Chapter 10
ten
Flowers teach us that nothing is permanent: not their beauty, not even the fact that they will inevitably wilt, because they will still give new seeds. Remember this when you feel joy, pain, or sadness. Everything passes, grows old, dies, and is reborn.
—Paulo Coelho
TESSA
Tessa drove over to the field and went straight into the greenhouse to find Dawson. He was high up on a ladder, putting bulbs into a chandelier. He saw her coming and said, “If you’re looking for Liam, you just missed him. He’s on his way over to the shop to pick up fiddle-leaf fig trees.” He looked at her and climbed down the ladder, coming to her at once, his expression drawn with concern. “What’s happened?”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. She just dove into him with a sob, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight as she cried and cried and cried.
JAIME
Jaime was dusting off the leaves of some fiddle-leaf fig trees. Liam had just texted to ask how many trees the shop had because he wanted to use them in the reception. Fortunately, Rose had quite a few of them in supply because of a mistake in an order. There’d been a lot of similar mistakes Jaime had found since she’d arrived last summer. She had just assumed that Rose was overwhelmed and needed help because the store had more work than she could manage. Jaime hadn’t put all the pieces together until today. Rose’s frequent absence, her lack of interest in the shop’s day-to-day management, the way she handed off decisions to Jaime and Claire, Chris’s insistence not to trouble Rose with shop questions. And then there was the sight of Rose. Until this very morning, Jaime hadn’t realized how frail Rose was. How thin her once-strong hands had become, how cold they felt.
“That leaf is gettin’ its very life dusted out of it.”
Jaime stopped her frantic leaf polishing. She didn’t trust herself to look at Liam.
“Is somethin’ botherin’ y’, lass?”
One giant sob overtook her, and Liam put his hands on her shoulders, turned her around, and held her close against his chest.
CLAIRE
An hour later, as soon as Claire heard the roar of Chris’s Mustang come down Main Street, she rushed out of the shop to meet him. He had barely opened the car door when she said, “Why didn’t you tell me? How could you not have told me? I didn’t even see it coming. Not until she kept saying time is short. She said it over and over. Chris! How could you not have said anything?”
Slowly, he closed the door to the car and turned to her. “Because it wasn’t my place to tell.”
“She didn’t go to Mexico for a beach vacation, did she?”
He shook his head sadly. “Some kind of alternative last-chance cancer treatment ... that didn’t seem to deliver on its promise of a miracle.”
Last chance? “Chris ... is she ... is Rose dying?”
He’d been watching her, tenderness on his face. Claire’s knees started buckling. Chris didn’t say a word but reached out to embrace her, holding her tightly in his arms.