The Memory Keeper: A heartwarming, feel-good romance

by Jenny Hale

  The grit on the floor crunched beneath her feet as she moved over to the open delivery boxes that lined the opposite wall and peered inside. They were filled with the latest delivery of stunning flowers—red and white roses, hydrangeas, gerberas, freesias, anemones, daffodils, and baby’s breath—all wilting. She pulled them out and filled the containers with water to save them.

  Every day that Hannah could remember, Gran walked to work from her bungalow at the edge of town, bundling up if it was cold and wearing a rain bonnet on rainy days, absolutely delighted to get to work. Hannah had loved the effortlessness of Gran’s style, both at the shop and in her life. She played records and hummed along while she gathered bunches of flowers to make bouquets. The white interior had showed off the rainbow of flowers. But now it just looked tired, like Gran.

  She went to the back door and looked through the glass. Her gaze swept across the yard for Speckles, but she didn’t see the cat. She turned the knob and stepped onto a small, cement landing, where Gran used to keep large bins to save discarded stems and leaves of cut flowers for compost. They were gone, the manicured garden now covered in leaves. A slip of white plastic jutted out from under the fallen foliage, so Hannah went over to retrieve it, recognizing it as Speckles’s food bowl.

  Tears filled her eyes, her mind racing with the thought that the poor cat might have been forced to abandon Gran in search of food. She took the bowl back inside and checked the bar fridge at the back for milk, but it was empty. With a heavy heart, Hannah set the cat’s bowl on the counter where Gran used to leave a platter of fresh muffins for her customers, and returned to the front.

  She caught the view through the display window to the tiny yard, past the walk from the road now patchy with weeds. The old sign out front was faded, making The Memory Keeper look more like Th emor eep r.

  Once, when Hannah was about ten years old, she’d asked Gran why she’d named the shop The Memory Keeper, and Gran had explained, “Every time I create a bouquet for someone, I’m creating a memory. Think about it,” she said, taking Hannah’s hands and filling them with a bundle of hydrangeas. “Someone might get this bouquet for her birthday, and it will sit on the kitchen table while her family gathers around a cake full of flickering candles, singing to the girl they love.” She leaned in close enough for Hannah to see the twinkle in her eye, and whispered, “She’ll remember it.” Gran took the bunch from Hannah and twirled around, holding it into the air. “And we’ll have been a tiny part of that.” She placed the flowers into a vase of water and began hunting for other blooms to complement it. Gran was right about the flowers making memories for others, although they made a whole lot of memories for Hannah too.

  No one would make any memories in a place like this. As she stood in the old space, she decided it was time to figure out what she was going to say to Gran.

  Fourteen

  The least Hannah could do was help Gran get her affairs in order. She pushed up her sleeves and went over to the mass of papers on the center counter. Each pile was labeled with sticky notes in her mother’s handwriting. One heap was categorized “recycle”; another said, “file.” Hannah zeroed in on the pile marked “bills” and picked up the stack, flipping through them, her heart sinking. Gran had racked up hundreds—maybe thousands—of dollars in unpaid bills. She set them back on the counter.

  Hannah stared at the invoices, thinking. She was thirty-five years old. She’d saved money for a family that, given her recent situation with Miles, and her age, she may never have… She set her phone on the counter and opened the calculator app, adding up every invoice in the pile, and even as the number got bigger, she knew she could still cover it with her savings. She could wipe these bills completely clean for her parents and Gran. But if Gran kept the shop open, the bills would keep mounting.

  The old bells on the door jingled, startling her. She looked up to find an elderly woman shuffling in. She had a purple cane with a swirling pattern that matched her skirt. The woman peered over at Hannah and puttered over to her.

  “My gracious me!” she said when she reached Hannah. “You’ve done gone off and got fancy on us.” Her voice had that smooth southern drawl to it that made even her poor grammar sound like music. “The door said closed,” she said, throwing a thumb over her shoulder, “but you’re usually open at this time a’day, so I just tried the knob.”

