 

The way that scent made me feel safe in the dark of that night the way it wouldn’t ever again, not through blood on linoleum and a funeral and a court case and a new home and a new school and endless Team Meetings, while this tin sat in a pool of my own fear and guilt in my new nightstand. 

I can’t imagine that’s what Mom intended, in giving it to me.

I think she wanted it to feel as comforting and as safe as I want it to be tonight, for Grandma.

But I ruined that.

Grandma touches the other lock of hair, and her eyes well up a bit.

That’s yours, I sign, but I think she’s already somewhere else.

“Fay,” she says, and the tears start coming again. 

“Alfred just kept coming, and…his cigarette caught... I couldn’t… I tried… We didn’t mean to.” She looks up at me, desperately, trying to convince me of something I’m not sure even happened, and I don’t know what to do, so I just hug her and hold her. “We couldn’t get her out. I couldn’t…But Daisy came through the door.”

I hold her for what feels like hours, as she cries, and neither of us seem to know what to do, or what’s happening, and there are so many questions. 

Daisy through the door. The fire. 

I grip the tin in my hand as I hold Grandma, and I can still smell the lavender of Mom’s hair. It’s so different than seeing her blood following me around–so much more real, somehow. Like I’ve forgotten her–the real her–until this moment. Until I heard her in my mind, calling me “chick.”  It’s like I can feel her, as a person, not just a haunting of sorts, and I close my eyes and curl myself up in it. Just for a second, I let myself pretend Mom is here, with us, holding us. 

And we’re a pile of love and tears and lavender and licorice on my bed, together.

Memory is powerful and comforting, and terrifying.

And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

The next day at school, in the stall on the end in the girl’s bathroom, I don’t even hesitate–the second I’m alone in the room, I rip open the second of Grandma’s letters to Fay.

I know she’s forgetting things. And repeating things, sometimes. But I’m not so sure it’s all nonsense anymore. 

There’s a ghost in my pantry and it’s my Grandmother’s best friend, and Grandma keeps talking about fires and babies and morse code–and in morse code, the ghost keeps asking about Daisy, and they’re both talking about Mom going through the door, and it all feels confusing and complicated and…

…connected.

What if Grandma’s confused world isn’t as confused as I thought? 

I unfold the letter and read.

“Dear Fay,

I’m so glad you’ll be home soon. I know that’s not all good, but I promise we’ll get you safe. A dozen eggs. Are we out of bacon?  Did you get the daisies? I had to tell him what to get.

I’m so sorry I didn’t know. I should have seen it in him earlier. I think I was afraid to know–you were the brave one. I didn’t think you were afraid of anything. 

And Alfred should have known your favorite flowers. 

The baby is growing so fast. He was kicking, just before you came home. He seemed so healthy.  Is yours kicking? I know you’re nervous, but there’s time still, before they come. I’ve started to collect supplies, for the trip. They’re in our safe place. We’ll get them on the way out.

Sending you some Moxie, you oddball. I tried one again, and I still think it tastes like soap. Is it a craving?

Love,

Imogen”

There’s so much I don’t understand, but my eyes linger on the word:

Moxie.

I put my hand over my cardigan pocket and feel the smooth bulge of the tin there–I’ve been so afraid of it for so long, but after last night, I want it with me. It reminded me of Mom–not Dead Mom, Body Mom, Bloody Mom. Just Mom. And like a little child, I’m clinging to it, and don’t want to let it go.

The tin must have been Fay’s. 

Daisies? A baby boy? Grandma was asking for her baby boy again last night.

But I don’t have time to process anything else–there’s a loud knocking on my stall door.

“June? Are you okay?” It’s Gemma.

Panicking, I flush the toilet to help mask the sound of the letter being shoved into its envelope, and into my pocket. She’s waiting for me, leaning against the wall. I take a quiet breath to steady myself, and knock in morse code on the door in an attempted gesture of friendship:

I’m fine.

I open the door, smiling, but she’s not.

