Chapter Three
Years ago,I wasn’t sure I’d ever get the feeling of privacy or know what it would be like to feel free and alone, and now that I have it, I don’t always want it. Mom and Dad sold our house shortly after my surgery and downsized to a one-bedroom condo. The money they spent on my medical bills took everything away from them. Dad worked fifteen-hour days at two different jobs, seven days a week just to keep up. He couldn’t even make it to my surgery until it was halfover.
Once I was back on my feet and thinking about a future none of us thought I would have, the first thing on my newly formed bucket list was to get my own place and be on my own. I yearned for thefreedom.
This will be my fifth year in this apartment and while it feels like home, it also feels empty. I do my best to pretend like this is the life I want to live, alone, without the intention of hurting another person the way I saw Ellie’s husband hurting, but there's part of me that just wants to experience some form of ordinary, even if it's for a short amount oftime.
Like I do many nights, I take out my stationary, weave it into my old printer, and type to him. I tell him everything I did during the day and everything Ellie's heart experienced. While I write to Hunter daily, I only send the letters that have significance—something within them that will give him a little more peace in his life. I don’t know if he even readsthem.
My letters have remained anonymous for five years, needing to keep Ellie's secret safe. She never wanted Hunter to know of her impending death. Her medical issues were invisible, unlike mine. She was able to keep the secret, whereas I wore my fate like a body suit. Everyone I passed on the street knew I was sick. Without enough blood and oxygen pumping through my veins, I looked like a zombie. The long glances I would get made it all worse. Old ladies would place their hands over their hearts and tell me they'd say a prayer for me. Mothers would pull their children away as if I was carrying a life-threatening disease, which I was, but it wasn't contagious to anyone but myself. Men would look at me and sometimes snarl; whether unintentionally or not, it made me feel like some beast who should never leave thehouse.
I became numb to it after a while but it may be because I began to avoid people, going out, and having any form of a life—one a dying woman could have. I was always envious of Ellie because of this. I wanted to be able to hide it all within my body, keep it hidden from the people I love, just to spare them the pain and fear, but instead I ripped every piece of my parents’ hearts out every day as they watched medecay.
However, when family and loved ones don’t have the time to process an untimely death and they’re forced to face the brutality of it in the moment it happens, left without goodbyes andI love yous, it has the potential to destroy everything and everyone left behind in the shadow of their loved one’s existence. In my case, Mom and Dad would have gotten relief after the grief passed. They would have closure and final words. Hunter received none of that, and while I don’t disagree with Ellie’s decisions, I saw the aftermath, and I can’t help but wonder about him every day, how he’s survived without closure, goodbyes, and I love you’s. I stole his wife’s heart, and I feel responsible in manyways.
I debate if it would be better or worse for him to know who I am, and since I haven’t been able to make a proper decision about it all, I’ve remainedhidden.
I think about the words I want to write and the stories I want toshare.
Dear Mr.Cole,
Four weeks have passed since my last note to you. In that time, the weather has grown cold and I have spent a great deal of time indoors, reading, cleaning, and writing a bit. I’m afraid her heart feels a bit empty these days and I feel guilty for not doing more to fillit.
I met a man, a man who doesn’t know of my weakness, losses or gains. I think he saw me for who I am and wanted to learn more about me, but I fear what he would think or do if he were to learn of my fragilestate.
Anyway, I hope you and your daughter are doing well. Ellie once told me she dreamed of having a daughter. I know this isn’t the way she wanted it to happen, though. I’m sorry I have let Ellie’s heart down this past month, I will do what I can to bring back some of the warmth that has slipped away. Maybe this man I met will be different. Maybe he will be the first to love a bird with a broken wing. We can always hope, right? Take care and I hope the holiday season brings you everything you wanted thisyear.
