A few weeks later Girl came into work and everyone was quiet.
“Ryan is in the hospital,” Tony said. “But he doesn’t want visitors. He says he needs to rest.”
No one talked much at the shop, and when Ryan returned no one mentioned it. He went back into the hospital again a few weeks later, then was sent home on oxygen. He never returned to work after that second hospital stay.
“You need to go visit him,” Tony said one day. “This is it.”
Girl didn’t want to. More than anything, she didn’t want him to die. Her first semester in college Brother’s best friend had died in the drunk driving accident. Second semester, it had been William. Now it was her third semester, and she couldn’t go through that again, not now. It was too many deaths. Girl didn’t think she could take any more.
She knew she had to, though. After work Girl went to the grocery store and got some Pedialyte in what Tony had told her was Ryan’s favorite flavor, and a dozen Sonia roses—his favorite color—tied with a pale peach ribbon. Girl stopped at the fancy soup store on Park Avenue and bought some soup and crackers, then drove over to Ryan and Mike’s house. She rang the bell, but no one answered, so she set her brown paper bag on the steps and left.
Ryan called her later.
“You should have called first! I can’t hear the bell over the oxygen, and besides, there needs to be someone to let you in because I can’t get downstairs anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think about that.” She was nineteen.
“Well, thank you for the flowers and the Pedialyte. It cheered me up.”
Girl had a dream a few days later that Ryan was talking to her. You have to pull yourself together and face this, the dream-Ryan said. It’s time. Girl woke to the telephone ringing in the kitchen, telling her what she already knew. Ryan was gone.
Girl hadn’t spoken to Sharon in months, not since their lease ended. They had fought for months leading up to it, and after they moved out neither of them wanted anything to do with each other. That night, after dark, Girl rang Sharon’s doorbell.
Sharon’s boyfriend answered the door. Girl had always liked Phil. He went upstairs to find Sharon in their second-story apartment. When Sharon came down the stairs, her face was both angry and indignant, but she opened the glass door anyway, arms folded across her chest, leg out in the pissed-off stance Girl had seen so many times lately.
“Ryan,” Girl said, and started to cry. Sharon put her arms around Girl and they sobbed together.
Ryan had wanted a closed casket, but the funeral home had a private showing just for immediate family, and South Wedge employees were considered family. Ryan was dressed, as always, in black dress pants, a white long-sleeved shirt, and a bolo tie. Girl was glad they hadn’t put him in a suit. He had always been thin, but she hadn’t noticed how skeletal he had become. Girl thought about how her biker boyfriend had thumped him hard on the back in an overenthusiastic hug the last time he saw him and sent Ryan into a coughing fit. Girl should have told Samson how fragile Ryan was. She should have protected him. She thought of Ryan’s long raccoon coat that he always wore to parties. She wished it was in the casket with him to keep him warm.
The South Wedge employees worked all day at the shop, servicing the weddings still on the schedule. The phone rang so many times with friends and customers wanting to send flowers to the funeral home that they had to turn them away, and eventually just left the phone off the hook. After work, they all went to the viewing together.
Every tabletop and mantel in the whole first floor of the funeral home was filled with vases of Casablanca lilies and Sonia roses. There were so many people you could hardly move. Girl took an emery board from one of the bowls and put it in her purse, like Ryan had wanted.
The day of the funeral they had to set up a wedding. When Girl got there, the bride was furious.
“I specifically requested regular eucalyptus, not seeded eucalyptus! This is the wrong green! And there was supposed to be silk eucalyptus in my sister’s bouquet because she’s allergic! I should never have let them hand my wedding over to Bob. Where is Ryan anyway?”
“Ryan is dead,” Girl said. “After I’m done here I’m going to his funeral.”
The bride’s face got all crazy-looking as the anger and shock fought for control over her features. Shock won.
“Oh, I didn’t know,” she said. Girl just walked away. She shouldn’t have done that. She shouldn’t have told the bride that Ryan died just five minutes before she walked down the aisle. Girl knew she had spoiled the woman’s wedding, but she couldn’t help it. She knew Ryan wouldn’t have approved.
Tony, Bob, Mike, and Girl drove together, racing to get to the funeral on time. They were always late. When they passed a hearse on the expressway, Tony laughed.
“Ryan always said he’d be late to his own funeral, and look—he is!” After that they slowed down and followed the hearse. The church wouldn’t start the service until the casket arrived.
The obituary said that Ryan died of lung cancer. He was thirty-eight. Two months later the shop closed. According to the Internet, his partner Mike died in 1997, though Girl never saw him again after the shop closed. The online entry says he never married, the twenty years he spent with Ryan unrecorded.
Girl couldn’t bear to work around flowers after Ryan died. Instead, she went to work for a veterinarian for less money—cleaning cages, assisting with surgeries, and mopping floors. When an animal was euthanized, Girl