“What is going on? You’re in the bathroom all the time.” Before I can even say anything, she waves away her question. “I know you’re not fine. I can tell, okay? Please. Please just be honest with me.” Her tone is concerned, but there’s also frustration scattered across her face, trying to hide.

I feel cornered, too. I obviously can’t tell her about the letters. Or Grandma. Or Mom.

Or…just anything.

And I hate it.

There’s a terrible war going on in my chest, and screaming in my head, and the feeling is so familiar. There’s so much swirling inside me, and I grab at little bits–whatever I can make any sense of in the moment: 

I’m horrible and shouldn’t have friends

how much she deserves the truth

how self destructive it would be to tell her 

how the already fragile bubble of safety would pop 

And how below it all 

I

don’t 

deserve 

to be safe, to be loved.

I hate how instinctively I reach for my phone and type. “No, really, I’m okay.”

I try to arrange my face to be as convincing as possible, but it doesn’t matter. 

“You think I don’t see things like you can? You think you have a monopoly on that?” She’s looking right at me now, staring me down, and angry.

I don’t know what to say–how to say anything. I know it’s a rhetorical question, but even if I were to answer, all I can see is Grandma, sitting small and confused and teary-eyed on my bed. How much she needs me. How much I need her. And how quickly all that would disappear.

“Ugh! June!” She clenches her hands into fists and yells it at the ceiling. “I just wanted…”

Her shoulders slump and she looks down, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose.

She finds what she wants to say in the spot where the tiles are all cracked on the floor a few stalls down. “I thought we could be friends together. I don’t know what you’re so scared of, but until you can just be honest with me–just tell me things, and I can help–then I don’t think we can be friends anymore.”

We stand for a moment, like statues, in the smell and the echoes and the radiator plinking, and then she leaves.

I crumble into the broken tiles.

Grandma and I are headed to the diner after school (Tracy opened today, thank goodness), and we’re both exhausted. I don’t know how much Grandma remembers about last night–all she mentioned this morning was that she thought she had some nightmares–but I know we’re both feeling the lack of sleep, and are the kind of tired that only comes with deep emotional exhaustion.

We prop eachother up as we make our way down the sidewalk.

It doesn’t help that we’re both trying not to think about today, and what it means. We’ve been avoiding talking about it all week. It’s sat like an old piece of fruit rotting in the fridge, getting worse every time you reach for something close to it, and you keep thinking you’ll take care of that next time. 

Next time. 

Not now.

Dad gets out today.

Does he know yet, that I don’t want to see him? 

Is he angry?

Is he sad?

Does he still smell like cedarwood?

I shake my head to try to get rid of these thoughts. 

I try not to think about Gemma, either, but I feel it gnawing at me, at the edges. The weight of having to lie to her drags at my feet, pushes against me, as I shove open the diner door–it feels like it’s made of stone, it’s so heavy.

As Grandma hangs up her jacket, I think of her robe hanging off her last night, and how small and fragile she looked headed toward the stairs. How I needed to protect her. How I need to protect her, still.

I didn’t want to lie to Gemma. I swear I didn’t. But I had to.

I feel like nothing I’m doing is right, but I’m trying so hard.

Grandma puts her apron on, and I snag a couple of pencils out of her ponytail–the strict, standard two pencils of the past keeps growing, and the collection is too big today. I’m trying to keep tabs, in case someone else notices.

Grandma just laughs at herself, and pats my cheek as I tuck the extra pencils into my own apron pocket.

Tracy passes us, on her way out as we head in.

“Cozy Spoons.” She greets us, looking exhausted. She’s been struggling to save enough for school, has taken another part time job stocking nights at the supermarket, and looks the way I feel these days. I hope she’s going home to sleep, but I see her Wellman’s Market apron hanging out of her bag as she bundles up to leave, and I doubt it.  I give her a smile and a wave–I wish it was more, that I could do more than that to help, but it’s all I have right now.

Grandma practically tackles Tracy with a hug before she leaves–I think Grandma may be the only person Tracy allows to hug her without asking–and I see Grandma slip a twenty dollar bill into her pocket. Tracy gives her a look that says “Imogen, we talked about this,” but Grandma waves it off. 

