The Language of Flowers

the point of breaking?”

She looked at me deeply. When she looked away, I knew she understood that yes, I did believe I was the only one. “I could have hired someone else. Someone less flawed, perhaps, or at least better at hiding it. But none of them would have had the talent you have with flowers, Victoria. It’s truly a gift. When you work with flowers, everything about you changes. The set of your jaw loosens. Your eyes glaze with focus. Your fingers manipulate the flowers with a gentle respect that makes it impossible to believe you are capable of violence. I’ll never forget the first day I saw it. Watching you arranging sunflowers at the back table, I felt like I was looking at a completely different girl.”

I knew the girl of whom she was speaking. It was the same one I’d glimpsed in the dressing room mirror with Elizabeth, after nearly a year in her home. Perhaps that girl had survived somewhere within me after all, preserved like a dried flower, fragile and sweet.

Renata picked up the envelope and flapped it in the air between us.

“Shall I?” she asked.

3.

At the sound of the gavel, I blew the white, cottony buds I’d arranged in a line off the table. They scattered to the floor of the courtroom. Elizabeth stood up.

The flowers had been at my seat when I’d arrived, the tangle of baby’s breath—everlasting love—reflecting on the polished tabletop, soft, round orbs bobbing deep within the glossy wood. They were stiff and dry against my fingertips, as if Elizabeth had purchased them for our first court date, before the hearing had been continued, and continued again. Baby’s breath did not wither or mold. With time it grew increasingly brittle, but otherwise it did not change. There had been no reason for Elizabeth to purchase a fresh bunch.

As she stood before the judge, systematically denying a long list of accusations, I snapped the brown, budless stems into inch-long pieces, arranging them like a bird’s nest in the center of the table. There was a pause, and the courtroom fell silent. Elizabeth’s request echoed in my ears: I would ask that you return Victoria to my custody, effective immediately. I didn’t dare look up, afraid my eyes would betray my desire. But when the judge spoke again, it was only to ask Elizabeth to return to her seat. Her request, it seemed, did not deserve a response. She sat back down.

Meredith sat between Elizabeth and me at the long table, flanked by attorneys. My attorney was a short, heavy man. He looked uncomfortable in his suit, leaning forward as the judge spoke and pulling his shirt away from the back of his neck. His notepad was blank, and he did not appear to be carrying a pen. Under the table, he checked the time on his watch. He was ready to leave.

I was ready to leave, too. Only half listening as Meredith and the judge debated my level of need, I manipulated the collection of broken stems on the tabletop, arranging them into the shape of a three-finned fish, a pointed crown, and then a lopsided heart. The brittle pile distracted me from the proximity of Elizabeth, less than five arm lengths away. A level-ten group home, the judge ordered, pending availability. Meredith wrote the decision on my case plan, crossing the courtroom to the bench with a thick stack of papers in her hand. The judge paused, told Meredith to add my name to all the waiting lists for transitional housing, and then signed the top sheet. When I emancipated in eight years, I would still be alone. Without stating it in precise terms, the judge’s words defined my future.

The judge cleared her throat. Meredith returned to her seat. In the silence that followed, I understood that the judge was waiting for me to look up, but I did not. With my finger, I poked a hole in the twiggy heart I’d created from the stems, pulling it open until I saw my own face reflected in the tabletop within. I was surprised by how old I looked, and also how angry. Still, I did not look up.

“Victoria,” the judge said finally. “Do you have anything to say?”

I didn’t respond. On the other side of my attorney, the county prosecutor tapped her long, polished fingernails against the table, red ovals pressed onto wrinkled hands. She wanted me to testify against Elizabeth in criminal court, but I’d refused.

I stood up slowly. From my pockets I pulled handfuls of red carnations, browning heads I’d plucked from a holiday bouquet in the hospital gift shop. Over two months after the night of the fire, I was still in the hospital, moved from the burn unit to the psychiatric ward until Meredith could find a placement for me.

I ducked under the table and crossed the courtroom.

“I want you to think about the consequences of refusing to testify,” the judge said as I stood before her. “This is more than just about standing up for yourself, and standing up for justice. This is about protecting other children.”

The adults in the room believed Elizabeth to be a threat. I almost laughed, the idea was so absurd. But I knew if I laughed I would start to cry, and if I started to cry, I might never stop.

Instead, I piled the red carnations on the bench. My heart breaks. It was the first time I’d ever given a flower to someone who didn’t understand the meaning. The gift felt subversive and strangely powerful. As I turned to go, Elizabeth stood, taking in the meaning of the flowers. Our bodies faced each other, and in the brief, quiet moment, the energy between us was as hot as the fire that had torn us apart.

I started to run. The judge pounded the gavel; Meredith called me back. Throwing open the doors of the courtroom, I raced down six flights of stairs, pushing open an emergency exit and walking outside. I stopped in the bright afternoon light. It didn’t matter which way I ran. Meredith would catch me. She would drive me back to the hospital, place me in a group home, or lock me in a detention center. For eight years, I would move from one placement to the next, whenever she came for me. Then, on my eighteenth birthday, I would emancipate, and I would be alone.

I shivered. It was a cold December day, the bright blue sky deceptive. I lay down on the ground where I stood, pressing my cheek against the warm cement.

I wanted to go home.

4.

Ten years had passed, and still, Elizabeth wanted me.

Her letter, folded into a small square and tucked inside my bra, pressed into my skin as I worked beside Marlena that evening. I let you down, she’d written. I’ve never stopped being sorry, either. And then, at the very bottom, just above her name: Please, please, come home. Two or three times an hour I removed and reread the short sentences, until I’d memorized not only the words on the page but the exact shape of every letter. Marlena didn’t ask, just worked harder to make up for my distraction.

I would go to Elizabeth. I had decided this the moment I read her letter, sitting on the curb beside Renata. Standing up, I’d meant to walk straight to my car, drive immediately over the bridge and through the countryside to her vineyard. But instead I’d seen Marlena working through the window, stopped in to rearrange a bouquet, then paused and reached for another. Hours passed. We had an anniversary party the following day, followed by two weddings, back-to-back. The fall had officially become as busy as the summer months had been, full of demanding, superstitious brides who would rather marry on a Sunday in late autumn than use another florist. They were my least favorite. Not wealthy enough to have simply outbid other brides for the summer months and planned extravagant weddings with grace and gratitude but wealthy enough to run in the same circles and feel the grief of constant comparison. Fall brides were insecure, and the men they were marrying overindulgent. In the past month, Marlena and I had been called in for last-minute consultations for three different brides, in which everything we had planned was scrapped and we started over the day before a wedding.