“Well—I am not a rich woman by any means—but if I can be of any help in raising Floralie, I would be more than happy,” pitched in Miss Clairoux.
Tom replied, “That’s very kind of you, but I think—”
“What about what I think? Does that count for nothing anymore?” Floralie’s voice caught her by surprise.
Tom turned, took a breath, and said, “Of course it counts. What do you think, Floralie?”
Floralie bit her lip. “I love you, Tom. I love you, and I need you, always. I’ll always need you. But I think . . . I think I want to paint. I want to go with Mr. Tullier.”
Tears glossed Tom’s eyes; he blinked rapidly to keep them at bay. “Very well. If that is what you wish.”
A pang of guilt stabbed Floralie’s stomach, but she nodded.
“If you’ve made up your mind, then, we had better gather your things from Whitterly End.” Tom dabbed his mouth with a napkin and stood.
Floralie scooted back her chair and stood as well before saying, “But, you haven’t finished your tea—”
“I’m not very thirsty. Come now; we’ve not a moment to doddle.”
Miss Clairoux and Mr. Tullier stood as Tom began to stride toward the ticket booth, heels clicking against the tile and reverberating around the high-ceilinged station.
Mr. Tullier hurried to catch up. “Tom—” he called. “Tom, wait.”
Tom turned, and for yet the third time that evening, his face was splotched with tears. “What is it?”
Mr. Tullier looked to the floor and gestured to Tom’s leather shoes. “If I may be so bold, I daresay those shoes of yours weren’t meant for flower shops.”
Tom’s mouth went slack. “N-no. No, they’re what—er—what they wear at university. What’s that have to do with anything?”
Mr. Tullier shifted his weight and looked intently at Tom. “If I could send you there—to a university—would you go?”
The corners of Tom’s eyes wrinkled—but this time, not with worry. This time, they wrinkled with hope, perhaps even happiness. “In a heartbeat.”
Mr. Tullier clasped his hands together. “Then it’s done.”
Tom’s jaw dropped. Floralie’s did, too, and in unison, they said, “You’re serious?”
Mr. Tullier patted Tom on the back. “What’re you interested in? Physics? History?”
“Literature. I’ve dreamed for years of studying literature,” breathed Tom.
“Well, I happen to know that L’Université de Paris has a stellar literature program. I think you would fit in just fine there. And you can come home to Giverny anytime you wish. And besides that, any grandson of mine deserves a good education to match good genes.”
The first day of school, the teacher said, “Oh, you’re Thomas’s sister! How wonderful.”
Floralie laughed at that and then flew away to her wonderland.
After securing two tickets back to England for Tom and Floralie to collect their things, the four waited on the platform until a whistle blew and a scarlet engine emerged from the fog. A gust of wind nearly knocked Floralie off her feet as the train came blazing by, and then creaked to a stop.
As the doors opened and passengers trickled out, Mr. Tullier led Floralie, Tom, and Miss Clairoux to car 3B, carrying Floralie’s bag.
“I think we can manage from here,” said Tom, taking Floralie’s bag. “We’ll arrive at Giverny in three days’ time. And thank you.” Tom smiled, then turned into the compartment to find space for Floralie’s bag on the luggage rack as Miss Clairoux went to sit on a bench a few paces back from the tracks.
“I’d best be getting tickets back to Giverny,” Mr. Tullier said to Floralie, then reached into his pocket. When he pulled out Philomenos, Mr. Tullier winked and muttered, “Your vermin.”
Floralie smiled and took Philomenos in her palm. “And, Floralie,” said Mr. Tullier, forget-me-not eyes narrowed, “you’re sure this is okay? Staying with me.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Floralie. “I couldn’t be a smidgen more pleased.”
“Good,” said Mr. Tullier. “I’m glad. So I will see you—”
“Wait—” interrupted Floralie. “I just have one question.”
“Don’t you always?” said Mr. Tullier with a laugh, and Floralie noticed there was a wholeness to his laugh that hadn’t been there before. “Go on, then.”
“Why did you write the floriographies in the first place? Why flowers? Miss Clairoux told me you were blind as a child, and once you could see, you didn’t like the way the world looked.”
