The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  “Yes, yes, go ahead and lock up. I’m on my way back but you don’t need to wait. I’ll be there in just a few minutes.” My voice is pitched a little too high. Even Clementine seems bothered by my tone. She is staring at me with concern.

  I smile and make a goofy gesture, pretending that I am just so very busy, all for the benefit of Dr. Cash.

  “Okay, then, I’ll hurry on down there.”

  “If I’m going to lock up, you don’t have to hurry on down here.”

  “That’s right. I’ll be right there.”

  “Are you on crack?”

  “No, no, not today. Okay, then I’ll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye now.”

  “If you’re being carjacked, start counting. I’ll hang up and call 911.”

  There’s a pause.

  “Are you going to start counting?” she asks.

  “Nope. I am just fine and dandy and I will see you tomorrow.” And I hang up before she can ask me anything else.

  “Everything okay?” Dr. Cash wants to know.

  “Just fine. But I guess we need to be heading out of here. You must be wanting to get home too.” And I wish I had chosen something else to say. This offered him a perfect opportunity to tell me more about his wife, who is probably waiting there for him. And frankly, I don’t want to hear any of that.

  I pick up Clementine, who grunts, and set her on the floor before Dr. Cash has a chance to respond or help. I click on her leash and give him a big smile.

  He seems surprised. “Uh, okay.” And he reaches down, gives Clementine a good pat on the head. “You stay away from those spiky cats.”

  I open the door and we walk out. The lobby is empty as I realize that I must be his last appointment of the day.

  “Shall I pay you now?” I ask, even as I am still walking. “Or you can just use my card. I’m sure it’s on file.” I’m almost at the front door.

  “I’ll just bill you,” he replies, stopping at the reception desk, and he says something else but I am already in the parking lot, waving good-bye.

  “Just get in the van and don’t say a word,” I tell Clementine, who looks at me like I am the craziest human in all of the Pacific Northwest.

  •THIRTY-NINE•

  WELL, good for him; any marriage is worth a second try.”

  I came over to Dan’s house because he wanted to show me something. I haven’t seen him since Jenny’s wedding, where he took the role of her father, escorting her to the altar to stand next to Justin. He gave the blessing of the community since she refused to be “given away” and because she thinks of Creekside as her family now. She asked him to represent this little town, offer the blessing of the people, and walk her down the aisle.

  “I guess,” I say.

  We are in his den. He’s fixed us martinis and even made Clementine a special chicken broth cocktail that she’s drinking from a margarita glass. There’s classical music playing on his stereo. Mozart, Symphony no. 41. It’s from 1788. I know this because he showed me the CD when I came in.

  It’s nice being with Dan. I feel comfortable and at ease. Either the astronaut has become a very good friend or he makes a strong drink. Whatever the case, I’m relaxed. I just told him about Dr. Cash and my visit with him a few days ago.

  “Were you hoping for something to happen between the two of you?”

  “Maybe,” I answer.

  “That’s good,” he responds.

  “That’s not good,” I reply. “He’s back with his wife. How can that be good?”

  He smiles at me, takes a drink from his martini, and then puts down his glass. “Come with me.” And he guides me to a sliding glass door, opens it, and leads me out to the deck.

  There’s a large telescope pointed upward and it has gotten dark enough now that the stars are filling up the sky.

  “If you look, you will see the planet Jupiter.”

  I place my eye against the eyepiece and see many stars, but there is one brighter and more prominent than the others. I am sure this is the planet.

  “Did you find it?”

  And I nod.

  “I don’t think you’re able to see it tonight, but sometimes with the right telescope, you can make out a small oval ring on its surface. It’s called the Great Red Spot.”

  I look and look but I don’t see an oval ring.

  “It’s actually a storm and it’s been there for more than three hundred years. Nobody knows how it goes on for so long.”

  “But if I can’t even see it, it must be really small,” I say.

  “It’s actually big enough to contain two planets the size of Earth.”

  “Wow!”

  “The planet’s quite beautiful, don’t you agree?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Jupiter has been called the wandering star since prehistoric times. I guess the early astronomers had a hard time locating it.”

  “She just had somewhere else she wanted to be,” I say, and I glance over at Dan, who is smiling.

  “Maybe that’s what it was,” he replies.

  I look again at the sky and I see so many lights, so many stars, I can now understand how Dan was changed once he was in space. Just to see what I see from a deck in Washington State is beyond words. I move away from the telescope and take Dan’s hand. “Thank you,” I say.

  He nods in understanding and we return to the den and our drinks and the music. We are quiet for a while and then my curiosity gets the better of me.

  “Why do you think it’s good that I was hopeful that something might happen between Dr. Cash and me?”

  “It’s good because you’re letting your guard down a little.”

  “I don’t have a guard.” I sit down and take a big sip of my drink.

  “Okay,” he responds.

  I see what he’s doing.

  “You think I have a guard?”

