The Scent of Apple Tea

4. Heather

Heather

4

Heather registered the sun through gauzy curtains and burrowed deeper under her cotton blanket. It was probably seven in the morning, but she still wasn’t getting up. A rooster crowed outside and Heather grumbled into her pillow.

Please don’t let it be one of those days.

Visions of other places full of adventure and newness wove through her drowsy mind. However, rather than eliciting muscle relaxation and the sigh of pleasure one might expect when dreaming of beaches or rainforest hikes, the visions made Heather scowl. She wasn’t there. She was still on the farm—her prison.

When Heather did sit up, even the sight of whimsically painted bedroom furniture, a collection of Frank Baum Oz books, and all her potted vines couldn’t cheer her up. In fact, the whole room seemed decidedly outdated and childish this morning, which only made her mood worse.

Heather was tired of her malfunctioning brain. The depression used to be seasonal. She’d even had one of those sun lights that helped with the persistent darkness and rain of Willamette Valley winters. But then one time in college she’d holed up in her dorm room for three weeks and stopped showering.

Since then, she’s been medicated. College hadn’t worked out, and she’s worked on the farm ever since. At first it was fun. Her mom had officially hired her for the bookkeeping and marketing of Herbal Junction Farm and surprised her with an enormous antique pedestal desk. It was a magnificent piece of nineteenth century art: solid mahogany construction, leather top, and brass pulls. And it was hers. Her mama had also given her the title of Office Goddess.

She flopped her arms by her side, and a waft of summer morning air circled in and danced past her nose. She didn’t like taking the pills. But she didn’t like apathy reaching its cold fingers into her mind either. She’d been taking her meds regularly, but something was different these days. The depression felt different. Black days gripped her more often. Maybe her prescription needed to be changed.

She slid her feet into fuzzy, fake cheetah-fur slippers and pulled on a thin robe with two dime-sized holes in it. It was ugly and she hated it, but somehow she couldn’t make it to the department store to get a new one.

She drank from the water glass on her turquoise bedside table and decided she wouldn’t let the day get the better of her. Maybe she’d take a luxurious bubble bath instead of her usual shower. Heather sighed. But that would only put off work longer. She wished, once again, that they had a hot tub. She’d gladly race through work for the reward of sinking into 104-degree water with a new novel. Even if it was ninety degrees in the afternoon.

Her mom thought hot tubs were environmentally tragic—draining chemically laden water onto the land every three months, filling it up again, heating it with electricity every day, yada yada yada. Heather had heard it all before. Somehow, though, she could conveniently justify it. The heat was therapeutic—to both body and mind.

A small luxury like that might distract her from dwelling on the annoying fact that she—an adult—still lived with her mom. It was not what she’d envisioned for her life. She thought she’d be married by now, living a whirlwind life in Barcelona, or London.

Heather hurried through her morning routine and then went in search of caffeine and food before dealing with the computer. Kyle and Jill were coming over that night. She hoped her foul mood and her bellyache, which had returned, would shift by that time. Thank god for Costco-sized bottles of ibuprofen and Tums, or she’d never get any work done.