Sincerely,
HerHeart
With a finished lettertyped out on my screen, I close my laptop and move on to the next part of my night involving mindless TV, tea, then bed. Same thing every night. I’m supposed to be living and yet, I feel as though I’m skating through each day with caution until I hear the next bad piece ofnews.
It’s turningcold early this year and soon I will need to go harvest the blue jasmines I plant in the gardens every spring. I let them blossom and grow throughout the summer and then take them, with their roots, back to the floral shop for the winter season so they don’t die. Since Mom and Dad own the gardens, I’m allowed to plant what I’d like here. Dad actually wanted me to take up some of the groundskeeper roles at the garden, but I felt I could do more with the flower shop. Funny enough, flowers were never my dream job, not like Mom and Dad. I grew up in the gardens as Dad took care of the eight acres of land on a daily basis, on top of his office job. He and Mom enforced a life of everything flowers. I knew more about botany than any child should know. I loved it for a long time but as I got older and before I got sick, I had plans to become a teacher, and I got so close to achieving that goal. I continued reaching for it even after I was diagnosed but by the last year of college, classes, standing, and talking became too hard, and I was forced to give it allup.
I was invited back to finish my degree after the transplant but I had a change of heart, in more ways than one. The new heart in my body wanted to fulfill Ellie’s lifelong endeavors, which, ironically enough, was not only teaching but also running a flower shop. We talked about this for years, how if she got the chance after she saved up enough money, she would run her own flower boutique in the middle of town, right on Main Street. I urged her to follow her dream, but Hunter was already following his dream and running his dad’s family business, so she felt it was safer to stick with a definitive paycheck and benefits every week, especially since they were trying so hard for ababy.
Ellie never got her dream while she was alive, and I felt it was my responsibility to unravel her dream through the goodness left within this heart I carry ofhers.
I pull into the empty lot of the gardens and make my way down the cobblestone steps that have been here for over a hundred years, up-kept by my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and their parents. These are our family’s gardens and I feel it all around me when I’m here. It’s like an ethereal stomping ground for the love between floating souls. That’s how I feel when I’m here,anyway.
I decide not to waste time today since I have to get all of the arrangements done in the shop before I leave for my faux date tonight. Many nights, I end up closing the shop close to eight, rather than five, which is the intended closingtime.
As I’m placing each jasmine carefully into my carrying box, I hear a sound across the small pond. Curious, since my car was alone in the lot, I search around until I see a man in the distance. He has a hand up to one of the trees and I think he’s talking to it.Howbizarre...
After a moment of watching the man continue to talk to the tree, I realize I’m being incredibly rude by staring, so I go back to pulling the jasmines from theground.
Every flower I take from the soft soil reminds me of Ellie. These were her favorite flowers, so I make sure to plant them here on her behalf every plantingseason.
“This is a privately owned garden,” a man’s voice says from behindme.
I lift my head and turn toward him. It’s the man I was watching a moment ago. Surprised and almost speechless for a brief moment, I acknowledge what he said, as I recognize the sad look in his eyes that has obviously remained with him like a permanent scar. A million different emotions hit me at once, being this close to this man. I want to tell him I know who he is. I want to tell him I know why he must be in the gardens and at that tree in particular. Though, if I did that, the years of hiding my identity to protect him will all be for nothing. Instead, I search my mind for the right words in order to avoid a hint of who I am. “Are theseyourflowers?” Iask.
He peers down at his closed hand, holding a bunch of jasmines. “No,” he replies quietly. “I got permission from the owner of thegarden.”
My parents. He got permission from my parents to take jasmines from around the tree when he visits—the jasmines I have planted for Ellie every year. I didn’t realize he was the one taking them but I should have assumed. Mom and Dad never told me they granted him permission to pick theseflowers.
“I did too,” I tell him. “I help the groundskeepers out sometimes since I manage a flower shop downtown. The shop I work for supplies the seeds in the spring and takes what’s left at the end of the season. Since we’re getting an early freeze, I’m making my rounds sooner than normal thisyear.”
