The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  Most of the people in town were invited, but some of them refused because officially Dan has not been declared dead. As far as what the authorities are saying, he is still only missing. There can’t be a declaration of death until a certain amount of time passes. And there are some who don’t believe that he’s dead, some who think he’ll come back. But I know he won’t. I know he’s found his way to exit this world and he’s gone. So those of us at the shop and a few from around Creekside gathered at the lake at sunset to say our good-byes and, in his honor, to eat fine food and drink some very expensive wine.

  “I was glad that Nora started,” he tells me. “I thought we might be standing out there until dark, waiting for somebody to say something.”

  I nod.

  “I didn’t know she understood physics like that.”

  “I know. I never heard that Captain Miller taught her the theory of relativity.”

  “Yeah, it was funny hearing her say that energy and mass are equivalent and transmutable.”

  “I know, right?” I shake my head.

  Nora had explained to us that Dan was the smartest man she knew, and she stunned us all by reciting the general and specific relative theories and then explaining how the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of their relative motion or of the motion of the source of the light. Of course, she also told us how Dan had shown her how to work the clock on her DVD and how to record Real Housewives of Orange County. That made us laugh, which eased a little of the tension. And she had finished her remembrance by saying that Dan loved this world and all that was beyond it. Like everything Nora says, her words were both odd and lovely.

  “I was surprised that Jenny announced that Dan had bought their house,” I say, remembering how the young woman wept when she shared that news. Dan had told her that he thought of her as a daughter and that walking her down the aisle on her wedding day was the happiest day of his life. And Jenny wanted us all to know that he bought the little parsonage from the Catholic church and gave it to her and Justin and then told them not to tell anyone. His desire for anonymity was one more example of his goodness.

  Will nods.

  “You were thoughtful to give her a daisy and Justin a tulip.”

  He smiles and I remember how he walked over and handed them each a flower.

  “Who were all those people Mr. Carl was talking about?”

  “They’re designers,” I answer. “Carl was remembering all the designer clothes and shoes Dan wore.”

  “Oh.” He pauses. “I guess everybody has different ways of thinking of people, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  I lie down beside him and we’re quiet for a bit as we both remember the others who spoke, the things people said.

  I think of how Henry cleared his throat and how Lou Ann took him by the hand. “Ca-Ca-Captain Miller a-a-always came ear- early for his h-h-haircut. He li-liked t-to c-c-come in the morning,” he had said, his face red, his eyes puffy from crying.

  “He t-told m-me once that l-l-love c-c-could not wait. I g-g-gave L-Lou Ann th-th-that first bouquet th-the n-next day.”

  When he finished, Lou Ann leaned over and gave her husband a kiss and then walked over and took two flowers from Will’s basket and returned to stand next to Henry.

  “Dr. John said some nice stuff,” Will notes, and I turn on my side to face him and remember how I hadn’t even known John was there before he spoke.

  “I like what he said about the animals and God, about how Captain Miller had told him that God made the animals first because he knew they could be good teachers for people if we would just pay attention. I liked how Captain Miller had thanked him for taking care of the teachers.”

  I remember how both Will and I looked over at Clementine when John had said this and how I had reached in the basket, taken a flower, and given it to him.

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  I sit up. “What? Where did that come from?” I ask.

  “He gives you that googly-eye look like Justin gives Jenny. And you always turn red when he’s around.” He shrugs. “I just figure you’ll get married sometime.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s happening,” I respond, and lie back down.

  We’re quiet for a while.

  “I didn’t think you were going to take a turn,” he notes, and I nod, thinking about how hard it was to read what I had written, how clumsy and awkward I felt, taking out the paper, unfolding it, how my hands shook and my voice faltered.

  “It was good though. Captain Miller would have liked it.”

  I smile. I remember how Will leaned into me, the way he kept looking at me and looking at me, the way he nudged me to say it was my time. Reluctantly, I had finally read the words I had spent all night trying to write.

  “Captain Daniel Miller knew me for a long time before I knew him. And he never told me about that until just recently.”

  I kept staring down at the page even though I was reading something that wasn’t there. “Like Nora, I also thought he was the smartest man I knew. But I never learned the theory of relativity like she did,” I improvised.

  “To me, he was smart in things of the heart.” And then I went back to my script.

  “He taught me to tell the truth and not to be afraid and he was my very good friend.” And it was then that I felt Will’s arm slip around my waist. “And even though he wants us to believe that he is still with us in stardust and morning light, I will miss him very much.” And I had stopped then, even though I had found a beautiful quotation about unfolding and living fully. That was as much as I could bear to say.

  “You were pretty great with that poem,” I tell him, recalling how he shared the passage he had found in one of the books Dan gave him, an inscription that had been penned by Sir Walter Raleigh.

  “When at heart you should be sad.” He had memorized it.

  “Pondering the joys we had, listen and keep very still. If the lowing from the hill or the toiling of a bell do not serve to break the spell, listen: you may be allowed to hear my laughter from a cloud.”

