The Big Boss

Daniel really brought a girl home.

Grace.

She smelled like clean soap and flowers.

A good girl.

I knew immediately.

I had prepared a red envelope in advance, of course.

A mother-in-law should be generous.

I pulled out Daniel’s childhood photo albums and showed Grace everything.

Baby Daniel drooling.

Daniel with missing front teeth.

Daniel crying because a cat stole his sausage.

Daniel glaring at the camera in middle school because he thought he was cool.

Grace laughed until her eyes curved.

Daniel tried to stop me.

I ignored him.

This was called helping his relationship.

Later, Daniel took me to Thomas’s grave.

It was the first time since I woke.

I stood before the photo on the stone.

The man in it smiled with crescent eyes.

I felt him near me.

Not painfully.

Softly.

“I still forget things,” I told him. “But I remember enough.”

Spring wind moved through the trees.

I still had Daniel.

Grace.

Maybe one day a grandchild.

And somewhere in a corner flower shop, a silver-haired man who always gave me tea.

I returned to the shop not long after.

The owner smiled when he saw me.

“Hello, miss. Have you been well?”

Miss.

At my age.

How charming.

“Not bad,” I said. “And you, sir?”

His smile deepened.

“I’ve been the same. Do you need flowers today?”

I nodded.

He made me another bouquet.

I sat outside with it, but the waiting felt different now.

Peaceful.

If no one came, I would take the flowers home.

There were many vases in my house.

No flower would be wasted.

The owner prepared tea and cookies without asking.

Sometimes, when business slowed, he sat with me.

Like an old friend.

His name was Arthur Lane.

I learned the flower shop had not originally been his.

It had been his wife’s.

They were introduced by relatives, met a few times, and married.

She was gentle.

He was quiet.

His work kept him away often.

She understood, but understanding did not erase waiting.

When she became ill, Arthur returned too late to change the ending, but not too late to accompany her through it.

After she died, he left again to finish his work.

Years later, he came back and bought the closed shop.

His wife had loved flowers.

So he sold flowers.

That way, he said, it felt like he was still accompanying her.

I was silent for a long time after hearing that.

We were both people who had loved someone absent.

Both still standing.

Both drawn to flowers because flowers knew how to bloom without asking whether grief had ended.

The next day, I asked to become his apprentice.

Arthur looked at me.

“Apprentice?”

“I’m retired. I like flowers. You’re alone here anyway.”

He agreed.

Just like that.

I put on an apron and stood at the shop entrance in golden sunlight.

The flowers smelled especially sweet that morning.

Customers sometimes mistook me for the owner’s wife.

I waved them off.

“No, no. I’m a retired apprentice.”

Arthur never corrected them either.

He only smiled.

That man.

Too quiet.

Too patient.

Too slow.

I eventually asked about wages.

He said, “You haven’t worked long.”

I said, “If you don’t pay me, I’ll take flowers as wages. And one day, when I don’t want to work anymore, I’ll leave and never come back.”

Arthur’s smile faded.

I froze.

It was a joke.

Mostly.

But he seemed to take it seriously.

And strangely, I found I did not want him to be sad.