The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  Elizabeth laughed. “I don’t like the smell, either. Too sweet, as if it was trying to mask its true, undesirable smell.”

  I nodded in agreement.

  “So, if we didn’t know this was a primrose, how would we find out?” Elizabeth put down the flower and picked up a pocket-sized book. “This is a field guide of North American wildflowers, divided by color. Primrose should be with the violet-blues.” She handed me the book. I turned to the violet-blues, flipping through the pages until I found the drawing that matched the flower.

  “Cusick’s primrose,” I read. “Primrose family, Primulaceae.”

  “Good.” She picked up the second of the three flowers, large and yellow, with six pointed petals. “Now this. Lily, majesty.”

  Searching the yellows, I found the drawing that matched. I pointed with a damp fingertip and watched the water mark spread. Elizabeth nodded.

  “Now, let’s pretend you couldn’t find the drawing, or you weren’t sure you had found the right one. This is when you need to know about flower parts. Using a field guide is like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It begins with simple questions: Does your flower have petals? How many? And each answer leads you to a different set of more complicated questions.”

  Elizabeth picked up a kitchen knife and sliced the lily in half, its petals falling open on the cutting board. She pointed to the ovary, pressed my fingertip against the sticky top of the outstretched stigma.

  We counted petals, described their shape. Elizabeth taught me the definition of symmetry, the difference between inferior and superior ovaries, and the variations of flower arrangements on a stem. She quizzed me using the third flower she had picked, a violet, small and wilting.

  “Good,” she said again, when I had answered an uninterrupted stream of questions. “Very good. You learn quickly.” She pulled back my chair, and I slid down. “Now go sit in the garden while I cook dinner. Spend time in front of every plant you know, and ask yourself the same questions I asked you. How many petals, what color, what shape. If you know it’s a rose, what makes it a rose and not a sunflower?”

  Elizabeth was still rattling off questions as I skipped toward the kitchen door.

  “Pick out something for Catherine!” she called.

  I disappeared down the steps.

  13.

  Renata looked surprised to see me sitting on the curb at seven a.m. when she parked her truck on the empty street. I had been up all night, and looked it. She raised her eyebrows and smiled.

  “Stay up waiting for Santa?” she asked. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you the truth?”

  “No,” I said. “No one ever did.”

  I followed Renata into the walk-in and helped her pull out the buckets of red roses, white carnations, and baby’s breath. They were my least favorite flowers. “Please tell me this was at the request of a dangerous bride.”

  “She threatened me with my life,” she said. We shared a disdain for red roses.

  Renata left, and when she came back with two cups of coffee, I had already finished three centerpieces.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching for the paper cup.

  “You’re welcome. And slow down. The faster we finish, the more time I’ll have to spend at my mother’s Christmas party.”

  I picked up a rose and cut off the thorns in slow motion, lining up the sharp spikes on the table.

  “Better,” she said, “but not quite slow enough.”

  We worked with exaggerated sluggishness for the rest of the morning, but we were still finished by noon. Renata picked up the order and checked and double-checked our arrangements. She set down the list.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes,” she said, “unfortunately. Just the delivery and then the Christmas party—you’re coming with me.”

  “No thanks,” I said, taking a final sip of cold coffee and putting on my backpack.

  “Did that sound optional to you? It’s not.”

  I could have fought her on it, but I was feeling indebted for the bonus, and I was in the mood for holiday food if not holiday cheer. I didn’t know anything about Russian food, but it had to be better than the processed ham I had planned on eating right out of the package.

  “Whatever,” I said. “But I have somewhere to be by five.”

  Renata laughed. She must have known it was inconceivable that I had anywhere to be on Christmas.

  Renata’s mother lived in the Richmond District, and we took the longest route possible across the city.

  “My mother’s too much,” Renata said.

  “In what way?” I asked.

  “In every way,” she said.

  We pulled up in front of a bright pink house. A Christmas flag flew on a wooden pole, and the small porch was crowded with glowing plastic creatures: angels, reindeer, chipmunks in Santa hats, and dancing penguins with knit scarves.

