The Art of Arranging Flowers (29 page)

R
UBY,
I can't believe I forgot again. Happy New Year, Clementine.”

The wind chime on the front door sounds. Clementine raises her head, yawns, and then settles back down; she is sleeping beneath the table as I come around the corner. I am carrying a short clear glass vase filled with a bouquet of roses, yellow ones from Lubbock, a dozen of them surrounded by thin stems of baby's breath with a few slender reeds of fresh eucalyptus and bear grass.

“They are spectacular,” Stan Marcus says, shaking his head. “Exactly what she likes. You are omnipotent.”

“Stan, I am not omnipotent.”

“That's right, I keep forgetting. You just have a great database.”

I smile. “A computer,” I tease him. “It's a computer. Maybe you should think about getting one.”

“Not as long as I have Marcy,” he answers.

“And yellow pads,” I add.

“Exactly.”

“How many years?” I ask.

“Forty-seven,” he answers. And then he grins. “You?”

“Not yet one,” I say, putting the vase on the counter and holding up my left hand, still marveling at the ring that was placed there.

“It was a beautiful wedding,” he tells me, and I am still smiling.

“It was, wasn't it?” And I cannot help myself; I lean back against the design table and sigh and remember the day last spring when we gathered once more for love in Henry's backyard, Nora running around trying to get people in their seats, Carl trying to make sure my dress is just right, Will and Clem walking me down the aisle, John and Dr. Buckley waiting for me. The yard wild and full of color, my hair and arms adorned with the mountain flowers Will had picked, the soft way everything bloomed.

“We'd been waiting for that day a long time.”

And I am jolted back to the present moment.

“Yes, so I heard,” I say.

“Will doing all right?”

“He's had a great holiday, learned to ski,” I answer. “This is his last day before school starts. I think he and John may hit the slopes one more time.”

“That's fabulous,” Stan remarks.

“It is for him, not so much for me,” I answer, recalling how worried I got every time I watched him standing at the top of the mountain, getting ready to come down.

“And your holidays?” I ask.

“Well, they were a little sad since this is the first Christmas without Mama, but they were okay,” he says.

I watch the tears fill his eyes and remember the funeral late last summer. He had ordered a spray of red and pink roses, and a wreath to match, and he had asked for a small service to be held at the Lutheran church. There were a few green plants called in, bromeliads and a waterfall phale, a bouquet of tulips from his cousin in Oregon.

“Did you see the sky last night?” he asks, clearing his throat and changing the subject.

And I think about John and Will and me standing on the deck, Dan's super telescope pointed west, the stars blazing, the meteor shower dancing all around us, the larger planets bright and shining. “We did,” I answer, and I start ringing up the sale.

“It was something else,” Stan comments. “It was like fireworks, you know those ones with the white clusters of starbursts?”

“I do,” I reply, thinking about how the sky lit up, Will yelling at us to make sure we didn't miss anything, the kiss John and I shared. Suddenly, I think of something else.

“Hey, did you know that Mozart's Symphony number forty-one is also called the Jupiter Symphony?”

I suddenly remember the night John told me that, Dan's music playing on the stereo, the same music that Dan played for me when I went to his house to see the planet for the first time. I had been so surprised about the nickname of the piece that I hadn't even noticed when John pulled out the small ring box from the front pocket of his jacket and knelt before me.

“What's wrong?” I had asked, thinking at first that he had fallen.

“Nothing's wrong,” he told me, opening the box and looking up at me, so hopeful, so worried, so unbelievably perfect.

“I did not know that,” Stan answers, not understanding why I would ask. “But I will keep that in mind the next time I am listening to classical music.”

“Do you need a card?” I ask, returning to the things at hand.

“I have taken care of that,” he says, and smiles.

“Yes, that's right,” I say.

Stan still keeps a stack of greeting cards at his office. He reaches in his back pocket and takes out his wallet and hands me his credit card.

I take the same Visa I have taken for years, run it through the machine, and hand him his receipt.

He signs it and hands back the copy, picking up his credit card from the counter and putting it in his wallet again.

“So, see you in a couple of weeks?” I ask.

“January thirtieth,” he says, remembering the exact date of her birthday. “She'll be sixty-seven,” he reminds me.

“And she doesn't look a day over forty,” I reply.

He grins, knowing that I am saying the thing he always does.

“I am a lucky man.” And he takes the vase of flowers and heads to the door.

“We're all lucky,” I say, and I see him as he throws up his hand to wave good-bye.

I watch him walk across the street to his office.

“It's true, isn't it?” I turn to Clementine, who doesn't bother to open her eyes, and I see the way her hair has changed from yellow to white around her face. I hadn't noticed before how much she's aged, and I reach down and give her a rub.

“You and I are the lucky ones, aren't we?” I ask her.

She opens her eyes and yawns.

“I'm glad you like Will and John,” I tell her, thinking of how we sometimes all crawl into the bed, Will, John, and me under the covers, Clem at our feet, how we watch a movie, and eat popcorn, how easy things are with us all, how uncomplicated it all unfolded once I stopped being afraid, how gently I was pulled at my edges until everything loosened and fell open.

“The boys are great,” I say to Clementine. “But of course we all know everything good started with you.”

