The Art of Arranging Flowers

by Lynne Branard

  “That’s fabulous,” Stan remarks.

  “It is for him, not so much for me,” I answer, recalling how worried I got every time I watched him standing at the top of the mountain, getting ready to come down.

  “And your holidays?” I ask.

  “Well, they were a little sad since this is the first Christmas without Mama, but they were okay,” he says.

  I watch the tears fill his eyes and remember the funeral late last summer. He had ordered a spray of red and pink roses, and a wreath to match, and he had asked for a small service to be held at the Lutheran church. There were a few green plants called in, bromeliads and a waterfall phale, a bouquet of tulips from his cousin in Oregon.

  “Did you see the sky last night?” he asks, clearing his throat and changing the subject.

  And I think about John and Will and me standing on the deck, Dan’s super telescope pointed west, the stars blazing, the meteor shower dancing all around us, the larger planets bright and shining. “We did,” I answer, and I start ringing up the sale.

  “It was something else,” Stan comments. “It was like fireworks, you know those ones with the white clusters of starbursts?”

  “I do,” I reply, thinking about how the sky lit up, Will yelling at us to make sure we didn’t miss anything, the kiss John and I shared. Suddenly, I think of something else.

  “Hey, did you know that Mozart’s Symphony number forty-one is also called the Jupiter Symphony?”

  I suddenly remember the night John told me that, Dan’s music playing on the stereo, the same music that Dan played for me when I went to his house to see the planet for the first time. I had been so surprised about the nickname of the piece that I hadn’t even noticed when John pulled out the small ring box from the front pocket of his jacket and knelt before me.

  “What’s wrong?” I had asked, thinking at first that he had fallen.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” he told me, opening the box and looking up at me, so hopeful, so worried, so unbelievably perfect.

  “I did not know that,” Stan answers, not understanding why I would ask. “But I will keep that in mind the next time I am listening to classical music.”

  “Do you need a card?” I ask, returning to the things at hand.

  “I have taken care of that,” he says, and smiles.

  “Yes, that’s right,” I say.

  Stan still keeps a stack of greeting cards at his office. He reaches in his back pocket and takes out his wallet and hands me his credit card.

  I take the same Visa I have taken for years, run it through the machine, and hand him his receipt.

  He signs it and hands back the copy, picking up his credit card from the counter and putting it in his wallet again.

  “So, see you in a couple of weeks?” I ask.

  “January thirtieth,” he says, remembering the exact date of her birthday. “She’ll be sixty-seven,” he reminds me.

  “And she doesn’t look a day over forty,” I reply.

  He grins, knowing that I am saying the thing he always does.

  “I am a lucky man.” And he takes the vase of flowers and heads to the door.

  “We’re all lucky,” I say, and I see him as he throws up his hand to wave good-bye.

  I watch him walk across the street to his office.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” I turn to Clementine, who doesn’t bother to open her eyes, and I see the way her hair has changed from yellow to white around her face. I hadn’t noticed before how much she’s aged, and I reach down and give her a rub.

  “You and I are the lucky ones, aren’t we?” I ask her.

  She opens her eyes and yawns.

  “I’m glad you like Will and John,” I tell her, thinking of how we sometimes all crawl into the bed, Will, John, and me under the covers, Clem at our feet, how we watch a movie, and eat popcorn, how easy things are with us all, how uncomplicated it all unfolded once I stopped being afraid, how gently I was pulled at my edges until everything loosened and fell open.

  “The boys are great,” I say to Clementine. “But of course we all know everything good started with you.”

  She stretches her legs, enjoying the praise. I scratch her back, her neck, and give her a gentle pat on her stomach. I stay that way for a few minutes, just spending a little time with my dog, loving her, thanking her.

  When I stand up, John is at the counter and Will is at his side.

  “How did you come in without ringing the chime?” I ask them, moving toward them.

  John takes me by the hands. “We thought we’d surprise you,” he says, and smiles.

  “Well, that you did,” I reply, leaning up to kiss him and to kiss my son. I pull away and stare at them both, noticing how my lungs fill and my heart expands. I breathe out a long, full breath.

  “That you most certainly did.”

