Original fiction · Chapter 1 of 2
The Friday Sunflower
The first time Mr. Hale brought me a sunflower, I almost told him we only accepted deliveries through the alley.
He was standing in the front doorway of my flower shop, holding one stem in both hands. The yellow petals were bent where they'd caught on his coat. He looked as though he'd walked a long way and was trying not to show it.
“I think this is yours,” he said.
We sold sunflowers by the bucket, but ours that week came with rubber bands around the stems. His had a thin piece of green ribbon tied halfway down. I recognized the knot. My mother used to tie it the same way, with the short end turned in so it wouldn't catch.
Mr. Hale had lived across the street from our shop for as long as I could remember. He had a white chair on his porch and a habit of moving it an inch or two every summer as the shade shifted. My mother took him his Christmas wreath herself. I used to see her stay to talk while she straightened it on the door.
I took over the shop when she got sick. By the time she died I knew the names of our wholesale suppliers, what the delivery van cost to keep on the road, and how to strip a rose without catching a thorn. I knew almost nothing about who she saw before I got there in the morning.
Mr. Hale handed me the sunflower. “Do you still have the blue vase?”
It was underneath the sink. The rim was chipped, so I'd been using it to hold loose stakes and pens. I rinsed it and brought it to the counter.
He watched me set it down. “She used to leave it empty for me on Fridays.”
I thought he meant he had brought flowers for my mother. He shook his head and unbuttoned his coat. In the inside pocket was a small black notebook with an elastic band around it. He opened it near the middle and showed me a date from twelve years earlier.
On that line was the name of my kindergarten teacher, who had died alone before Christmas. Beside it my mother had drawn a tiny sunflower.
“That's the first delivery I remember,” he said. “I was hoping you'd help me with the last one.”
