Chapter 14
fourteen
One day you will look back and see that all along, you were blooming.
—Morgan Harper Nichols
CLAIRE
Claire sat alone in the waiting room of the Highlands-Cashiers Hospital. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman were in the room with their daughter and son-in-law and their yet-to-be-named baby girl, who had been delivered by a Sunrise firefighter in the nick of time—right in the greenhouse. Claire drove the Zimmermans in the Volkswagen bus behind the ambulance. Tessa, Dawson, Jaime, and Liam remained at the site to take care of the guests and clean up. Claire still had the VW bus’s keys to give to Mr. Zimmerman and no way to get home. So she was stuck for now.
In the quiet, Claire had time to ponder. She had caught a glimpse of Tessa and Dawson locked in an embrace by the Airstream right before the bride started line dancing and her water broke. And she’d been aware of undercurrents between Jaime and Liam from the start. She felt left out. She didn’t belong. It was a familiar feeling, like a default.
Returning to Sunrise was a good decision, but it also stirred up so much longing for Chris’s attention. And he was a magician—always disappearing. Like tonight! He’d told Claire that he would come to the wedding to help out and yet he didn’t show up. Nor did he respond to her texts asking for his whereabouts. She felt as if he was always hiding something from her. They’d get a little closer on the weekends, and then whoosh ... he’d vanish again.
She inhaled a deep breath. She wasn’t going to let herself go down a well-worn rabbit trail that led to nowhere. These last few months had taught her a few things about herself. She wasn’t alone. Even if she felt she was, she wasn’t. And she owed that to Chris. He had reminded her that believing in God was one thing. Trusting in him was where all the good stuff came in. That was where the peace lay.
It was good to be here, to be back in the flower shop. It was good to be connected to Jaime and Tessa again. To be forgiven by Rose felt like she was a bird set free from a cage. Yes! That was it exactly. She felt set free from a cage—one of her own making. A cage of insecurities and neediness. A cage of expecting too much from others. Rose, Tessa, Jaime, MaryBeth, Chris. Especially Chris.
Growing tired, she curled up in a chair and closed her eyes.
Just as she started to drift off, a funny feeling came over her, so real that she opened her eyes with a shock. She could’ve sworn Rose was giving her a hug. But there was no one in the waiting room but Claire.