  “Did you know that I met you and your sister when you were little?” he asks.

  I shake my head. This is news to me.

  “I came to Creekside to accept some civic award and I spoke to your elementary school.”

  I try to remember, but I don’t recall the event.

  “I shook your hand before the ceremony began. You introduced your sister to me and then you took your seats with your designated classes.” He pauses and I keep trying to remember the event that he seems to recall so clearly.

  “Your mother came in the auditorium just as I was finishing my speech.” He hesitates again. “I think she had been drinking.”

  And suddenly, it all came back. The humiliation, the attempt to hide, the desperate way I searched for Daisy sitting on the other side of the gymnasium, the principal taking my mother by the arm, leading her out, all the kids looking at me, staring at me, laughing at me. No wonder I didn’t remember an astronaut’s speech. No wonder I don’t remember the astronaut; I repressed that entire afternoon, most of that entire school year, in fact. We had moved in with our grandparents and out of the blue our mother showed up at school and wanted to see her little girls. It was a terrible day.

  “How did you find out it was my mother?”

  “I asked around. I was going to speak to you and your sister later, but you left the school and the principal couldn’t find you.”

  “Yeah, well, it was kind of a bad day and we wanted to get home.” I remember grabbing Daisy when the bell rang and running all the way to the farm. I didn’t want anybody to have the chance to tease or bully us. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could.

  “I recalled your names when I came back and bought the property out here. The real estate agent showed me your grandparents’ farm first because it was for sale. She mentioned you being in law school and your sister’s death and when she said your names, I remembered you from that day at the elementary school. She said you both had lived here until you finished school, but you had moved away and you didn’t want the property. She said your grandparents died and then later your sister. You came, but only for brief periods. You asked he
r to put the farm on the market only a few months after the death of your sister. Her name was Daisy, right?”

  I nodded, remembering all of that, noting all of it was true. Granddaddy went first, suffering from diabetes, the doctors removing one limb after another, him begging to die. And then Grandmother had a heart attack and I found out from the farmer’s wife who lived beside them. Daisy ended up living there on and off, paying the property taxes from the little bit of money they left us, but not really taking care of the place. And finally, after Daisy died I just sent an e-mail to Kathy Shepherd telling her to sell it and get whatever she could. It was the farmer next door who ended up buying it, the sale helping me open up the shop.

  “When you came back and I met you again, I remembered that little girl from the elementary school. I remember seeing you holding your sister’s hand and running out of the auditorium. The truth is I’ve known you a long time and I have always hoped that you would find a way to survive all the things you were handed in this life.”

  I hold up my martini glass. “And so I did,” I say in response.

  “And so you did,” he agrees.

  I clear my throat. I don’t know why but I am starting to cry.

  “But in order to do so you had to make a few adjustments.”

  I nod.

  I remember getting into bed after Daisy died, the simple easy way I pulled back the covers, slipped inside, and planned never to get out, how I lay there for days and days, waiting to die. And how I never did. How the flowers got me up, how beauty lifted me from that place and brought me back to life. But I was never the same after that. And I see now that the astronaut is right. In binding up my shattered heart in order to get out of the bed and on with my life, I had become bound to my grief, restricted by my losses.

  “It has served you well,” he noted. “Your guard. I doubt you could have done all you have done without it.”

  I nod, listening to him describe my life, reveal the intimate details, speak of the harbored secrets. And I think of my grief, my sorrow, as the Great Red Spot on Jupiter, a storm that has been brewing for three hundred years. I cannot imagine my life without it.

  “You have helped along a lot of loves, celebrated births, honored lives, marked occasions, found ways to encourage forgiveness. You have done a great service to this little town.”

  I clear my throat again, take a drink.

  “And yet, when I hear you made a little space to think of love for yourself, a tiny little opening for someone else to come in, it gives me pause.” He waits. “It gives me hope.”

  “That I might lower my guard?”

  “Yes, that you might lower your guard,” he answers.

  I think about John Cash, the decision to ask him to the wedding, the shame I carried around with me, the awkward way I felt in his presence. I think I prefer having my guard up to feeling all that I have felt in the last few days, but I don’t say these things to Dan. I don’t want to hear some grand bit of wisdom like It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I think I’ve heard all I can bear of that stuff tonight.

  “So, let’s talk about you,” I say, changing the subject. “What is going on with you?”

  He puts down his glass and nods, not at all hesitant to move the conversation in that direction. “I have started to die,” he says.

  This is not at all what I expected to hear.

  “I know, it sounds odd,” he adds. “But I can tell by the things that are happening in my body. I have less desire to eat or drink, to engage in common activities. I dream brilliant dreams and I have to pull myself awake. I think of people I have not thought about in years, remember things, want to be forgiven.”

  He shakes his head in wonder or disbelief. I can only guess.

  “It is magnificent.”

  This man mystifies me.

