Harry strolled over and stretched. She leaned over and canoodled him, hitting the pressed flowers box with her elbow. Maybe she should open the box tonight. It would be a good distraction, and she was certainly no longer tired. Contemplating the quandary, she felt her forehead wrinkle. If she were going to date a younger man, she needed to get on that wrinkle cream. She added it to the list in her head. The irony wasn’t lost on Dahlia; in all the years Spence had asked her to put more effort into her appearance, she now wanted to, and it was because she wasn’t with him. “Shall we take a peek?”
Harry barked, ogling her with his dark eyes.
Dahlia took that as a yes, pulling open the dusty flaps. She peered inside and reached for the first thick and lumpy album. She let out a cough as her fingers lingered over the top. The cover readRose Gardenin beautiful, romantic calligraphy.
The first page stuck, but Dahlia was able to peel it back without tearing the other pages. There was a pressed rose on everypage. “This is so you, Lil,” she mumbled. Most were unrecognizable but labeled, with a name and number written underneath. She turned to the last page, which was a faded pink, and readClaire Austin. There was a lump in her throat as she pulled back the corner and touched the dried keepsake. The surface was now hard and lifeless. Dahlia wasn’t sure how she felt about it. Part of her was happy to see Lil’s handwriting and evidence of her creative existence, but the other part made her sad. She didn’t exactly know why. Something about this find felt different, as if she were an intruder.
Album one stopped at page seven.
The next album readRose Garden 2. She carefully turned toFragrant Plum, number eleven. Its once vibrant mulberry color now looked void of any depth and life. The pages were numbered eight through fifteen.
The last readRose Garden 3, numbered to twenty-two. Dahlia laid them on the floor, her eyes filled with tears. “Lil, I miss you.” Dahlia’s voice cracked. She missed Lil but also missed having people to count on and a family to call her own. Spence had never been much of a consolation. Her dry cleaner was more like a husband than he was—he asked how her day was and took something off her plate.
Harry ran to the back door and whimpered.
She wiped her nose and got up, walking over to let him out. The screen door snapped behind her. The night air was cool as it skimmed her cheek. She paced the grass, noticing how bright and clear the sky was.
Her phone dinged. It was Noah.
Two can play, it said, along with a picture of him in bed, shirtless, chiseled and slick like he’d just exerted himself, with his finger tucked inside his white briefs.
She covered her mouth, suddenly feeling her insides ablaze. “Geez, mixed signals much?” She looked up at Noah’s window.The light was still on. Her breath quickened, and she tingled in places that had been dormant for far too long. Dahlia hadn’t thought she was capable of desire like this. It made her wonder if she could have it all: a career and love. And if so, how in God’s name would it work? She was moving in twenty-four days.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
July 10
Dahlia sat motionless in the rose garden the next morning. Her legs were crossed, and her palms were open, facing the sky. The soil was damp, and it smelled like rain. It was the first overcast day since she’d arrived, and her smile curved ear to ear. Dahlia liked rainy days. When Daisy was little, she’d relished their mother-daughter time. They would go to the library, bake cookies, watch a movie, and snuggle. It always seemed like a free day and an excuse to nest and find joy in the simple things again.
Dahlia surrendered to the peace, feeling her shoulders finally relax. Lil had loved this garden, and Dahlia was starting to grasp why. She sank her fingers into the dirt. For some reason, feeling the earth, Lil’s earth, made her feel connected to who she used to be and wanted so desperately to find again.
Perhaps it was the country air, the down-to-earth people, the slower pace, or maybe it was Noah, the guy torturing her with his godlike body, acts of service, and old soul ways. Suddenly, Dahliadidn’t feel so calm. She felt achy, and her nerve endings were on high alert. Cold droplets hit her nose, adding to her awakened mood.
Suddenly inspired, Dahlia leaped up and twirled her dirty body in the drizzle. She danced like no one was watching. “Does this count, Lil?” she asked the sullen sky. She bounced through the Fragrant Plum, the Louise Odier, and Madame Plantier, which still needed TLC. The flowery notes of vanilla and citrus mingled through the moist air as her fingertips grazed the petals. She stopped at the pale blush bush and held a stem to her nose. Her belly tickled, and her cheeks ached. It was the feeling of belonging somewhere, and it was the same feeling she’d known every summer since she was a little girl.
She took a video scanning her entire view so that others could see it too. It was as if Monet had set up his easel in her backyard. Dahlia opened her rarely used social media account. There were six pictures and only thirty-five followers. She uploaded the video anyway and typed the caption, “Flowers are like friends. You can never have too many.” Dahlia was leaning into this idea of having friends. Not the kind that whispered behind your back like in Greenwich, but shirt-off-your-back kind of friends, like Kara, who were honest, reliable, and trustworthy. Although she didn’t know Noah and his sister all that well, she could tell they were the kind of friends she wanted and needed in her life.