She stretches her legs, enjoying the praise. I scratch her back, her neck, and give her a gentle pat on her stomach. I stay that way for a few minutes, just spending a little time with my dog, loving her, thanking her.

When I stand up, John is at the counter and Will is at his side.

“How did you come in without ringing the chime?” I ask them, moving toward them.

John takes me by the hands. “We thought we'd surprise you,” he says, and smiles.

“Well, that you did,” I reply, leaning up to kiss him and to kiss my son. I pull away and stare at them both, noticing how my lungs fill and my heart expands. I breathe out a long, full breath.

“That you most certainly did.”

W
HEN
she comes to me, she is not crazy or dead. She is young and beautiful and very much alive. She wears flowers in her hair, daisies, of course, white ones, “day's eyes,” I tell her, the phrase from Old English, what they used to call the flowers because they opened to the sun and folded in on themselves at night. And she laughs at me, like she did when we were children.

“You know too much,” she says, and to hear her again, to see her like this is more than I can bear.

“You are so perfect,” I tell her, and she smiles and lets me look at her, just look at her, the way I have wanted for so long.

“You will be perfect, too,” she says, and reaches for me.

I glance behind me and I see my son. He himself is old, but he is happy and he sits beside me with children around him, a wife at his side. He has flowers in his lap, yellow bells and goldeneyes, tiny trumpets and pink mountain heather, blooms he found on his hike to the lake.

Even after all he learned from Cooper and the summer classes he took at the community college on floral design, even after seeing acres of tulips in Seattle and vast stretches of roses in Portland, even after traveling to England and Japan to see some of the most beautiful gardens in the world, Will has always preferred the wildflowers, always choosing to add fireweed and bitterroot, primrose and spotted knapweed to bouquets, anything he could find on his explorations in the mountains or along the desert floors; these are the blooms he is most passionate about.

Of course, John and I always thought Will would choose science for his field of study, that he might become a teacher or professor, maybe even follow Dan's dream and become an astronaut or astronomer. In the end, however, even though he stuck to science, he found that he loved botany and followed his heart to become a plant enthusiast, researching the medicinal qualities of flowers for years, traipsing around the world, studying seeds and blooms until he tired of the travel and then eventually returned to Creekside, taking over the shop.

He married Jenny and Justin's oldest daughter, Claire, the brainy one who worked with John, who went to college and studied the science of veterinary medicine and returned to her hometown to work with her mentor, the girl who had loved Will from the very beginning of her life.

And though it took years to unfold, years for it all to come together, it was like the two of them took over our lives, perfectly, symmetrically, magically, letting my husband and me enjoy each other and the little town we both loved.

I had a very good life.

I reach for my son and he takes my hands and I nod at him and smile, the way we sometimes do when the words are no longer necessary. And I see him understand what I am telling him and though I can tell it is not easy, he nods too, letting me know it is okay to go.

I lean back against my pillow and close my eyes and everything blooms. Daisy and John and Nora and Jimmy, everyone I love who has left me is present, a pack of friendly dogs who were my companions over the years, Clementine, of course, leading. Even Dan is here, not just in the form of stardust or planet matter; he is exactly as I remember him.

As I hold out my hands to join them, I feel it again, that gentle easy way I have learned of unfolding, the simple way I am pulled and released. It was slow to come to me, taking years to finally happen, but once I was shown, once I finally was shown, it happened again and again and again. Will and then John, Claire, and Jessie and Danny, my grandchildren.

“We become who we are meant to be because of the things along our edges that pull us into existence.”

I recall the words Dan spoke to me before I knew to adopt Will, the way he explained to me the thing I should have known, the one lesson I should have been able to teach, how flowers bloom, how hearts open. But I hadn't known it until a boy stood outside my shop window, his sorrow even weightier than my own. Even though I had seen the flowers open and bloom, open and bloom, open and bloom, season after season, I did not fully understand the art of such a thing until there was Will.

I open my eyes and let go a breath and the next one I take in is sweet and fragrant, a garden of color and beauty, and not of this world.

I open myself for the final time.

I have, completely and at last, bloomed.

This story is about learning to open your heart to love, and as I write these words I understand that my own heart is open only because of divine grace and the love and guidance of many wonderful teachers. I wish to acknowledge my loving parents, who set me on the right path, and my siblings, Sharon and Kerry, my earliest companions, for walking with me and showing me the way. I am grateful for exquisite friends, my beloveds, those of you who laugh with me, cry with me, wander and dance with me. How do you thank the ones who know and love you best?

Regarding this particular story, I owe a great deal of gratitude to the community of Chewelah, Washington, to the UCC church, and to the talented group known as the Creekside Writers. I am also grateful for the opportunity to have met astronaut Edgar Mitchell when a six-hour delay at the Albuquerque Airport turned into a holy conversation.

To Jackie Cantor and the warm, gracious team at Berkley Books, you have welcomed me and this story with such kindness and enthusiasm, I feel like I am in the company of cherished friends. Thank you, Jackie, for the sweet, easy way you have brought this story to light.

And finally, to my husband, Bob Branard, there is more of you here than just your name on this book's cover. You are the story. You are the beauty that saves me day after day. You are why I bloom. Thank you for this joyful and splendid life we share. I love you.