  “Have we met before?” Hannah asked, the woman looking familiar.

  “My name’s Darlene Buxton. I’ve been friends with your gran since we were girls back in Kentucky.” Darlene gave Hannah a direct but polite appraisal. “You’re all your gran talks about, you know…” Her eyes squinted shut with her smile.

  “I remember you,” Hannah said with a tickle of delight, recalling Darlene and her grandmother dancing together in the shop.

  “She was so apprehensive when you left to go to college in New York,” Darlene said, tipping her head up to view the empty silver buckets near the ceiling. “She worried about you like crazy, all alone in that big city. It was so hard for her to let you go. But she told me once, ‘Hannah wants a different life, and I know firsthand how that feels.’”

  “I had no idea,” Hannah said, thinking back to Liam’s comment about how Gran had saved all her trophies because she’d missed her. Gran had always been so supportive. She hadn’t given Hannah a single clue that she’d felt anything other than complete joy about her move to New York.

  “Well, dear, I’m absolutely delighted to see you’re taking over the shop for her since she can’t be here to run it. I’m sure she’s over the moon about it.”

  “Oh, I’m…” Hannah let the words trail off, the ever-present guilt surfacing. “I’m happy to do it,” she said instead. No sense in getting into the details right now.

  Darlene beamed. “The entire time I’ve known your grandmother, she was a different person among her flowers. How wonderful it will be for her to know that her memory and the memory of this place will go on for generations. I suppose that makes you the new Memory Keeper,” she said with an excited grin. “That was what she always wanted. I’m proud of you for coming home to do that for her.”

  Hannah stared at her, speechless. Gran had wanted Hannah to run the shop? She’d never said anything of the sort…

  Hannah’s phone lit up with another notification from work. She clicked off the screen, her mind still going a mile a minute.

  Darlene took in a long breath through her nose as she surveyed the rundown space. “I’m here to grab a quick bouquet for my book club. Something spring-like to give the ladies a touch of brightness to look forward to in these last few cold days.”

  “Of course,” Hannah said, rushing over to the inventory boxes full of flowers. “I just got here,” she explained. “I haven’t whipped the shop into shape yet.” Hannah grabbed a handful of pink tulips and white lilies that were still in good shape and set them on the counter, having absolutely no idea why she was pretending to keep the shop open.

  “Oh, darling, I can’t afford that many,” Darlene worried aloud.

  “It’s no problem,” Hannah told her. “It’ll be my treat for not having the shop ready when you came in. I’ll just charge you for a small bouquet.”

  Hannah grabbed a large glass vase from a box next to the counter and began to arrange the flowers, the white and pink color of them resembling a box of candy.

  She trimmed a tulip stem and slipped it into place in the vase.

  “Here you are,” Hannah said, sliding the bouquet toward Darlene.

  Hannah didn’t know what she’d do if Darlene came into the shop again and found it in the same state, or what the fate of The Memory Keeper would be by next week, but what she did know was that her remorse had subsided when she’d told Darlene she was taking over for Gran.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Darlene said, admiring her work. “I don’t know how you can just throw flowers together and make them look like that.” She turned the bouquet around to view it more closely. “It’s a gift. I
’ve only ever seen it in Faye and my mother before now.” She looked up at Hannah. “And you have it too.”

  Hannah smiled.

  Darlene paid for the bouquet. “Thank you for this,” she said, the glass vase in one hand and her cane in the other.

  “No problem,” Hannah said. “Here, let me get the door for you.”

  As Darlene left, it all hit her: Darlene Buxton. Buxton Floral Company from Gran’s journal. Darlene had known Gran since childhood… Hannah couldn’t help but notice the coincidence that it had been Darlene who’d passed along Gran’s idea that Hannah be the new Memory Keeper, when Gran herself must have gotten her start working under Darlene’s mother.

  Before she could spend too much time considering it, Hannah refocused on something else: Liam was walking up to the door.

  He seemed just as surprised to see Hannah as she was to see him.

