My hands stilled on the stems I’d been trimming. “A surfer?”
“Runs the surf shop down on the beach. Grady Nash. You probably know him—small town like this.”
I set down my scissors. “I know him. He’s a good friend of mine.”
“Ah, then, you know what a good man he is. Humble too. Wouldn’t take anything from me afterward—no money, no dinner, nothing. Said it was just what you do.” He shook his head. “But it wasn’t just what you do. Most people would have called for help and stayed on the sand. He went in. That water was rough and cold. He risked himself for a stranger and his dog. I’ve wanted to do something for him but couldn’t think of what, and my daughter finally said, just send the man some flowers, Dad.”
I stood behind my counter and felt something press against the wall of anger I’d spent the last two days building. Grady had saved this man’s life. He’d pulled him out of the ocean and walked him to his car and never mentioned it. He’d done it because it was the right thing to do, and then he’d gone on with his day. That was who he was. Under the secret identity and the inheritance and all the things he’d hidden, this was his true character. A man who went into rough water for a stranger.
“What kind of flowers does he like?” Arthur asked.
The question caught me off guard. In three years, I’d never sent Grady flowers. He’d spent hundreds of hours in this shop helping and not once had I made an arrangement for him. I’d never even asked him what his favorite flower was. Maybe if Ihad, he would have been more likely to share his shame, his past. Who he really was.
“I’ll put something together,” I said, my voice not quite steady. “Something bright. He loves bold colors.”
“I trust your judgment.”
“Do you want it delivered?” I asked.
“No, I can take it to him in person,” Arthur said. “Leave it on the porch.”
“Give me thirty minutes and I’ll have it ready for you.”
“Wonderful. Charlie and I will head to the store and come back in a bit.”
The moment they were gone, I made the arrangement. Birds of paradise for boldness. Orange dahlias for warmth. Greenery for freshness.
What was I doing? Pushing Grady away when he needed me most? I’d thought of myself as such a giving, sensitive friend but maybe I was just selfish, taking and taking from Grady without giving back. And he was the kind of person who jumped into treacherous water to save a stranger.
I had to fix this.
Around midnight,after tossing and turning, thinking about Grady and the older man he’d saved and how I’d sent him away when I should have listened, I gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed. The apartment was quiet. Madison had been asleep since eight-thirty, curled around her stuffed otter, her costume on the end of the bed. She’d decided to go to Alex and Gillian’s Halloween party as Trevor, which made me laugh despite my anxiety over Grady. We’d spent the evening putting the finishing touches on the costume. I’d found a brown onesie from the thriftstore and made a tail out of yarn and sewn ears from felt and stuffed it with cotton. The collar was made from an old belt with a tag that said TREVOR.
She’d tried the costume on earlier and barked at herself in the mirror until Robbie told her that Trevor didn’t actually bark that much and suggested she take a book out of the library on Stanislavski’s Method so that she might improve her acting skills.
Madison had simply given him a bewildered look and then crawled around the living room trying to wag her tail. Trevor had not seemed amused, staring at her from under the kitchen table.
Robbie’s light had gone off at ten. His costume was already laid out on his desk. He’d ordered a tee with the periodic symbol for silicon and a necktie covered in the entire periodic table, complete with illustrated laboratory equipment. He’d even printed a small card with additional element facts in case anyone wanted more information about the role of silicon in semiconductor technology.” I felt fairly certain no one would ask.
When Madison had asked him what he was supposed to be, he’d said, “The foundation of modern computing.” She’d said, “You look like a science teacher,” and he’d said, “Thank you, but I prefer to teach college students. Professor Taylor, PhD.”
I’d thought I’d simply wear the clown costume I’d worn the year before, but instead an idea had occurred to me. One that might be ridiculous or romantic, depending.
I would go as a sunflower.
Now, I stood at my worktable in the dark shop, wearing my bathrobe over pajamas, and stared at the materials I’d spread out that afternoon while the kids were at school. Yellow felt. Floral wire I used for structural work in large arrangements. A square of burlap. Scissors. My glue gun. Green fabric I’d cutfrom a remnant I kept in the back for wrapping. A spool of the same green floral tape I used every day.
Trevor padded down the stairs behind me, nails clicking, and went straight to his bed. He circled three times, collapsed with a sigh, and looked at me as if to say,You’re up in the middle of the night? How rude.
“I know,” I whispered. “Go to sleep.”
He put his chin on his paws but kept his eyes open. Watching my every movement like the long-suffering Trevor he was.
I turned on the light over my work counter, working on the frame first, shaping it into a circle, roughly two feet across, then bent smaller lengths into petal shapes radiating outward. There were fourteen of them, evenly spaced. I cut the felt into petal shapes—wide at the base, tapering to soft points with each one roughly the length of my forearm. I wrapped them around the wire, gluing as I went, smoothing the fabric with my fingers until each petal held its shape. The yellow was cheerful and defiant at the same time.
For the center, I stretched the burlap over a circle of cardboard and glued dried sunflower seeds in a Fibonacci spiral that appeared in every real sunflower head. Robbie had discovered that years ago. I’d been arranging sunflowers for a fall display and he’d stood at the counter with a magnifying glass, counting seeds, thrilled to discover that nature was as precise as he was. “It’s not random. It’s mathematics.” He’d been nine. That was my boy for you.
I glued the center to the frame and held it up. It was big and bright and more than a little ridiculous. The petals weren’t perfectly symmetrical. One was slightly longer than the others. The burlap was a shade darker than I’d wanted. But it looked like a sunflower. A real one.