Mr. Tullier sighed. “No, I didn’t. I could see pain. I could see my little brother’s knees bleed when he fell from his bike; I could see my older sister’s tears the first time a man broke her heart, and I could see the light leave my father’s eyes as he lay on his deathbed. But flowers, flowers are not made of pain. Flowers are beautiful.”
“But if they’re so beautiful, why did you refuse to describe them to Miss Clairoux?”
“Because I was young and stupid. I was no longer blind, but my vision was clouded by pain. So, after Delphine left, I went to work for Monet, who taught me much about beauty—it took me a long time to really see it. But my flower language was my attempt at fulfilling Delphine’s wish, even after she left me. My floriographies, if used properly, could translate the emotions of flowers. They could explain flowers in a way the blind could see them. Let me ask you something: Did you know that near the end of his life, Monet began to lose his sight?”
Floralie shook her head no.
Mr. Tullier half smiled. “Well, during that time, he told me something. He was painting his tulips, cataracts and all, when he said it to me: ‘Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.’ Can you remember that?”
Floralie remembered reading that in A History of Dreamlands. She nodded.
“Good girl.” Mr. Tullier tipped his hat at Floralie. “À bientôt, Floralie.”
“À bientôt, Monsieur Tullier.”
When Mr. Tullier had gone, Tom returned from the luggage racks and said, “Are you ready, Flory?”
Floralie stepped halfway onto the train, one foot on, one foot off. She bit her lip before saying, “You go on; I’ll be there in a minute.”
Tom nodded and stepped into the compartment. Once he was out of sight, Floralie called out, “Miss Clairoux!”
Miss Clairoux stood from a platform bench and hurried over to Floralie. When she came to the door, Miss Clairoux grasped Floralie’s shoulders and chirped, “Why so glum, ma chérie?”
“I’m not glum,” said Floralie.
“My dear,” Miss Clairoux said, “I can feel. I can feel your bones beneath your skin, and they ache with melancholy. I can feel them trembling.”
Floralie stroked Philomenos behind his ear. “It’s just . . . Nino. He’s back at that horrible orphanage. It’s awful.”
“I may be but a blind old maid, but in my humble experience, I have found that there is nothing more certain than the uncertainty of forever.” A smile peeked through Miss Clairoux’s wrinkles the way stars do clouds on stormy nights. “There is something else, isn’t there, ma chérie?”
“Well,” started Floralie. “There is one other thing. My mother’s flowers. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore, but . . . I never did find out what they mean.”
Miss Clairoux tilted up her chin and was silent for a moment before saying, “Describe them.”
And so Floralie did, remembering the colors, shapes, and sizes of each and every flower. She scarcely got a quarter way through them when Miss Clairoux put up her hand. “No, ma chérie. Tell me how they feel.”
And with that, understanding bloomed in Floralie like a laurel bud first realizing it has petals. First realizing the sunshine and the rain could only give it so much; victory grew inside itself. Except it wasn’t quite understanding—it was feeling. Yes, that was the secret, was it not?
Floralie looked up
to Miss Clairoux again. “Just . . . one more thing. Miss Clairoux?”
“Mmm?”
“You didn’t buy a ticket. When are you coming back? To Whitterly End, I mean.”
“Oh, I’m not going back. Goodness no. I’ve got a library to patch up. Whitterly End’s library can hold its own without me. And”—she nodded in Mr. Tullier’s direction, pale eyes twinkling—“I left a story in Giverny.”
A laugh escaped Floralie, the tinkle of a bell lurking somewhere within it.
Miss Clairoux took Floralie’s hand and whispered, “We will be together soon.”
Floralie gripped Miss Clairoux’s hand tighter, then pulled her old and fragile body into a hug. Tears burned at the back of Floralie’s eyes, but somehow, she was smiling, too. “Merci, Miss Clairoux,” she whispered. “Je t’aime.”
As the train chugged back to England and as Tom fell asleep behind a book (an analysis of three Shakespeare plays), Floralie opened up the box of flowers. She had learned enough in Mr. Tullier’s garden to be able to recognize them now, even the more obscure ones: burgundy rose, mountain pink, mourning bride, lily of the valley, primrose, pink carnation, meadow saffron, and eglantine.
