The Language of Flowers

“It’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?” he asked, looking around us at the roses. They were all in bloom, and not one was yellow. “Here you are, obsessed with a romantic language—a language invented for expression between lovers—and you use it to spread animosity.”

“Why is every bush in bloom?” I asked, ignoring his observation. It was late in the season for roses.

“My mother taught me to prune thoroughly the second week of October, so we would always have roses for Thanksgiving.”

“You cook Thanksgiving dinner?” I asked, glancing toward the farmhouse. The window of the peaked gable was still broken, all these years later. Someone had put plywood behind it.

“No,” he admitted. “My mother did when I was young, before she began to spend most of her days in bed. I always pruned her roses just as she taught me, though, hoping the view from her window might beckon her into the kitchen. Only once did it work, the Thanksgiving before she died. Now that she’s gone, I just do it out of habit.”

I tried to remember whether Thanksgiving had already passed or if it was in the coming week. I paid little attention to holidays, although in the flower business they were hard to ignore. It must still be approaching, I thought. When I looked up, Grant was looking at me as if he was awaiting a response. “What?” I asked.

“Do you know your biological mother?”

I shook my head. He started to ask something else, but I cut him off. “Really. Don’t waste your time asking—I don’t know any more about her than you do.” I walked away and knelt on the ground, holding the camera’s viewfinder up to my eye. I snapped a blurry photo of knobby old wood and the tops of deep roots.

“It’s manual. Do you know how to use it?” I shook my head. He pointed to the buttons and dials, defining photography terms I had never heard. I was paying attention only to the distance of his fingers from the camera hanging around my neck. Whenever he got too close to my chest, I took a step back.

“Try it,” Grant said when he was done explaining. I held the camera up again and turned a dial to the left. An open pink blossom went from blurry to unrecognizable. “Other way,” Grant said. I turned the dial to the left again, ruffled by his voice too close to my ear.

His hand closed around mine, and together we turned the dial to the right. His hands were soft and did not burn where they touched. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.” He lifted my other hand to the top of the camera and pressed my index finger onto a round metal button. My heart stopped and started again. The lens clicked open and shut.

Grant withdrew his hands, but I did not lower the camera. I didn’t trust my face. I didn’t know if he would see joy or hatred in my eyes, fear or pleasure written on my bright-red cheeks. I didn’t know what I felt except breathless.

“Wind the film to take another picture,” he said. I didn’t move. “Want me to show you?”

I stepped back. “No,” I said. “That’s enough.”

“Too much information for one day?” Grant asked.

“Yes,” I said. I took off the camera and handed it to him. “Way too much.”

We walked back toward the house. Grant did not invite me inside. He walked straight to his truck and opened the passenger door, holding out his hand to me. I paused and then took it. He helped me inside and closed the door.

We drove back to the city in silence. It began to rain, slowly at first, and then with a blinding, unexpected ferocity. Cars pulled over to wait out the storm, but it only strengthened. It was the first strong rain of the fall, and the earth opened to its long-awaited watering, releasing a metallic scent. Grant drove slowly, guided by his memory of the turns rather than the sight of the road. The Golden Gate Bridge was deserted. Water rose from the bay and fell from the sky with equal force. I imagined the water coming into the car, the level rising over our feet, knees, stomachs, and throats as we drove.

Nervous to reveal the location of Natalya’s apartment, I asked Grant to drop me off in front of Bloom. It was still raining when he stopped in front of the store. I don’t know if he waved; I couldn’t see him through the water on the windshield.

Natalya and her band were setting up their instruments when I opened the door, and they nodded at me as I slipped up the stairs. Pulling my keys out of my backpack, I opened my small door, crawled inside, and curled up on the floor. The water from my wet clothes soaked into the fur carpet, and the whole world was wet and blue and cold. I shivered with my eyes wide open. I wouldn’t sleep that night.

4.

“Ready?” Elizabeth asked.

I was surprised to see the short distance we’d traveled. Elizabeth had parked behind a locked metal gate, in a driveway. To the right was the parking lot where the farmers’ market was held, and just beyond that, the vineyard. Somewhere beyond the vast expanse of asphalt, I realized, the two properties likely connected.