The Language of Flowers

“I don’t want you to think I’m encouraging you,” she said. “What you did was clearly wrong. But I feel bad that I ignored your anger, and that I sent you to school in the state you were in. I should have explained myself better, should have included you.”

Elizabeth understood.

I pulled my forehead away from the dashboard and shifted my head onto her lap, suddenly feeling less alone than I ever had in my entire life. The steering wheel was only an inch from my nose, and I nuzzled the crown of my head into her stomach. If Elizabeth was surprised by my sudden affection, she didn’t show it. She moved her hand from the gearshift to my hairline, stroking my temple and down the bridge of my nose.

“I hope she’s home,” she said, and I knew her thoughts had returned to Catherine. She switched on her blinker, waiting for a line of cars to pass before turning from the driveway onto the road.

Elizabeth had not stopped thinking about her sister in the weeks leading up to the harvest. I knew this because of the phone calls, dozens of them, all messages left on Catherine’s answering machine. The first few were similar to the one I had overheard on the porch: moments of scattered reminiscing followed by a statement of forgiveness. But lately her messages had been different—chatty, and long—sometimes so long that the answering machine cut her off and she had to call back. She rambled on and on about the minutia of our daily lives, describing the endless tasting of the grapes and the cleaning of the picking bins. Often she described what she was cooking as she cooked it, tangling herself up in the long, spiraling cord as she moved from the stove to the spice rack and back again.

The more time Elizabeth spent talking to Catherine, or, more specifically, Catherine’s answering machine, the more it struck me how little Elizabeth spoke to anyone else. She left the property only to go to the farmers’ market, the grocer, the hardware store, and, occasionally, the post office. These visits were only to pick up plants she had mail-ordered from a gardening catalog, never to mail or receive letters. It was obvious that in the small community, she knew everyone—she asked the butcher to give her regards to his wife, and when she approached the vendors behind the stands at the farmers’ market, she greeted each one by name. But she did not have conversations with these people. In fact, I thought, she had not had a single conversation that I had witnessed throughout the time I’d been with her. She spoke to Carlos as necessary but only about specific aspects of growing and harvesting grapes, and not once did their words meander off topic.

As we drove to Catherine’s, my head in Elizabeth’s lap, I compared my quiet existence at Elizabeth’s to all the things I had previously understood to compose a life: large families, loud homes, welfare offices, busy cities, violent outbursts. I didn’t want to go back. I liked Elizabeth. I liked her flowers, her grapes, and her concentrated attention. Finally, I realized, I had found a place I wanted to stay.

Pulling off the road, Elizabeth parked the truck and took a deep, nervous breath.

“What did she do to you?” I asked, suddenly interested in a way I had never been before.

Elizabeth looked unsurprised by my question but didn’t answer right away. She stroked my forehead, my cheek, and my shoulder. When she finally spoke, her words were a whisper. “She planted the yellow roses.”

Then she pulled the parking brake and reached for the door handle.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s time to meet Catherine.”

3.

Grant drove through the city, his oversized truck slowing for tight turns in crowded intersections.

“Grant?” I asked.

“Yeah?”

I searched the crumpled white paper bag for crumbs but didn’t find any. “I don’t want to see Elizabeth.”

“So?”

Like the white poplar, his response was unspecific. “So, what?”

“So, if you don’t want to see her, don’t see her.”

“She won’t come to the farm?”

“She hasn’t visited since the day you came with her, and that was—what?—almost ten years ago?” Grant looked out at the water, and I couldn’t see his face, but when he spoke next, his voice bordered on anger. “She didn’t come for my mother’s funeral, but you think she’ll just show up today because you’re here?”

He rolled down the window, and the wind became a wall between us.

Grant and Elizabeth had no contact. He had said this over donuts, but I hadn’t believed it to be possible. Grant must know the truth, and if he did, what would have kept him from telling Elizabeth? I tried to think of an explanation for the remainder of the drive, but when he stopped in front of the locked metal gate, I still hadn’t come up with anything. He parked and got out to open the gate, then returned to the car and drove through the opening.