Original fiction · Chapter 2 of 2
A Chair by the Window
Mr. Hale turned to the last page of the notebook. The paper was blank except for a small circle at the top.
“Who's the last one for?” I asked.
“My wife,” he said.
I had seen her photograph on his mantel the year my mother sent me across the street with the wreath. I remembered the wide glasses and the blouse with white flowers on it. I didn't know that she'd worked mornings at the bus depot or that she'd died just before she was meant to retire.
After the funeral, my mother brought him a sunflower in the blue vase. On the following Friday he brought the vase back with a flower from his garden. My mother said she knew a woman who could use it. A few weeks later he asked if he could come along. They kept it going for years. They delivered to people who'd stopped coming down for their mail, people who'd lost a job, and once to a mechanic who'd helped a stranded driver and refused to tell anyone his name.
“Did she tell you who to see this week?” I asked.
“No. I thought we'd take some to the depot. They have new drivers there. None of them knew her.”
I pulled two more sunflowers from the bucket. He slid them back across the counter so I could pick the shorter one, which had better leaves. We tied three stems together with green ribbon. His fingers shook a little when he drew the knot tight.
At the depot, a driver on her break offered us a paper cup half full of water. She found a place for the flowers on the dispatch desk, next to a jar of peppermints. When she asked whether there was an occasion, Mr. Hale told her his wife's name. The woman at the desk repeated it to make sure she'd heard it right.
We walked back without the flowers. When we reached the shop, I set the blue vase by the window and moved a chair up beside it. Then I brought a second chair from the back.
On Friday I arrived before six. Mr. Hale was already on the sidewalk. He didn't have a sunflower this time. He had brought a branch of tiny white flowers from the bush beside his porch.
“Anybody in mind?” he said.
I thought of the mechanic who had been repairing our van all week and had mentioned, while I waited for a receipt, that this would be his first winter alone. I put the branch in the blue vase while I went for my keys.
