Even before she speaks, I know. The last slice of pizza sits heavily in my stomach.
I’ve never bought Johanna roses, though I’ve given her bouquets or orchids for her birthday on occasion.
Max loved that kind of romantic gesture. At any excuse for a special occasion, he’d order a dozen roses for Johanna. Sometimes he’d pick them up himself; other times he had them delivered. In particular, whenever the company won a big contract he enjoyed watching the delivery person marching through the offices and seeing the roses glowing in a place of pride on Johanna’s desk. Or they’d show up at our house and sit on the dining room table, dropping petals until the last rose wilted.
Always a mixture of pink and red. He’d loved red roses, while Johanna prefers pink. How many people knew their color preferences?
And who, then, had the nerve? arrogance? to add white to the mix?
Chapter 13
Grief and Living
JOHANNA
Roses.
Someone gave me roses.
Someone other than Max gave me roses.
Someone other than Max, who knew he gave me a mix of red and pink, roses sent the same—except with an equal number of white.
No hiding the symbolism: the sender didn’t subtract or replace Max’s red, merely added white.
Something new along with the old. Or someone?
Fortunately, the florist stripped the thorns from the stems, since I scramble among them searching for a card or any sign of the giver. A weak hint of rose perfume mingles with the scents of Corin and his daughters and Anamaria’s guests, but nothing else that I can catch—not even a hint of the person who’d prepared the bouquet.
“What are you doing?” Caity seems disturbed by the disarray caused by my search through the flowers. The instant I pull back to stare at the blooms, her fingers twitch them into a semblanceof order, flanking each pink bud with a red and a white, which gives it rather a target-like appearance.
“There’s no card,” I say, memory failing to identify if that was the original arrangement or not.
“Check the gift.” Caity points at the square package on the table.
I’d all but forgotten, too taken by the roses. A soft rumble escapes Corin as I pick it up. Any louder, and I’d call it a growl.
Hefting the package, which has the weight and semblance of a wrapped book, I glance around. They’re all watching my hands, but with such very different expressions.
Anamaria’s friends—or Bebe’s or Caity’s or all three of theirs—evidence only mild interest, but Anamaria herself is aglow, the shadows in her eyes starting to fade.
Caity has slung her arm around her oldest sister’s shoulder, head back in an attitude of studied indifference. Her fingers continue to twitch, hinting at the impatience lurking beneath her nonchalance; somewhere she’s still the little girl who hates not knowing what’s inside any wrapped gift whether for her or not.
Bebe’s lips quirk to the side in a half-smile beneath a hooded gaze. She’s far less romantic than Max, but has always appreciated a touch of mystery and the unknown.
Corin holds his head high, looking down his nose at the flowers and gift, but another grumble escapes him as I slip a finger under the ribbon. He grabs his glass and drinks, emptying it as his hand squeezes its base.
Beneath the layers of tissue cascading to the table the gift is, indeed, a book. No title, no author. The cover bears only a pink rose, embossed on paler pink cloth. An artificial rose fragrance clings to its cover and pages, more pungent than that from the living roses. It makes my nose twitch, though not in a bad way, completely overwhelming any lingering hint of the sender’s scent that might be lingering.
It’s a blank book, but when I flip through the pages each bears an inscription in legible, but not picture-perfect, cursive that almost looks familiar. The how and why elude me; I hardly ever see anything handwritten these days except the occasional note around the house from the four people surrounding me, and even they’re more likely to text.
The giver took the time to handwrite a saying on every page. Dozens of them—how many pages does the book have? Most include the original source and a date. Others lack any attribution, such as the very first, suggesting they’re straight from the giver.
There’s nothing there to identify who sent this to me, yet there’s an unsigned message at the front.
Grief wrapped my heart and lungs. Every beat and every breath hurt, barbed with thorns that would not let me forget, even if I wanted to. I raged at the universe, but nothing and no one answered. They are gone for no reason, no rhyme. I am left bereft but unable to follow. They would not want me to be lost without them, yet I am.
Things change whether or not we will them to. The grief that swallowed me whole shrank to become my shadow rather than my full self. Thorns lodged in my flesh transformed into scars that pinch and pain, and yet allow movement.