  Will and I are quiet for a few minutes, thinking about the words of the poem, thinking about the evening and how we stood silent for a few minutes as the sun lowered in the western sky, how Justin and Jenny went first, walking to the shore, arm in arm, dropping their flowers in the water. When they returned to the gathering, Nora and Jimmy took their turn. Then the others, and finally I felt Will pull me along and I walked beside him and dropped the orange rose he had given me, watching as it bobbled and swayed, moving away from where we were standing.

  We ate before it got dark, gathering around the picnic table, sharing the food we had brought and the other memories we kept, the vase of flowers, a model of a space shuttle, a photograph of Dan next to his airplane, our impromptu altar.

  “I don’t know what made me look in that book,” Will says, talking about the poem and how he happened to find it before the service, how he copied it on a piece of paper, believing that Dan had left it for him to read, how he learned it line by line. “I just opened it up and there it was.”

  “Sounds like it was just meant to be,” I say, thinking how I never used to believe in that kind of serendipity, how I was never easy with things I couldn’t explain, the mysteries of life.

  “Do you think he just flew away?” he asks, and I roll over and lift up my arm and he slides beneath it. “Do you think he’s okay, wherever he is?”

  I hold Will and imagine Dan moving farther and farther into the horizon. I don’t know if he crashed into a mountain or fell into the ocean. I don’t know at what moment he died or where he was when he took his last breath. But I do know that he got what he wanted, that he closed his eyes and let go and was able to say, like that old man in Houston, that janitor who taught Dan gratitude, that everything was good with his heart. I don’t know a lot about anything else, but I do know that.

  “I think he’s fine,” I say to Will, and I gather him in, p
ulling him close.“I think he’s perfectly and completely fine.”

  •FIFTY-ONE•

  KATHY says it’s important.” Nora is on the phone. She’s at the shop early this morning, checking on stock and cleaning up after the weekend.

  It was the end-of-summer crafts fair in Creekside and we had set up a booth selling gladioli and stems of red roses and bunches of September flowers. We participate every year, and every year it takes a few days to clean up the mess we leave in the shop on Sunday.

  “Well, I’m sure it’s important,” I respond. “She thinks all of her orders are important, but it’s Will’s first day of school. I can’t get there until after I drop him off.”

  “I don’t think it’s an order,” she tells me, but I don’t care. “I think she has something for you.”

  “Then she can just leave it with you.”

  “Nope, she says she wants to see your face when she puts it in your hands.”

  I have no idea what Kathy Shepherd wants to give me, but right now all I care about is making sure Will is prepared and ready for this important day.

  “We’re a bit busy this morning,” I explain.

  “How is the little man?” Nora knows we’ve been anticipating this day for weeks. She even went shopping with us when we went to buy school supplies, insisting on buying everything for him, filling the shopping cart with things he’ll never use, like colored pencils and a Spanish dictionary.

  I hear him in the bathroom, talking to Clem, telling her that he’ll be at the shop by three thirty to take her for her walk.

  “He’s a little nervous, but he’s good,” I report.

  There is a pause. I am trying to make up the sofa, glancing at the clock, wondering how long he’s going to be before I can get in and brush my teeth.

  “How are you?”

  And when she asks, I stop what I am doing and have to catch my breath. The question throws me.

  “Not what you thought, huh?”

  I clear my throat. “He needs a desk and I don’t know where we’re going to add another piece of furniture to this room.” I’m diverting.

  “You’re not going to be one of those mothers who parks in front of the school where everybody can see you and then makes the boy give you a hug, are you?”

  I know she’s trying to lighten the mood.

  “I plan to walk with him to the front door.” I smile.

  “Are you taking photographs?”

  “I have a camera and a video recorder,” I answer.

  “He’s going to need therapy, you know that, right?”

  “He wouldn’t be my son if he didn’t,” I respond.

  He comes out of the bathroom, walks into the room, and looks at me.

  I drop the phone to my chin. “It’s Aunt Nora,” I tell him. “She and Jimmy want to come with us.”

  He rolls his eyes and I grin.

  “Tell him I love him,” Nora instructs me.

  “Here, you tell him,” and I pass the phone to Will.

  I watch him as he listens. He’s gotten so tall and I stare at him and I can’t believe he’s here, that he’s with me, that he’s mine.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says, a slight blush to his cheeks. “Yes, ma’am,” he says again to whatever she’s telling him.

  “I will,” he acknowledges, and nods. “I love you, too.” And he pulls the phone away from his ear, ends the call, and hands it to me.

  “She’s proud of me,” he tells me.

  “For getting up and going to school?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “I guess.”

  He helps me fold in the bed, puts the pillows back on the sofa, and then sits down to put on his shoes.

  “You feeling okay?” I ask, knowing that I am more nervous than he.

  “Yeah,” he answers.

  “I mean, I know you were worried earlier about fifth grade.” I am standing over him, hovering, but I can’t help myself.

  “I’m not worried now,” he replies.

  “You want another bowl of cereal?” I ask, thinking that maybe one wasn’t enough. “Do you have your lunch?”

  He pats his backpack, which is on the floor beside him. “It’s in here,” he says. “I don’t want any more cereal.”

  I wait.