“How can I help it,” Grandma shrugs and smiles, “when I’ve gotten so many tips already tonight?”

“I literally just saw you walk in here,”

Tracy rolls her eyes as she protests,“You barely have your apron on!” But she smiles and hesitates a moment before suddenly kissing Grandma on the cheek.

“You take care of her, now, June,” Tracy instructs me with a pointed finger and a smirk, “Don’t let her give everything away.” 

I won’t, I sign. I’ve been teaching her sign language–just a little at a time, on her breaks. 

Good, she signs back, and waves goodbye on her way out the door.

Back in the kitchen, there’s a load of dishes in the industrial dishwasher, and I push the big handle to open it. The steam is warm, but feels good on my face. I put the clean dishes away, taking in the rest of the diner as I weave around Grandma and Hank and the flurry of burger flipping and bacon sizzling and Grandma already flitting back and forth from the floor, bringing in new orders.

At the counter, Phoebe’s halfway through her soup and salad (today it’s tomato bisque and Caesar with dressing on the side), and we wave hello. I see her gaze linger on me for a moment longer, maybe gauging whether or not to ask about how I feel about Dad. I keep busy and pretend I don’t notice so she won’t ask me. 

Beyond her, there’s a group of older ladies in the front corner booth, out for dessert for their weekly book club. They’re laughing and telling stories, and there are a handful of books sitting, unopened, on the table, and I’m pretty sure the book club is just an excuse for them to get together, but it's beautiful. I know some of them come in here alone, sometimes–or with their partners, and still feel alone anyway. They don’t look alone now.

A group of kids come in for hot cocoa and fries, fresh from band practice. The pile of instruments in cases by the jackets looks like baggage claim at a train station, and I imagine the diner as just a stop on a train for them, at this moment in time, before they move on with the rest of their lives, to station after station. College? Traveling abroad? Kids? Activism? Fame? Where will they go from here? What, in life, are they on their way to?

In the opposite corner, sitting by the big window, where the sunset is turning everything a dusty pink that’s fading by the second, Mr. Moreau sits alone, reading the paper. He’s done this every weekday since his wife died a few years ago, and I wonder if the permanent coffee ring on the table across from him reminds him of her. Did she sit there? Does he feel her there?

Grandma returns from the floor and circles around the counter to face Phoebe, pulling out her notepad that she never really needs. At least not yet. 

“The usual for dessert later, love?” Grandma smiles, and Phoebe returns it, tucking her hair behind her ear, a bit embarrassed. 

“You know me, Imogen. Can’t resist your pumpkin pie–not that I’m trying too hard.” Phoebe laughs and throws a wink my way, and I smile.

“Oh, we don’t encourage that kind of fortitude around here. I’ll have it ready when you are!” Grandma laughs and tucks her pad back into her apron, unused. 

“Life is too short not to have pie!” Hank shouts in agreement, waving his turner with a flourish from his place by the griddle.

He’s low-key dancing to the music on the radio while he cooks this evening, and it’s infectious. Grandma hums her way back to the floor with decaf for refills. I lean against the counter to dry off a few still-dripping mugs and watch her talking and laughing with the people out front. 

I see how different she looks, in this place, and I think about how hard we’ve worked, to be here. To still be here. How hard people, in general, sometimes work, to Be Here. Life is a lot about routines and to do lists and tasks and milestones, and it’s easy to focus on what we’ve been able to accomplish that other people can see–that they can understand. What grades we can get, or what house we can buy, or what trophies we won, or what office we have–tangible things that people can see are good–so you can look at this thing you’ve built or bought or accomplished, and be proud of yourself that you’ve done it.

But sometimes getting through the day is enough.

Sometimes still being here to wake up in the morning is enough. And more than enough–it’s a miracle.

Life is hard.

And I don’t know that we always give ourselves enough credit just for making it through. For just still choosing to exist everyday. 

That has to count for something. It has to.