  “I am finally returning to stardust, back to the beginning of time, back to the exquisite matter from which we first came, and I am so lucky that I know what is going on, that I am conscious to this experience.” He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “Magnificent,” he says again.

  “How do you plan to go?” I ask, wondering if he will become a hospice patient, hire a caregiver, or if he’ll check himself into the hospital when he knows he is near the end.

  “I haven’t quite decided that, but I will. Sometime soon, I will.”

  The music crescendos and we stop to listen. I watch him close his eyes, and I decide to close mine too. And it is beautiful and rich and full. When it stops, I look over and Dan is weeping. And I understand now that this is what he wanted me to see. Not the planet Jupiter, not the stars on a bright clear night, not a storm that never diminishes.

  He wanted me to observe this, know this, understand this. He wanted me to see a heart fully open. And he is right. It is magnificent.

  I turn away as the symphony’s fourth movement, Molto allegro, begins, and I close my eyes, and breathe.

  •FORTY•

  IT is not a funeral I was expecting to arrange. I had to call the florist in Deer Park and ask for white carnations, an extra couple of spathiphyllums, and even a large standing wire wreath. I have been so busy I hadn’t realized I had used my last one at Jackson Field’s funeral last month. With the surgery and all the weddings, the high school graduation, and summer socials, I miscalculated my inventory. I sold most of my plants, forgot to order the basics, carnations and greenery, and I let my wreath supplies dwindle. I lost track of what I have on hand and I am not prepared for this event.

  Like everyone here, I am sometimes surprised by the deaths in Creekside. There are automobile wrecks and heart attacks, massive strokes and even suicides that no one expects. Those are always the hardest funerals to arrange. Family members stumble over the flowers they want. They can’t recall what the dead person loved, what kind of spray to place across the casket. And the people who call in their orders are even more helpless. “Just send something nice,” is what I hear a lot. And because I usually know the deceased and because I want my flowers to bring a certain measure of peace and dignity to the service, I do my best. Even with short notice, I try to arrange bouquets and baskets and select plants that speak of the care and sympathy that people want to express. Still, not having any warning, not expecting a funeral to occur, makes it difficult for a florist to plan.

  Often, however, even when everyone else might be shocked by death, I have some idea of who is sick and who is dying. There are orders placed for deliveries to be made to the hospitals, and while those orders are placed, there are sometimes questions about what arrangements are acceptable in certain units. These questions offer a number of clues regarding the condition and prognosis of a patient. Can you have flowers on the oncology floor? Do they allow plants in intensive care? And even if there are no revealing questions, sometimes the customer, the family member from out of town calling in the order or the loved one on their way to the hospital who stops by, gives me a full report.

  It seems that they want to talk about the surgery or the disease or how helpless they feel. They tell the story about the doctor’s visit and the results of the medical tests or the car wreck or the way life was disrupted, recalling the simplest details to me, a stranger or at best an acquaintance, because each time they tell the story they hope they will better understand. And over the years and through the illnesses and deaths I have learned to listen without rushing them or pinning them down to a cost or delivery date because I know what they are doing and just like I need a table to arrange my flowers, I know they need space to arrange their sorrow. I consider it to be simply part of my job.

  Not always, but often, when I have heard the hospital floor where a patient is located, how long they have been hospitalized, when I hear the stories of despair and sadness from their loved ones, I have some idea of their condition. And based upon the news so freely given, the reports when the orders are made, I sometimes know when to start working on flowers for a funeral. I don’t say so to anyone, fo
r to do so would be presumptuous and callous; but sometimes I know. And I prepare. I order a few necessary supplies, a bunch of fresh flowers, a couple of extra cyclamens and dieffenbachia so I’m a bit more prepared, a little more ready. But not this time. Not for this funeral. I had no warning, no premonition, no rambling report from a loved one. This death was completely unexpected.

  Juanita Norris was taking out the laundry to the clothesline that stretched across her back lawn. She washes sheets and towels on Monday, preferring to start the week with clean linen. She had made no complaints of chest pains or dizziness, headaches or shortness of breath to her husband or grandson as she prepared their morning meals and sat at the breakfast table alongside them both. She was talking about repairing the quilt on Will’s bed, asking her husband if he had seen her box of thread and making plans to make preserves, the fruit trees filled with ripe pears. She had cleaned the table, humming while she washed the dishes, and made sure Will’s shirt was clean and that his new pair of shorts was big enough. She had teased him that he was growing faster than she could dress him, and the two of them had laughed and hugged each other before he left for the day.

  Claude drove his grandson to town, dropping him off at the library, where he was turning in The Boys from Brooklyn and hoping to get a copy of Under the Black Ensign, by L. Ron Hubbard, a book that was recommended by Captain Miller and one that had required a special request made to the librarian. He planned to stay there until lunchtime, reading or playing on the computer, when he would meet his grandfather at the deli and then work the afternoon with me at the shop.