Philomenos curled up in the box’s corner as Floralie carefully removed each flower and laid them on the empty seat beside her. She stroked Philomenos as he slipped off to sleep, his fur oddly cold despite the summer heat. She pulled a handkerchief from her bag and blanketed the mouse with it, then turned back to her flowers.
As Monet’s quote echoed in Floralie’s mind, each flower turned into a shard of a poem. And she realized Monet and Mr. Tullier and Miss Clairoux were right. Floralie didn’t have to understand the flowers. She simply had to feel them.
Sunshine Lungs
By Floralie Alice Laurel
My sunshine lungs
Gasp for breath in sunless spaces,
Crawl out of their box,
Clear their throats of dust,
They speak for the first time
In long-lost tongues.
The burgundy rose is deep as the
Gap behind my wallpaper, letting sunlight through.
A mountain pink inside whispers, “You will soon
Climb high as me,”
Or is it my mother, mourning bride behind her ear
Blooming big as her kisses
Before a long good-bye?
Lily of the valley, bowed like a widow on her knees
Over a grave she once laid tears, but now leaves smiles
Soft as primrose,
Petals like child skin and fairy wings,
Ballet silk made of mermaid scales,
And watercolors weeping wonderland meadows
Because belief in the invisible is a talent
Often forgotten at the feet of carnation trees,
Pink with promise, “I will not forget you.”
But all that lies beyond
Is meadow saffron singing sweetly,
“My happiest days are gone.”
Except for eglantine, stubborn, wild, whimsical eglantine
Growing where she pleases
But mostly in stories so bittersweet
They hurt and heal at the same time.
And like poems filled with gaps
And wonderlands with mouse holes,
It is through our broken spaces
That light seeps in
And fills up our sunshine lungs.
She wrote the poem on her hands and heard the words in her head, but the voice was . . . different. While Floralie knew, logically, she was the one making up the flower meanings, the meanings came not in her own voice, but another’s. It was a familiar voice, a distant voice, a dream voice. It was her wonderland gardener.
Floralie and Mama lay on an old quilt in the garden, two sets of eyes filled with constellations. The night swirled around them, swaddling them like a blanket. Mama brushed her hand up to the sky, pressed her fingers against the Milky Way. “Even the sky has mistakes, darling. Beautiful, diamond-cut mistakes. Even the sky has scars.”
She threw a henbane flower to the sky, and said, “That one’s for imperfection.”
In the morning, Floralie found Tom in the kitchen, head stuck in a cabinet, with a trunk half the size of Floralie behind him. Upon closer inspection, Floralie found the trunk to be piled high with everything from teabags to curtains to salt and pepper shakers.
Floralie stifled a laugh. “They do have tea in France, you know. And curtains.”
Tom jumped, bumping his head on the inside of the cabinet. When he emerged, he was juggling three jars of honey. He turned to Floralie and babbled, “Where’d you come from? Never mind, gather some handkerchiefs from the laundry basket by the stairs. Wait—no, what am I thinking? Just bring the whole basket; you’ll need stockings and dishrags, too,” and he turned back to his cabinet.
So this suitcase was for her. Floralie knelt beside the trunk and pulled out a candlestick and a tin clinking with spare buttons. “Tom . . .”
“Huh?” Tom turned again. His forehead looked far more wrinkly today than usual, and his quicksand eyes were bloodshot.
“I’ve already packed.” It wasn’t completely true, but not entirely false either. She’d packed her paints and toiletries, and thought out which clothes she would bring. Really, there wasn’t much else she needed.
“Oh,” said Tom. His shoulders seemed to shrivel as he dropped the honey onto the counter and leaned back against the wall. “Already? But—but, I’m sure you haven’t organized your shoes—or—or folded your linens properly. And how will I know if you’ve forgotten something if I don’t know what you’ve already packed? Fetch your suitcase; we’ll just have to repack together.”