The rain fell harder, and Dahlia scurried to find her hat and sneakers. Just as she spotted her other shoe, she noticed something blue sticking out of the dirt. “What in the world?” She knelt down and picked it up.
She rubbed off the dirt with her thumb and held it up toward the sky. It was a graduation tassel. The metal tag read 73. What was it doing in the rose garden? And whose was it? Even though it was now a steady rain, the chilled beads of water felt nice on her warm skin. Dahlia headed toward the shed. Was it possible that somethingelse was buried with the tassel? Maybe there was more in the yard. Curiosity overcame her as she rushed through the door for a shovel.
Dahlia scanned the small rustic space for a towel or something to wipe her eyes. The only thing she could find was an old smock that hung next to the rakes. And in pure Lil style, it wasn’t just any smock. It was a white button-down garnished with years of paint and dirt. She dabbed her eyes with what looked like a clean corner and sighed as she slipped her arms through the sleeves, feeling stronger and braver in her shirt. Who needed a cape when she had this? Dahlia’s nose tingled, which meant tears weren’t far behind.
Just as she started to sink into nostalgia, Harry ran in, soaked and filthy. Bending down to get a closer look, she realized he’d been rolling in the mud. She let out a frustrated huff and said, “It looks like we both need a shower. My excavation is going to have to wait, again.” She stared at the relic still in her palm. “Seventy-three, seventy-three,” Dahlia mumbled as she tilted her head like Harry often did when talked to with animation. She did the math quickly. She was convinced it had to be her mother’s. Her eyes drew upward, spotting three more Hills Bros coffee cans lining the upper wood beam, which still seemed odd since Lil never drank coffee. She suddenly remembered the can that she and Noah found under the violets. It said eighteen. Then she let out a whispered gasp when she realized the connection. Eighteen was her mom’s age when she graduated. The tassel made perfect sense now, especially since the can was empty. But why was a can buried in the garden with her age marked on the bottom in the first place? With a graduation tassel from high school inside it? This seemed like a logical idea, and one she clung to like the droplets of rain still on her eyelashes. It wasn’t lost on her that it could have been a coincidence or something that was dropped, then accidentally buried all those years ago. But the hopeful part of her wanted to believe it was a premeditated clue from the past.
Dahlia ran through the rain back up to the house, deep in thought as Harry followed. Harry went first into the shower, and once he was clean and dry enough, it was Dahlia’s turn. The warm water felt good as it cascaded over her chilled, goosebumped skin. Her mind skipped, landing on the same idea over and over: Could her mom have made a time capsule? After losing her so young, Dahlia had always clung to any piece of her. Finding something new would be a gift she hadn’t known she needed. She reached for the soil-stained tassel that lay on the bench next to Harry’s collar and gave them both a good cleaning as well.
The clean tassel now hung from the cold water knob. You could see the colors vividly, although the blue and white were still faded and stained. When it stopped raining, she’d go back to the garden to see what else was left behind in her mother’s possible time capsule. She leaned closer, inspecting it as if it were an ancient artifact. In some twisted way, unearthing the ghosts of the past pleased her. Once upon a time, her dream had been to study archaeology, but she quickly understood it wasn’t the ideal career for a single mother.
Once clean and properly groomed in all the places that mattered, Dahlia found herself back in the kitchen mopping. Her hair was still damp, and she was wearing her mother’s old Boston College sweatshirt, which she had found tucked under a cedarwood sachet in Lil’s drawer. It was yet another sign, telling her she was exactly where she was supposed to be: at Lil’s, getting her house ready to sell, but also peeling back the layers of the past. Opening that door didn’t seem so scary anymore. Plus, she was slowly coming back to life, and she knew in order to fully bloom, it was important to make peace with how her life had unfolded.
There was the entire afternoon ahead to wash Lil’s slipcovers, so she decided to have a cup of tea first. Faithful Harry sat beside her, patiently waiting for a treat. “Who wants a bacon wrap?” asked Dahlia in a sweet, playful tone. Harry immediately broke into a spin,and she laughed. “Okay, okay.” It was the trick that had set him apart from every other dog in the shelter, and once he looked at her with those soft brown eyes, she knew he was the one. If only finding a human mate were that easy. Or maybe it was. The jury was still out.
Dahlia held the treat above his nose. Harry didn’t flinch. “Good boy, here you go.”
He snatched the jerky with his teeth and exited into the hallway.
Dahlia’s feet moved in the direction of the record player, the only one she’d ever known. It looked like an oddly shaped suitcase with a black top and red bottom that matched Lil’s checkered wingbacks. Dahlia opened it and found a Frank Sinatra record already inside. Lil had loved him. Sinatra was before her time, but Gran and Pop were older, and possibly their musical taste had rubbed off on her. Still, Dahlia had always wondered what the draw was. She turned it on and lowered the needle right at the beginning of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” which couldn’t have been any more fitting.