Especially on the days where your brain is screaming, crying, begging, for you to do something–anything–to make it all stop. 

Still being here matters. 

I look around at the diner (pretty full for a weeknight) and all the people in it. Some I know, some I don’t. Some I’ve heard whisper about their joys and their pain, silently, from over here. Some I can only guess at.

We all hurt, but some of us have to work harder at life than others, I think. Some of us here have to give everything–everything–we have just to sit upright, and not because we’re not as good at it as others, or because we’re lazy, or because we’re somehow less than anyone else.] I think we just have more fighting us, pushing back at us, as we make decisions and solve problems and talk to people, or get out of bed in the morning, or even just put our shoes on. To get back down the mountain, or remember you’re making cinnamon rolls, or keep going when you’ve lost a child, or a parent.  Or two. 

Or maybe three, if they ever find out about her memory lapses.

Right now, looking around at these invisibly bleeding souls, I want to hug them all. Hold them all, like Grandma and memory Mom and I held each other last night. To be a pile of souls all bleeding together. To tell them it’s going to be alright. That we’re going to make it.

Won’t we?

Won’t we?

I want the answer for all of us, as I feel the swell of love and care and… responsibility to take care of everyone else. To let them know it’ll be alright. That it’s okay. That they can make it. I want to know that we can, Grandma and I. I worry that we won’t–that I’ll mess up, and undo all the hard work we’ve put in so far, how much we’ve struggled to just keep going.

I see Phoebe, sitting not far from me, skewering the last leaves of her salad with her fork, and I do something I almost never do.

I reach out, to ask.

I wave at her, inviting a conversation, and she turns toward me, a little surprised. 

I act fast–I don’t want the questions, and I have one of my own. And I’m nervous, and already feeling this maybe be a mistake, so I ask it quickly:

“Does it ever scare you? Taking care of people so much?” I use my phone, so I know she’ll understand it the first time. “Being so… responsible?”

She’s a little taken aback by the question. It’s out of the blue, I know. Normally I might at least acknowledge that before asking, but I leave it be. I let it be just a strange question from one person in a diner to another, and somehow that feels alright.

I don’t think she minds. She ponders it for a minute, and I can tell she’s trying to give me a real answer–not one of those ready-made answers adults usually give. I appreciate this about her.

“My mom was in medicine, too–a nurse, at the maternity home.” She begins, tracing the handle on her mug with a finger while she thinks. “She… made a mistake, once, that caused her so much pain and guilt she couldn’t even talk about it, and after that she was different. I think she became so afraid of making another mistake that she didn’t let herself care as much as she used to. She didn’t let others in.”

Phoebe’s lost in a moment, remembering, and I see it flicker across her face in the lines on her forehead:

Fear keeps us apart. 

Suddenly I’m back in the bathroom at school, amongst the broken tiles. 

Phoebe herself is miles away, maybe reliving some memory of growing up with a distant, fearful, guilt-ridden mother.

Phoebe’s truth lingers there for a moment, caught in the steam of the coffee, and then it’s gone. She shakes her head, as if she’s clearing her mother’s fear and guilt away.

“But I think we can do both. I don’t think we can let fear get in the way of helping people–loving people. I think we can’t be so afraid of something bad that might happen that we don’t do what we’re called to do.”

I’m honestly not sure what that means for me, in this moment. I’m afraid of so many things–but which fears are getting in the way, and which might help me do what I need to do? It’s a puzzle I can’t let myself sink too far into.

But I nod and smile a thank you her way. 

Grandma will be bringing that pumpkin pie any moment now. I turn to reach for the decaf to fill a mug for Phoebe as Grandma appears, pad in hand, next to her at the counter.

“The usual tonight, Phoebe, love?” Grandma winks at her.

But she’s the only one in on the joke.

Or the only one left out of a truth.

I freeze, carafe halfway raised to pour, and watch the faces of the people closest to me, who make up my whole world–- a world that is about to fall apart. Hank’s expression is instantly worried, and Phoebe just looks confused. Grandma is still smiling at her, unaware.