Floralie sighed and replied with a hug. Caught off guard, Tom stumbled back before wrapping his hands around Floralie’s head, stroking her bird’s nest hair. “Tom,” whispered Floralie. “I’m going to be okay. And you’re going to be okay. You can visit me anytime you like.” She smiled and added, “And just imagine you: a university student!”
Floralie looked up and spotted a sneaking tear in Tom’s left eye. As it slithered down his cheek, Floralie brushed it away, giggling as her finger traced ridges of stubble. “When was the last time you shaved?” she said, laughing.
Tom strained his face into a smirk and said, “When was the last time you brushed your hair?” And both held close to each other, letting loose laughter, tear choked, but joyful. Laughter, Floralie thought, was very close to sunshine.
When Floralie pulled away, she wiped her face on her sleeve and said, “I’m going to the shop attic to give Philomenos breakfast, make sure I didn’t leave anything there. But I’ll be back for lunch.”
As Floralie ascended the staircase behind the little flower shop, she felt oddly the same as she had when ascending the staircase of her old home in Giverny. Scents lingered in the air, scents Floralie had become so accustomed to, she had forgotten they existed—fosteriana tulips and soil, mothballs, old wood, paper and poems. And she had never noticed it before, but the higher she climbed, the narrower the steps became. Nearly doll sized.
A tad unnerved, Floralie skipped to the top lickety-split, opened the door, and pulled on the light string. But as the bulb flickered to light, Floralie had to keep herself from shrieking. She stumbled back, catching herself on a crate of irises, and clutched her heart.
“Thought you’d g-got rid of me, d-did you?”
Floralie surveyed the boy up and down. Raggedy clothes, mousy hair, grimy hands. It was as if he had never left. “B-but—what—you—how?”
“I think y-you stutter worse than I do.” A crooked smile broke Nino’s mouth, but this time, his lips did not bleed; he had been speaking more.
“I just—I don’t understand,” said Floralie.
“They s-sent me back to the orphanage,” explained Nino, “and, naturally, I escaped again. N-nothing new. When’d you get back?”
“Last night.”
“Oh. You didn�
��t find her, d-did you?”
“No,” breathed Floralie. She watched a leggy spider skitter across the wood floor and said, “I did.” The numbness crept back into Floralie’s fingertips as she remembered Mama’s vacant eyes.
“Oh,” said Nino. It was the sort of “oh” that let Floralie know she didn’t have to explain any further. Not now anyway. Not yet.
“But I’m going back—to Mr. Tullier’s. I’m going to live with him. He’s going to teach me, and I’m going to paint. I have a real family now.”
Nino’s eyes lit up. “Floralie, that’s great!” he exclaimed. “Really, really great.”
“You’re telling me!” Floralie laughed.
“Oh—have y-you seen it yet?”
“Seen what?”
“The sign,” said Nino. “There’s a f-for sale sign up at the g-gate of your grandmother’s orphanage.”
Floralie’s jaw dropped. “No!”
A wry smile flitted across Nino’s mouth. “Yes. I s’pose after I went missing twice, the authorities weren’t about let it st-st-stay open.
“Where’s Philomenos?” Nino asked. “He d-did come home with you, didn’t he?”
Floralie nodded toward the mouse hole. “Yeah, I brought him back. I let him in here last night so he could sleep in his own bed—wouldn’t stop squeaking and squirming in mine. But, Nino . . . I don’t think he’s been well.”
“Wh-what do you mean?” But Nino gave no time for Floralie to answer. He laid his head on the ground before the mouse hole and called into it: “Philomenos? Philomenos, c-come on out.”
Not a sound.
“Philomenos!” Nino hollered, louder this time. He looked up at Floralie for a moment and said, “Hand me some paper. There should be some in my pack.”
Floralie spotted Nino’s bag a few paces off. She knelt beside it and pulled from it the tattered leather notebook. Nino snatched it, flipped it open, and tore a piece from inside. He then crumpled it up, making as much noise as possible. “Philomenos!” he called again. “Philomenos, I’ve got paper! Come out, you can have all you want,” and he flicked the wad of paper into the mouse hole.
The Flourishing of Floralie Laurel Page 19