  Renata pushed the door open, and we walked into a wall of heat. Men and women sat on the cushions, arms, and back of a single couch; school-age boys and girls lay on their stomachs on the shag carpet, toddlers crawling over their skinny legs. I stepped in and took off my jacket and sweater, but the path to the coat closet, where Renata greeted someone about my age, was completely blocked by small body parts.

  As I stood by the door, an older, softer version of Renata pushed her way through the crowd. She carried a large wooden tray with sliced oranges, nuts, figs, and dates.

  “Victoria!” she exclaimed when she saw me. She handed the tray to Natalya, who was lounged on the couch, and climbed over the children blocking her way to where I stood. When she hugged me, my face pressed into her armpit and the flared sleeves of her gray wool sweater wrapped around my back like living things. She was a tall woman, and strong—and when I finally wriggled away, she grasped my shoulders and tilted my face up to look at her. “Sweet Victoria,” she said, her long, wavy white hair spilling forward and tickling my cheeks. “My daughters have told me so much about you—I loved you even before I met you.”

  She smelled of primrose and apple cider. I peeled myself away. “Thank you for inviting me to your party, Mrs.—” I stopped, realizing Renata had never told me her name.

  “Marta Rubina,” she said. “But I only answer to Mother Ruby.” She reached forward as if to shake hands, then laughed and hugged me again. We were wedged into the corner, and only the thick plaster walls behind my back kept me standing. She pulled me forward, her arm around my shoulders, and led me around the room. The children scattered out of the way, and Renata, perched on a folding chair in the corner, watched with an amused smile.

  Mother Ruby guided me into the kitchen, where she sat me at a table with two heaping plates of food. The first held a large baked fish, whole, with spices and some kind of root vegetables. The second held beans, peas, and potatoes with parsley. She handed me a fork and a spoon, and a bowl of mushroom soup. “We ate hours ago,” she said, “but I saved you food. Renata told me you’d be hungry—which pleased me greatly. I love nothing more than feeding family.”

  Mother Ruby sat down across from me. She boned my fish, poked her finger in my peas, and reheated them after exclaiming over the temperature. She introduced me to everyone who walked by: daughters, sons-in-law, grandchildren, boyfriends and girlfriends of various family members.

  I looked up and nodded but did not put down my fork.

  * * *

  I fell asleep at Mother Ruby’s. I hadn’t meant to. After dinner, I escaped into an empty guest room, and between the heavy food and the previous night’s insomnia, I was unconscious almost before I lay down.

  The smell of coffee pulled me out of bed the next morning. Stretching, I wandered down the hall until I found the bathroom. The door was open. Inside, Mother Ruby was in the shower behind a clear plastic curtain. When I saw her, I spun around and ran back down the hall.

  “Come in!” she called after me. “There’s only one bathroom. Don’t pay any attention to me!”

  I found Renata in the kitchen, pouring co
ffee. She handed me a mug.

  “Your mother’s in the shower,” I said.

  “With the door open, I’m sure,” she said, yawning.

  I nodded.

  “Sorry about that.”

  I poured a cup of coffee and leaned against the kitchen sink.

  “My mother was a midwife in Russia,” Renata said. “So she’s used to seeing women naked just moments after meeting them. America in the seventies worked for her just fine, and I don’t think she’s noticed that times have changed.”

  Mother Ruby came into the kitchen then, tied up in a bright coral terry-cloth robe. “What’s changed?” she asked.

  Renata shook her head. “Nudity.”

  “I don’t think nudity’s changed since the birth of the first human,” Mother Ruby said. “Only society has changed.”

  Renata rolled her eyes and turned to me. “My mother and I have been having this argument since I was old enough to talk. When I was ten, I told her I wouldn’t have kids because I never wanted to be naked in front of her again. And look at me—fifty and childless.”

  Mother Ruby broke an egg into a pan, and it crackled. “I delivered all twelve of my grandchildren,” she told me with pride.