 Phoebe pulls herself together quickly.

“Uh…Yes, thanks, Imogen.” Phoebe looks down at her empty plate, and Grandma collects it and her utensils with one smooth motion and disappears back into the kitchen with the dirty dishes.

She reappears a moment later with the pie, and sets it in front of Phoebe with one of her giant, heart-bursting smiles. Then she’s back off to the floor to bring someone more ketchup.

Ketchup feels so painfully ordinary right now. So utterly, impossibly normal.

Is my heart beating? 

It’s either stopped, or it’s going so fast I can’t tell the space between beats anymore.

I force myself to keep moving, pretend nothing happened, give Phoebe the coffee, and go back to putting away dishes. I don’t know whether to stick around–to hover, and protect Grandma as best I can, or to hide myself away in the back, doing dishes until Phoebe is gone. 

I end up in the back, half-heartedly spraying things down with the giant sprayer and moving dishes from one sink to the next without really getting anything done or knowing fully what’s happening out there on the floor. And the whole time, I’m panicking, panicking, wanting to hide away so I’ll never know, yet wanting to watch–to see, with my own eyes, as my world comes crashing down around me in this, the safest place I’ve ever known.

It’s dark out now, and the neon sign in the window flickers. 

Tonight, it feels ominous. Ticking time. 

How much is left?

Not long, but a million years later, Phoebe gets up to leave. I see her silhouetted against the warm lights in the front, leaving cash on the counter and heading toward the door. Suddenly Hank is there in front of me, standing poised in the doorway of the kitchen, watching her get ready to leave.

He hesitates. 

His apron is still on, turner in hand. He grips it, hard, and crosses the threshold.

He’s gone past the counter, out of the kitchen, onto the floor, like I’ve never see him do–not outside of coming and going to work here. 

He reaches out a hand, to stop her from leaving. I see them lean in, careful, and quiet, standing by the jackets, glancing at Grandma, who is cleaning off a table in the opposite corner. It’s a quick exchange, and I don’t know what they’re saying, but Phoebe nods, reaches in her pocket, hands him something, and puts a hand briefly on his shoulder. She glances up toward my corner booth–currently empty. 

I stand, one hand on the sprayer, mind racing, as Phoebe disappears out the door. Hank walks back into the kitchen with a heavy sigh, and I spin back around to look busy, loading unrinsed dishes into the washer without realizing it.

But it doesn’t matter.

Does anything, now?

No. Stop it, June, I think. There are plenty of reasons Hank could want to talk to Phoebe.

But outside of the kitchen? Quiet like that? Another part of me pushes back.

He could be sick. Have an embarrassing rash. Weird poops. I don’t know!

Yeah. That’s it, June. Weird poops.

But of course I know that’s not it.

Obviously, that’s not it.

I tell Grandma my homework is done –it isn’t, and honestly hasn’t been for days–and take over as much of the waitressing and kitchen duties as possible so I can herd her away from Hank, and keep an eye on any potential problems on the floor. I don’t normally do this much, not on a school night, but I don’t think I can afford not to.

The people coming and going turn from friends and acquaintances and stories into possible threats, as they talk and laugh and clink their silverware. I find myself spying on Grandma’s conversations in a way I never have before–despite plenty of experience eavesdropping over the time I’ve been here. It was never more than curiosity before–a sort of experiment to understand people better, to see them clearer from a distance, rather than up close. To understand their stories.

Now I listen in to keep us safe. 

To stop the Homes.

I try not to think it’s already too late, but I can’t help picturing Grandma in a nursing home, confused and pleading for Mom, who cannot come, and no one listening, or caring. Grandma, not being allowed to cook for other people. Grandma, shrinking into herself more and more as the days and weeks and months pass, and who will play games with her? Go on hikes with her? Make pancakes with her? Watch old movies with her?

Who will Grandma be, if she is not herself?

Who will I be, without her?

