“Yeah,” Bo nodded. “You’re right.”
“Do you need flowers? We stock daisies here, mostly.”
Bo took a deep breath, wiping the remnants of her tears away. “I do need flowers. I’m in love, you see,” she added, smiling softly.
Madelief smiled back. “You’re in love? Then you will be okay. Love is beautiful, did anyone ever tell you that?”
Max told me. He told me because it was how he felt for me. He tried to tell me so many times and in so many ways, but I never understood what he was trying to tell me.Bo took a deep breath, pulling herself together.
“Actually, I need daisies,” she decided, pulling herself together. “I need a big bouquet of daisies to tell someone I love them.”
Madelief smiled. “Daisies are my specialty. Come on, let me show you the best of what I have.”
Fifteen minutes later, after Bo had chosen a large bouquet of white daisies to send to Max, Madelief handed her a blank card. “Do you want to write a message?”
Bo thought for a moment. She could write ‘I love you’ in large letters, but that wasn’t her, and it wasn’t Max either. Words would never be the way they expressed their love to one another, she realized. They spoke in other ways. She hesitated, before putting the pen down.
“Are you okay?” Madelief asked.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Take some time to think then. It will come to you.”
Bo nodded, looking at Madelief curiously. “Are you okay?”
Madelief laughed. “I’m old, with a bad hip.”
“I meant . . . are you okay? Are you well and happy?”
“Yes. I’ve been very fortunate.”
“Fortunate? You mean, you’ve had a good life?”
Madelief seemed to think, and Bo watched her nervously. If Madelief had lived a bad life, she knew that Geoffrey, wherever he was, would never rest easily. He’d told her that what he did to Madelief was the worst thing he ever did, and if Madelief had suffered unduly because of that, he’d never forgive himself, even from beyond the grave. Geoffrey had tortured himself in life because of Madelief, lived a half-life while waiting for her to return, even to the point of abandoning Max, his only child. If Madelief had lived a bad life, what had all that sacrifice been for?
Madelief smiled at Bo however, leaning towards her. “My dear,” she said, her eyes flashing brightly. “I’ve lived awonderfullife.”
Bo smiled back, relief running through her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she remembered Geoffrey’s smile and knew that wherever he was now, he was doing just that.
“You probably think I’m mad, giving daisies to a man to tell him I love him,” she laughed, but Madelief only smiled.
“I once gave a man a camellia to tell him I loved him,” she confessed, and Bo’s mouth dropped open.The camellia in Geoffrey’s garden,she realized.Madelief bought it for Geoffrey.
“I like camellias,” Bo whispered back. “I understand.”
Madelief nodded. “Does this man love you back? The one I’m sending these daisies to?”
“I think so. At least, I hope so.”
Madelief smiled. “Then you’ll live a wonderful life too. When you meet the one you’re meant to be with, you just know. When I met my husband, I felt it, right in here.” She pointed to her chest. “Deep within. My daughter thinks that flowers are my passion,but she’s wrong. It’s her father, and it will always be her father, God rest him.”
Bo nodded. “I think I know what to write on the card now. Can I have the pen again?”
Madelief nodded, and Bo quickly scribbled down some words, knowing that only Max would ever understand the meaning behind them.
For Max, with my most sincere compliments.
P.S. You never need to knock on my doors again. For you, they’ll always be open.