  “I was walking by,” he said tentatively, surveying the interior behind her tactfully.

  “This is my gran’s shop,” she explained proudly, letting him enter to get out of the cold, even though the airy room was still a bit drafty. “It’s pretty… um. Rundown.” She was talking politely but the elephant in the room was hanging over her every word.

  He nodded thoughtfully, running his finger along a half-empty display. “I see.”

  She walked behind the counter and scooted the stack of papers over in a feeble attempt to make things look better, but she knew it was a lost cause. “The rent’s killing her, and we’re trying to get her to close it.”

  Liam’s eyebrows rose in interest.

  Who was she kidding, even entertaining the idea that she could save this mess? She’d have to get Gran to sign the paperwork to relieve her parents from the lease. Then Hannah would pay off the bills, and in time, close the shop. That was really the only option.

  “You look distraught,” Liam noted, apology in his eyes.

  “I am,” she said. “Life is hard sometimes, and I just have to get my mind around that.”

  “Yes. Life is hard,” he agreed, a weighty stare in his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but Hannah’s phone went off on the counter.

  “Sorry,” she said, “it could be about Gran.” She leaned over to view the caller. “Weird. It’s work. I wouldn’t expect them to call me direct unless there was something really pressing. Mind if I get this?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” Liam replied.

  “Be right back.” Hannah stepped into the hallway at the back of the shop and took the call.

  “Hey, it’s Amanda,” her coworker said when Hannah answered.

  As assistant director, Amanda had taken the reins while Hannah was out. Amanda had been passed over for the art director job when Hannah was hired and had been crushed, but she’d handled it kindly and professionally, even buying Hannah a paperweight for her office as a congratulations gift. Hannah knew that the only reason Amanda didn’t get the job was because she’d never managed a huge project with a director before, so Hannah made sure that Amanda was right there with her now. She’d gone over her plan with Hannah before she’d left, and the entire project was in her very capable hands. Hannah wasn’t worried a bit… until this call. Amanda never called her out of hours or on her days off.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you on vacation, but we’re having a major problem.”

  Hannah cringed, realizing that Amanda still thought she was on a beach in Barbados with Miles right now. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Right after you left, the computer system at work crashed, and we’ve lost all the photography for the summer farmhouse spread.”

  Hannah’s breath caught. “What?” she asked, barely even able to get the word out.

  Hannah had traveled the country with the photographer personally, for every shoot, once a month, over the last six months, giving delicate direction on the content she wanted photographed. She had images of a farm family in their denim overalls, sitting on their weathered front porch after a day’s work, the green harvester in blurry view in the wheat fields behind them; there was the shot with the old farm hound sitting next to a scarecrow at sunset… All the gorgeous, award-winning shots lost?

  “We’ve been scrambling to recover them,” Amanda told her. “The IT department has been working overtime. They think it had something to do with the file being open at the time of the crash. The damage to the hard drive caused a corruption of the software, and it’s making it impossible to retrieve the files. They’re still working on it, but I worry that by the time they do, it’ll be too late. We’re not going to hit deadline, and without the photos, we’ve got nothing. I tried to use old stock, but nothing is fitting the bill. Do you have the photos saved on anything at your apartment?”

  “I don’t think so. I kept them all at work, thinking the computer there was more reliable than my own.” Hannah leaned back against the wall, the phone still at her ear, the enormity of this setting in. She’d just gotten this promotion and, her fault or not, it wouldn’t look good if the first big project she’d been given failed miserably. If it didn’t go well, she could be in real professional trouble. Without those images, there was nothing to put in the main spread with the deadline looming. She had to figure out how to fix this. “Oh my God.”

  “I know,” Amanda said.

  Suddenly, Hannah perked up. “What about on the camera itself? It should be in my office.”

  “Nope. I already checked. You wiped it clean, remember?”

  Hannah tried to push through the haze of anxiety that was drowning her brain to remember wiping those photos from the device. “I did?” she asked weakly.