When Hank finally leaves for the night and Grandma and I close up, the warm lights in the diner feel different. I sweep the floor while Grandma turns the “open” sign to “closed,” and the string lights around the counter feel fake. The Cocoa Cola sign on the wall blinks a warning, and the shadows stretch tall and ominous on the walls as we turn out the lights.

What did this place feel like before? This safe, cozy home of a restaurant, tucked away from the world somehow. Hiding in the folds of all the chaos, smelling of slow Saturday mornings and feeling like one of those long, strong hugs from someone you love. Like your own bed after a long time away from home.

My eyes well up, and I try not to let Grandma see.

I can’t hide in the diner forever, and I think part of me always knew it.

I wanted it to stay safe as long as possible. To pretend we could stay here, frozen in time, and not look behind too much, or too far ahead. To keep that old Christmas tree up all year.

But I feel those icy fingers creeping their way in. 

I shiver and wrap the loose end of Grandma’s scarf back around her neck as she locks the door behind us, and I wonder how long we can last.

It almost feels like a ritual now. Like I’ve been doing this for ages.

Read letters in the bathroom at school. Grit your teeth through the rest of the day. Protect Grandma. Close the diner. Talk to Fay at night. Toss and turn in bed in the few hours left until dawn. Time feels stretched thin, and long, and the last few days have felt like years on their own.

HELLO JUNE

She knows me from the start today.

Hello, Fay.

There’s a pause, and I shift on my stool. I’m not sure where to start, and I think I can feel her trying to read me through the door.

HOW ARE YOU?

She hasn’t asked me that before. I realize I don’t think I’ve ever thought to ask her that, either, and I feel bad. She’s been so kind to me, and understood things. I feel like–despite not having a lot of details–we understand each other somehow. 

I know there are a million, billion different questions I could be asking, to get details, answers–I’ve felt like a detective lately, digging for clues.

But right now, I just want to be me. Just me, and just honest–a sad, scared, lonely kid that needs someone to talk to. Someone to hold me, and offer advice, and… understand.

Tonight, I just need a friend. 

Do you… ever feel scared? I ask.

There’s a pause, as (I think) Fay considers my question.

OF COURSE, JUNE

It takes more time, but I’m glad she uses my name. I need that familiarity today. And I’m getting faster at morse code–it’s still a bit awkward, but we can have more of a conversation, and I’m recognizing the patterns of words faster, without having to write everything down.

I SPENT MOST OF MY LIFE AFRAID

Really? But Grandma said she was so bold, and brave, and just went for things. I know there’s so much else to talk about, but in this moment, in a small room full of tins and bags and boxes of food in the dark of the house, I just want to know more about Fay, and her fears. 

To be afraid, together, instead of just being afraid alone.

What were you afraid of? I ask.

FAILURE

She begins, and it feels like the start of a list. I wait.

DOING THE WRONG THING

She pauses, and adds:

AND NOT BEING THERE FOR MY LOVED ONES

She waits, sitting in the sadness of it for a moment. I’m still scribbling her words onto my notepad, and she pauses, but I don’t think it’s just for me to translate. I feel something else–something new–happening. A new emotion, welling up from her, as she taps:

NOW LOOK AT ME

I blink, as Fay feels light, and bouncy, like…

Was that a joke? Is she… laughing?

WINK

That was a joke! A ghost just winked at me! I laugh–we laugh together, and it feels good after today. 

But Fay gets serious again before long:

I’M AFRAID I LET EVERYONE DOWN

If I’d ever specifically thought about it, I don’t think I would have thought ghosts would fear anything–not after death. But I feel the weight of her statement in my own stomach. I know the feeling well.

WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, JUNE?

What am I not afraid of these days? 

That all I do is hurt people. (I tell her)

I’M SURE THAT’S NOT TRUE

But it is.

It is true.

I think of Gemma, in the bathroom, and in the hallway at school after the dance, coming to my defense. I think of Grandma, crying on my bed last night, and by the stairs, wide-eyed and terrified, yelling for her baby because I asked a question when I shouldn’t have, and I think of Dad and how he must have felt as some official person in a bad suit opened a folder, and pushed up their glasses, and told him I don’t want to see him, and–

Mom.