  “You’re still a midwife?”

  “Not legally,” she said. “But I still get two a.m. calls from all over this city. And I go every time.” She handed me a plate of eggs over easy.

  “Thank you,” I said. I ate them and then walked down the hall to the bathroom, locking the door behind me.

  * * *

  “A little more warning next time,” I told Renata as we drove to Bloom later that morning. We had a full week of weddings ahead of us, and we were both rested and well fed.

  “If I had warned you,” Renata said, “you wouldn’t have come. And you needed a little rest and nutrition. Don’t try to tell me you didn’t.”

  I didn’t argue.

  “My mother’s a bit of a legend in the midwifery circle. She’s seen everything, and her outcomes are far better than the outcomes of modern medicine, even when they shouldn’t be. She’ll likely grow on you; she does on most people.”

  “Most people,” I guessed, “but not you?”

  “I respect my mother,” Renata said, pausing. “We’re just different. Everyone assumes there’s some kind of biological consistency between mothers and their children, but that’s not always the case. You don’t know my other sisters, but look at Natalya, my mother, and me.” She was right; the three couldn’t have been more different.

  All day, as I organized orders and made lists of flowers and quantities for upcoming weddings, I thought about Grant’s mother. I remembered the pale hand reaching out of the darkness the afternoon Elizabeth and I visited. What had it been like to be Grant as a child? Alone except for the flowers, his mother slipping from the past to the present as she walked from room to room. I would ask Grant, I decided, if he would talk to me again.

  But he wasn’t at the flower market that week, or the week after. His stall stood empty, the white plywood peeling and abandoned-looking. I wondered if he would come back, or if the thought of seeing me again was enough to keep him away permanently.

  Consumed by thoughts of Grant’s absence, the quality of my work suffered. Renata began sitting beside me at the worktable, and instead of our usual silence, she told me long, humorous stories about her mother, her sisters, her nieces and nephews. I only half listened, but the constant narration was enough to keep me focused on the flowers.

  The new year came and went, a flurry of white weddings and silver-bell-trimmed bouquets. Grant still had not returned to the flower market. Renata gave me the week off, and I holed up inside the blue room, coming out only to eat and to use the bathroom. Every time I emerged through my half-door, I came face-to-face with the orange photo box, and I was flooded with a vague sense of loss.

  Renata had not requested my help until the following Sunday, but on Saturday afternoon there was a knock on my door. I poked my head out and saw Natalya, still in her pajamas, clearly annoyed.

  “Renata called,” she said. “She needs you. She said to take a shower and come as fast as you can.”

  Take a shower? It seemed like an odd request from Renata. She probably needed me to accompany her to a delivery, and rightly assumed I’d been asleep and unbathed for most of the week.

  I took my time in the shower, soaping and shampooing and brushing my teeth with mouthfuls of water as hot as I could stand it. When I dried myself with a towel, my skin was red and splotchy. I put on my nicest outfit: black suit pants and a soft white blouse, the material sewn in tucks like an old-fashioned tuxedo shirt. Before leaving the bathroom, I trimmed my hair with precision and blow-dried the snips of hair off my shirt.

  As I neared Bloom I saw a familiar figure sitting on the deserted curb, an open cardboard box in his lap. Grant. So that was why Renata had called. I stopped walking and took in his profile, serious and watchful. He turned in my direction and stood up.

  We walked toward each other, our short steps matched, until we met in the middle of the steep hill, Grant looming above me. We were far enough apart that I couldn’t see the contents of the box, which he held below his chin.

  “You look nice,” he said.

  “Thank you.” I would have returned the compliment, except he didn’t. He had been working all morning; I could tell by the dirt on his knees and the fresh mud on his boots. He smelled, too, not like flowers but like a dirty man: equal parts sweat, smoke, and soil.

  “I didn’t change,” he said, seeming suddenly aware of his appearance. “I should have.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. I meant the words to be gracious, but they sounded dismissive. Grant’s face fell, and I felt a flash of anger (not at Grant but at myself, for never having mastered the subtleties of tone). I moved a step closer to him, an awkward gesture of apology.