  “Once we uploaded, you cleared all the photos because the tech department is always on our case about keeping images on the devices. You said yourself how annoying it was to sign out a camera, only to have it already full of some other project’s pictures.”

  The misery of her attention to detail settled upon her. Amanda was right; Hannah had wiped it the day of the upload. “And the photographer? Does he have them, by chance?”

  “Nope. We checked with him too. What do we do, Hannah?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and scratched her forehead. “Let me think for a second.”

  She needed to save the day. She just had no idea how. She racked her brain for anything, but the truth was that this was entirely the job of the IT department, and if they couldn’t retrieve those photos, she had no idea what the feature of the magazine would be. They’d have to start from scratch, and they didn’t have time for that.

  “I’ll think of something,” she said. “Hang in there and I’ll call you back when I’ve figured it out.” Hannah said her goodbyes and ended the call, feeling like her head might explode.

  “You okay?” Liam asked when she’d returned to the counter.

  “Just work stuff,” she replied, not wanting to get into it with him.

  “I think you need something sweet and warm to clear your head—how about a coffee? We could go down the street to the coffee shop and grab one.”

  “I don’t think so…” she said, not wanting to entertain any invitation from him at all.

  “Can we just talk?” he asked.

  She stood her ground. If he had anything he wanted to talk about, he could tell her right there.

  “Hannah, I need you to hear me out,” he said. “Then I promise not to bother you anymore. Please. Get a cup of coffee with me.”

  She deliberated. There was a terrible draft in the shop, and the warm coffee would be helpful. And delicious. Plus, it could take her mind off work for a while…

  Hannah grabbed her coat as Liam opened the door, and the two of them stepped out into the sunshine. She locked up behind them, and they walked down the front path together, headed for Main Street. Hannah had no idea what she was doing, going for coffee with him, her future more uncertain than it had ever been.

  Fifteen

  “When does your mother arrive with Noah?” Hannah asked, unsure of how to have a convers
ation with Liam, given their new reality. She wrapped her hands around her warm porcelain cup of bergamot, espresso, and coconut milk as they settled in at a bistro table upstairs by the fireplace, away from the crowds of the coffee shop.

  “About three o’clock,” he said, looking at her as if a thousand thoughts were crossing his mind at once. “My mom’s got a benefit she’d forgotten about in a few days, and she has to run out and find a dress for it as soon as she gets home, so it’ll be just Noah and me tonight.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said. She wasn’t quite sure what to say. She leaned over her latte and took a sip, delighting in the warm, smoky sweetness of it. “Want to tell me why you really brought me here?”

  He stared at her as if deciding where to begin.

  Gently, she set down her mug, trying to stay calm. “You basically brush me off this morning, drop the bomb on me that you’re married, and leave, only to show up again at Gran’s shop and ask me to coffee. What’s going on?”

  “I’m sorry I did that,” he said, shaking his head, remorse clouding his every feature.

  “You’re sorry you said you were married, sorry you kissed me when you were married, or sorry you asked me to coffee?” She didn’t let him answer before she continued, “There’s a lot going on here, Liam, and I’m not going to sit around and wait for you to figure it all out. Tell me right now whatever it is you have to say.”

  “You’re dealing with so much…” he said, not answering any of her questions. He gritted his teeth as if he were scolding himself, and then looked her in the eye. “I’m not used to this.”

  She took in a steadying breath and waited patiently, giving him her full attention. It was clear that whatever he was trying to tell her was difficult for him.

  “My wife…” Liam went silent and took a drink of his coffee. He swallowed and clearly attempted to regroup, clearing his throat. “Her name is Alison. Was Alison. She passed away of cancer two years ago.”

  Suddenly, Hannah’s heart went from feeling icy anger to complete compassion for Liam. Liam was a single parent, trying to manage everything on his own. What must that have been like for the last two years? “Oh my God, Liam. I’m so sorry.” All those thoughts she’d seen on his face now made complete sense. She put her fingers to her lips, breathless, trying to imagine the sorrow he must have felt.