  “Are you going like that?” he asks, and I look down and realize I’m still in my pajamas.

  I glance at the clock. I have twenty minutes to get him to school. “Geez!” I say, and hurry to my room to throw on my clothes.

  When I get back to the living room, Kathy Shepherd is sitting with him on the sofa.

  “Hey,” I say, and wonder how I didn’t hear her come in and how I am going to get her out.

  “Hello, Ruby,” she says.

  Her makeup is perfect and she’s wearing a suit, a navy blue one with navy pumps, three-inch heels. Her posture is perfect and I feel myself lengthen as I watch her size me up.

  I am wearing my old jeans and a stained sweatshirt, but I do have on my new red Converse high-tops. At least I have something going for me. I look over at Will and he glances at my shoes and smiles.

  “What can I do for you, Kathy?” I ask, hoping she isn’t planning to talk, hoping she can see what is happening here.

  “It’s a big day,” she replies, turning to Will.

  “Fifth grade,” I note. “And it starts in about fifteen minutes.”

  She stands. “I’m sorry, I know you’re in a rush but I just couldn’t hold on to this any longer.” And she reaches in her designer purse that Carl would recognize by the season and year and pulls out an envelope and hands it to me.

  I look at it and then at her. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Well, since you know that they found Captain Miller’s plane, and they’ve decided there’s no way he could have survived the crash, he has officially been declared dead.”

  I don’t know what to say. This is news we had all heard last week when his Cessna was discovered about two hundred miles off the coast, and this is news that I don’t think is a great way for Will to start school. I hold the envelope but keep watching her. I’m not sure how to move this conversation along.

  “You should open that,” she informs me.

  I glance at Will, who has stood and put on his backpack.

  I open the envelope, thick with papers, and pull them out. “It’s a deed,” I say, reading along.

  “Yes,” she replies. “To your and Will’s property,” she adds.

  “What?” I keep reading, and I see that it is the deed for Dan’s place on the golf course. He has left me his house.

  “He apparently made more real estate deals this year than I did.”

  I look at her, stunned.

  “He did all the paperwork in the spring, signed it over to you, but he told me not to share the news until after his death.” She places her hand across her heart. “Of course, I didn’t think it would be this soon. I just thought he was making his plans for . . . you know, later.”

  I nod. I turn to Will and back to Kathy. I am shaking my head.

  “And then when he flew away, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked Bernie and he told me that there had to be a death certificate first, and so . . .” She shrugs. “Now there is one and this is yours.”

  “We have a new house,” I say to Will.

  He is as surprised as I am.

  “You have a beautiful house,” Kathy agrees. “And I will be happy to help you get rid of this one.”

  I watch her as she glances around, noticing the flaws and particulars of this little house, watching as she works the numbers. “Of course, if you’re happy here and you’d rather put Captain Miller’s on the market and keep this one, I can handle that sale too.”

  I look at Will and then at all of his clothes stacked against the wall, his sheets rolled and thrown into the corner. I think about our one bathroom and how we don’t have enough shelves for all our books and music, how the mattress on the sofa bed is about four inches thick, and I turn back to Kathy.

&nb
sp; “We’ll be out of here before the calendulas arrive,” I say, grinning.

  I see Kathy’s confusion.

  “Calendulas,” Will chimes in. “The flower of the month,” he explains. “She’s saying we’ll be in our new house by October.”

  •FIFTY-TWO•

  WELL, let’s try the daisy tea,” I tell him.

  Justin has come over to the shop because Jenny is sick again. It’s been a number of weeks that she’s been nauseated, vomiting everything she eats. She’s dizzy and very fatigued. I’ve already sent her violets and nasturtiums to ease her symptoms, but nothing seems to help and she’s reluctant to go back to the doctor. Neither she nor Justin can stand to hear bad news.

  I go over to my shelf of petals and seeds and take out a pack of daisy leaves. “Just put these in a strainer and pour boiling water over them. Let it steep a few minutes,” I explain. “That’s how they work best.”

  He looks at me and nods. He has tears in his eyes. “Maybe we should call that healer,” he says.

  “I think you should,” I agree. “Do you know how to reach him?”

  He nods. “He gave us his number in New Mexico before he left, but Jenny doesn’t want to call him because she’s worried she’s done something wrong to bring the cancer back. She doesn’t want to disappoint him.”

  “She didn’t do anything wrong to bring the cancer back,” I say, and he nods.

  “I know,” he replies. “But it’s hard to convince her.”

  “Do you want me to call him?” I ask.

  “I don’t know, maybe,” he says, and I decide to let it alone.

  “Let’s make her a bouquet too,” I say cheerfully, thinking that maybe some pink gerberas will lift her spirits. “I’ll put some more violets with them, to help with the dizziness.”

  I walk back to the cooler and grab what I have. I take the brightest standards, the boldest minis, and I find a few stems of deep rich purple violets, and as I fill my arms with flowers I realize I am as desperate as Justin. I cannot fix Jenny. I cannot put enough stems in a vase to wipe away the worries, the sorrow, the fear. I walk back to the design table and face him.