  •EPILOGUE•

  WHEN she comes to me, she is not crazy or dead. She is young and beautiful and very much alive. She wears flowers in her hair, daisies, of course, white ones, “day’s eyes,” I tell her, the phrase from Old English, what they used to call the flowers because they opened to the sun and folded in on themselves at night. And she laughs at me, like she did when we were children.

  “You know too much,” she says, and to hear her again, to see her like this is more than I can bear.

  “You are so perfect,” I tell her, and she smiles and lets me look at her, just look at her, the way I have wanted for so long.

  “You will be perfect, too,” she says, and reaches for me.

  I glance behind me and I see my son. He himself is old, but he is happy and he sits beside me with children around him, a wife at his side. He has flowers in his lap, yellow bells and goldeneyes, tiny trumpets and pink mountain heather, blooms he found on his hike to the lake.

  Even after all he learned from Cooper and the summer classes he took at the community college on floral design, even after seeing acres of tulips in Seattle and vast stretches of roses in Portland, even after traveling to England and Japan to see some of the most beautiful gardens in the world, Will has always preferred the wildflowers, always choosing to add fireweed and bitterroot, primrose and spotted knapweed to bouquets, anything he could find on his explorations in the mountains or along the desert floors; these are the blooms he is most passionate about.

  Of course, John and I always thought Will would choose science for his field of study, that he might become a teacher or professor, maybe even follow Dan’s dream and become an astronaut or astronomer. In the end, however, even though he stuck to science, he found that he loved botany and followed his heart to become a plant enthusiast, researching the medicinal qualities of flowers for years, traipsing around the world, studying seeds and blooms until he tired of the travel and then eventually returned to Creekside, taking over the shop.

  He married Jenny and Justin’s oldest daughter, Claire, the brainy one who worked with John, who went to college and studied the science of veterinary medicine and returned to her hometown to work with her mentor, the girl who had loved Will from the very beginning of her life.

  And though it took years to unfold, years for it all to come together, it was like the two of them took over our lives, perfectly, symmetrically, magically, letting my husband and me enjoy each other and the little town we both loved.

  I had a very good life.

  I reach for my son and he takes my hands and I nod at him and smile, the way we sometimes do when the words are no longer necessary. And I see him understand what I am telling him and though I can tell it is not easy, he nods too, letting me know it is okay to go.

  I lean back against my pillow and close my eyes and everything blooms. Daisy and John and Nora and Jimmy, everyone I love who has left me is present, a pack of friendly dogs who were my companions over the years, Clementine, of course, leading. Even Dan is here, not just in the form of stardust or planet matter; he is exactly as I remember him.

  As I hold out my hands to join them, I feel it again, t
hat gentle easy way I have learned of unfolding, the simple way I am pulled and released. It was slow to come to me, taking years to finally happen, but once I was shown, once I finally was shown, it happened again and again and again. Will and then John, Claire, and Jessie and Danny, my grandchildren.

  “We become who we are meant to be because of the things along our edges that pull us into existence.”

  I recall the words Dan spoke to me before I knew to adopt Will, the way he explained to me the thing I should have known, the one lesson I should have been able to teach, how flowers bloom, how hearts open. But I hadn’t known it until a boy stood outside my shop window, his sorrow even weightier than my own. Even though I had seen the flowers open and bloom, open and bloom, open and bloom, season after season, I did not fully understand the art of such a thing until there was Will.

  I open my eyes and let go a breath and the next one I take in is sweet and fragrant, a garden of color and beauty, and not of this world.

  I open myself for the final time.

  I have, completely and at last, bloomed.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This story is about learning to open your heart to love, and as I write these words I understand that my own heart is open only because of divine grace and the love and guidance of many wonderful teachers. I wish to acknowledge my loving parents, who set me on the right path, and my siblings, Sharon and Kerry, my earliest companions, for walking with me and showing me the way. I am grateful for exquisite friends, my beloveds, those of you who laugh with me, cry with me, wander and dance with me. How do you thank the ones who know and love you best?

  Regarding this particular story, I owe a great deal of gratitude to the community of Chewelah, Washington, to the UCC church, and to the talented group known as the Creekside Writers. I am also grateful for the opportunity to have met astronaut Edgar Mitchell when a six-hour delay at the Albuquerque Airport turned into a holy conversation.