She stares at me, lifeless, from the floor, and I look away. 

I’m so used to trying not to think of her. I’m used to carrying her around–not as a person, or a memory, but as a punishment. A reminder. There are so many walls around her in my head, covered in fear and blood and guilt. A million warning signs telling me to turn back–each memory as I get closer to her, deeper in my head, is a weapon, built to shock me away from the truth.

Her blood on the linoleum on the kitchen floor.

The tin in my hand as I stumbled outside.

Go back.

Go back.

Go back.

But there’s the scent of her shampoo in the tin in my pocket, and the way I could almost feel her holding me last night, and the way Grandma said her name, touching her lock of hair.

My old room, with the cloud lamp, and the crickets outside the window.

Licorice and lavender.

The feeling of Mom stroking my hair.

The way she called me “chick.”

I’ve been carrying her, alone, for so long.

I sit on a stool in the pantry in my pajamas, talking to a ghost,

and 

I 

break.

I tell Fay things I haven’t told anyone. 

She listens patiently as I lay Mom, and her blood, and my fear, and my guilt, and the truth in a messy heap in front of her pink door.

---

---

---

Graphic Novel Development:

FAY’S CHARACTER DESIGN

I’m so excited I can finally talk about Fay—waiting for some of the reveals to happen (and trying to keep track of when you know what) has sometimes been a challenge! Fay is one of the characters I could really feel when first coming up with this story. From the original story snippet I wrote back in 2020, Fay’s life (and death) fascinated me. The idea that a ghost could be marked by what happened to them in life (beyond just being gruesome like in most shows and movies) felt really interesting and important.

One thing that’s really hitting me going through this story again is how much I want future versions of it (prose and/or graphic novel) to lean more into the story behind the story here—Fay and Imogen’s past. It’s really important to everything going on with June, but I found it hard to give it the time it needed while not revealing too much writing it the first time around. I’m taking notes for future edits to let it—and Fay—shine more.

COMMUNICATING IMOGEN’S MEMORY LAPSES VISUALLY

Another thing I’d love to really push into more in the graphic novel version is how Imogen’s mind and memories feel—distorted and scattered and confusing. Showing visuals while June is reading Imogen’s letters is also a great time to hint at the bigger story behind all this in ways I wasn’t able to while writing the text (especially because I was making so much up as a went—it’s hard to foreshadow well when you’re not quite sure what’s going to happen, exactly, but I did my best).

I didn’t quite make it through the whole letter, but I’m really happy with what I have so far! It was really freeing to start out knowing all I was trying to get out was a concept sketch (not final art) for these spreads—it allowed me to start with bigger brushes (literally), and focus on the overall spread.

Through doing spread concepts week after week in slightly different ways, I’ve also been slowly honing methods that work better for me.

Back when I did my first spread, for chapter two, I worked out some of the panels and blocking on paper first:

But it felt a bit stiff and forced. I don’t automatically have panels planned out in my head when I start—it’s more of a vague collection of feelings and fragments of moments and imagery that I know I need to connect and organize eventually on paper. When it came to actually draw this spread in Procreate, I started with panels first, which kept things pretty boxed in and meant I spent a lot of time messing with details in order to get the overall feel to work:

So this week, I planned it differently:

By allowing myself to write down that collection of feelings and partial imagery instead of expecting it to be organized from the get-go, I allowed a lot more magic to happen when it came to actually creating the spreads, and they flowed a lot more easily.

Allowing for spontaneity in my process not only made it more enjoyable, it lead me to new ideas. If I hadn’t done it this way, I might not have realized I could use the band of color to represent Imogen’s thoughts and how they flit from one thing to another, and Rorschach imagery to depict the two sides of Alfred on the next spread.

I used to think planning less meant less professional—but in reality this more hands-on, spontaneous approach sparks more magic in my final work.

Enjoying these posts? I really can’t do this without you—take a moment to contribute to the creation of this story:

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