  “I know it doesn’t,” he said. “I just stopped by because I thought you’d want these—for your friend.” He lowered the box. Inside I saw the six ceramic pots of jonquil, the yellow flowers tall and open in bouncing clusters. An intoxicating sweetness wafted from the blossoms.

  I reached inside and grabbed the pots, attempting to extract all six simultaneously. I wanted to surround myself in the color. Grant lowered the box, and through a gentle tug-of-war I succeeded in lifting all six. I buried my face in the petals. For only a moment they balanced in my arms, and then the middle two slipped out of my grasp. The pots shattered on the sidewalk, the bulbs coming unburied and the stalks bending at angles. Grant dropped to his knees and began to gather the flowers.

  I hugged the remaining four to my body, lowering them so that I could watch him over the petals. His strong hands cupped the bulbs and straightened the stems, and he wound long, pointed leaves around the stalks where they had been weakened by the fall.

  “Where do you want these?” he asked, looking up.

  I dropped down, kneeling beside him.

  “Here,” I said, and motioned with my chin for him to lay the flowers on top of the ones I held. He parted the clusters and set the exposed bulbs on top of the soil, the broken flowers nestled among the rest. His hands idled among the stems, and in his slow, regular breaths, I could feel him preparing to leave.

  I loosened my arms, and the flowerpots slid out of my lap as if in slow motion, settling by my thighs on the steep sidewalk. Grant’s hands fell onto my knees. I picked them up and brought them to my face, pressing them to my lips, my cheeks, and my eyelids. I wrapped his hands around the back of my neck and pulled him closer. Our foreheads touched. I closed my eyes, and our lips touched. His lips were full and soft, even as his upper lip scratched my own. He held his breath, and I kissed him again, harder this time, hungry. On my knees, I shuffled up the hill, knocking over the pots in a desire to be closer to Grant, to kiss him harder, longer, to show him how much I’d missed him.

  When we pulled apart, finally, out of breath, a single pot had rolled to the bottom of the hill,
its blossoms straight and tall and almost blindingly yellow in the winter sun.

  Maybe I was wrong, I thought, watching the clusters sway in the breeze. Maybe the essence of each flower’s meaning really was contained somewhere within its sturdy stem, its soft gathering of petals.

  Annemarie, I knew, would be satisfied with the jonquil.

  14.

  Sitting on the front porch, I sifted through the pile of tiny white chamomile blossoms at my feet. A five-foot string connected Elizabeth and me, a needle on each end. We worked quickly, spearing spongy yellow centers and pushing flowers into the middle. Every few minutes I stopped, distracted by an insect or a splinter of wood, but Elizabeth did not pause in her movements. After an hour the task was complete, a delicate, petaled ribbon connecting us.

  “Definition?” I asked. Elizabeth was folded over, stringing a square of paper onto the end of the ribbon. I glimpsed August and the number 2, along with a repetition of the word please, and a line that struck me as a lie: I can’t do this without you.

  Elizabeth coiled the flowered rope. “Energy in adversity.”

  Nothing could have more succinctly captured her mind-set. Since deciding to communicate with her sister through flowers, Elizabeth had been constantly in motion, planting seeds, watering, checking the progress of half-open buds, and waiting—a waiting that was like an action itself, dynamic and pacing—for a response.

  “Come with me,” Elizabeth said, climbing into her truck and setting the coiled chamomile between us.

  We drove to Catherine’s. Elizabeth left the engine running as she hopped out, wound the flowered string around the wooden post of Catherine’s mailbox, and tucked the note inside. Climbing back into the truck, she continued driving down the road, away from the vineyard.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Shopping,” Elizabeth said. Her hair flapped around her face in the wind, and she pulled it back into a rubber band quickly, steering with her knees. She shot a mischievous smile in my direction.

  “Where?” I asked. There was a general store less than a mile away, where Elizabeth had purchased my rain parka and gardening shoes, but it was in the opposite direction.