  To Jackie Cantor and the warm, gracious team at Berkley Books, you have welcomed me and this story with such kindness and enthusiasm, I feel like I am in the company of cherished friends. Thank you, Jackie, for the sweet, easy way you have brought this story to light.

  And finally, to my husband, Bob Branard, there is more of you here than just your name on this book’s cover. You are the story. You are the beauty that saves me day after day. You are why I bloom. Thank you for this joyful and splendid life we share. I love you.

  READERS GUIDE

  THE ART OF ARRANGING FLOWERS

  BY

  LYNNE BRANARD

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. Regarding missing a flower delivery, Lucy says “that’s just a mistake that cannot be forgiven.” Why do flowers symbolize something so paramount that missing a delivery would be a disaster? What crucial roles do flowers play in relationships—both romantic and nonromantic—between people?

  2. Ruby makes it clear that she has never been in a serious romantic relationship, though we hear undeniably erotic descriptions of plants as “stems of short, curved, tender blades,” and “white with little narrow lips of purple.” Do you think Ruby expresses her sensuality through her trade? Do you think her passion for flowers is a stand-in for other longings?

  3. Nora and Jimmy are both alcoholics, and their relationship is rooted in the recovery process. How do Ruby and Dan forge a similar (platonic) bond, and what fuels that bond?

  4. Jimmy tells Ruby that she has a reputation for “fixing hearts.” And much later, Nora echoes that the whole town has expressed that sentiment. In “fixing” others’ hearts, how might Ruby have neglected her own? Can empathy overextend into self-neglect?

  5. Dan says that “When I was in space and saw the stars . . . I felt as if I were seeing something of myself . . . I felt as if I were somehow connected to these great beings.” Have you ever felt that kind of ineffable connection that Dan describes? Was it with a person, or a place, or a thing—like Dan’s stars?

  6. Will says, “Sometimes I worry that everybody I love will die.” Many of the characters are either at death’s door or have suffered the tragic loss of a loved one. How do they find ways not to live in the constant fear that Will expresses?

  7. What is the symbolic significance of Clementine’s encounter with the porcupine and Ruby’s interference—and subsequent injury? How is that a watershed moment in Ruby’s life?

  8. Ruby’s and Will’s lives are both wrought with tragedy. In the prologue, Ruby quotes Hemingway’s famous assertion that we become “strong in the broken places.” How is this both true and false? How do Will and Ruby reflect the truth in this, and where do they find their strength, or solace?

  9. The title points to how serious and sacred a flower arrangement can in fact be. Do you think Ruby’s flower arrangements function as characters in the novel? If so, at what crucial moments do they bring other characters together, and in what significant events do they play a part?

  10. Barring the prologue and epilogue, the story begins and ends on Stan and Viola Marcus’s anniversary. Ruby always has the same exchange with Stan: She remembers his anniversary, and he leaves her shop after stating that he is “the lucky one.” Why did the author choose to bookend the novel in this way? How is Stan’s relationship with his wife emblematic of what marriage means?

  11. Were you surprised that Ruby changed her mind and decided to adopt Will? Did you think it was a wise or unwise choice? How might the story have been vastly different if Jenny and Justin had adopted Will?

  12. Why do you think the author chose to include an epilogue on the day of Ruby’s death? What role does death play in the book that makes it a fitting ending?

  13. During the conversation with Dan about whether or not Ruby will adopt Will, Dan explains the mechanics of how flowers bloom. “It turns out that the instabilities that shape roots and blossoms often come about when certain cells become longer than others. The rapid growth causes strain, which bends the soft tissues. . . .” What is he really telling Ruby? How does the “biology of blooming” manifest itself in her life?

  14. Ruby is near paralyzed by her sister Daisy’s death, until she finds herself “pulled out of bed” at the sight of the flora just outside the window. How does the art of arranging flowers take the place of Daisy in Ruby’s life? How might Ruby’s life have been different if her sister had not died?

  15. The Greeks had four words for love: eros, agape, philia, and storge (in short: romantic love, spiritual love, friendship, and familial love). How do we see these different types of love manifested in Creekside?