The Language of Flowers

Renata greeted him as we passed. I acknowledged his presence only by reaching out to grasp what he had brought me, keeping my eyes on the ground. When I was safely around a corner, out of view, I looked into my hand.

Oval, gray-green leaves grew from a tangle of lime-colored twigs, translucent balls clinging to the branches like drops of rain. The clipping fit exactly in the palm of my hand, and the soft leaves stung where they touched.

Mistletoe.

I surmount all obstacles.

9.

My puncture wounds scabbed in the night and attached themselves to the thin cotton sheets. Emerging from sleep, it took me a moment to locate the burning in my body and even longer to remember the source of the injury. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting, and it hit me all at once: the thorns, the spoon, the long drive, and Elizabeth. I yanked my hands out from underneath the covers with one fast tug and studied my palms. The cuts had reopened; fresh blood seeped out.

It was early, and still dark. I felt my way down the hall to the bathroom, my hands leaving bloody streaks on the walls where I touched. In the bathroom, Elizabeth was already up and dressed. She sat at the vanity and looked in the mirror as if she would apply makeup, but there was no makeup on the counter, only a half-empty jar of cream. She dipped her ring finger, the nail flat and short, into the cream and smoothed it under her brown eyes, along her defined cheekbones, and down the bridge of her straight nose. Elizabeth’s skin was unwrinkled and glowed with the dark warmth of summer, and I guessed she was much younger than her high-collared shirt and middle-parted, tightly wrapped hair made her look.

She turned when she saw me, her profile sharp in the mirror.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

I stepped forward, holding my hands so close to her face she had to lean back to focus.

She inhaled sharply. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

I shrugged.

Elizabeth sighed. “Well, give me your hands. I don’t want them getting infected.”

She patted her lap for me to sit down, but I took a step backward. Retrieving a small bowl from underneath the sink, Elizabeth filled it with peroxide and reached for my hands, dipping them one at a time. She watched my expression for pain, but I clenched my teeth and held my face perfectly still. My wounds turned white and frothy. Elizabeth emptied the basin, refilled it, and submerged my hands again.

“I’m not going to let you get away with anything here,” Elizabeth said. “But if you couldn’t find the spoon after a true attempt, I would have accepted a genuine apology.” Her voice was stern and direct. In the sleepy haze of early morning, I wondered if I had imagined her gentle tone of the night before.

She dipped my hands in again, watching the tiny white bubbles form for the third time. Running my hands under cold water, she patted them dry with a clean white towel. The small punctures looked deep and empty, as if the peroxide had eaten away perfect circles of flesh. With white gauze, she began wrapping my wrist, working her way slowly toward my fingers.

“You know,” Elizabeth said, “when I was six, I learned the only way to get my mother out of bed was to act out. I behaved atrociously, just so that she would get up and punish me. When I was ten, she tired of it and sent me to boarding school. The same won’t happen with you. Nothing you could do would make me send you away. Nothing. So you can go on testing me—hurling my mother’s silver around the kitchen, if that’s what you have to do—but know that my response will always be the same: I will love you, and I will keep you. Okay?”

I looked at Elizabeth, my body tight with suspicion, my breath lost in the steamy bathroom. I didn’t understand her. Shoulders tense, her sentences sharp and clipped, she spoke with a formality I’d never encountered. Yet behind her words was an inexplicable softness. Her touch, too, was different; the thorough way she cleaned my hands, without the heavy, silent burden in the actions of all my other foster mothers. I didn’t trust it.

Silence stretched between us. Elizabeth tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and looked deeply into my eyes for an answer.

“Okay,” I said finally, because I knew it was the fastest way to end the conversation and leave the heat of the small bathroom.

The corners of Elizabeth’s mouth turned up. “Come on, then,” she said. “It’s Sunday. On Sunday we go to the farmers’ market.”