Chapter Seventeen Nora
“What’s your favourite flower?”
I turn my head toward him. Sunlight rests warm on my cheek, the café’s side door propped open beside us.
It’s been months since the divorce.
Months since I stopped being someone’s wife.
Five years of that. Before it, a daughter—a girl learning to be small. I have worn names that were not mine, answered to titles given to me by people who never once asked what I wanted to be called.
Now I’m just… Nora.
That is my title.
I wake up some mornings and whisper my name to myself. Nora. Just to make sure I haven’t disappeared again. To feel the sound of it in my mouth. To remind myself that I exist outside of who I used to be.
I never learned to be just myself. For years I belonged to someone else. A person who existed because someone else needed her. Now when I introduce myself to the other students in my night classes, I give only my first name. No one asks for more.
The community college building is plain. Beige walls. Scuffed floors. Desks too small for a notebook and a textbook at the same time. Chairs that creak when you shift your weight.
I was homeschooled. My mother taught me everything she knew, but it wasn’t much.
She taught me to read. She taught me to add and subtract. She taught me to keep a house clean, to have dinner ready, to never raise my voice.
She never taught me how to be in a classroom.
I sit among people who already understand the rules. They take notes without thinking. They write fast. They raise their hands without hesitation. They ask questions and do not apologize for needing answers.
I don’t know how to write for hours. My hand cramps.
My fingers ache by the end of each lecture.
I stop and shake them out, flex them open and closed, press them flat against the desk.
The cool surface helps. Sometimes I lose the thread of a lecture.
Words drift past me before I can catch them.
I re-read the same paragraph three or four times before it sticks.
I sit in the back of the room, near the exit. I need to see everyone who comes in and goes out. Old habits.
But this is still good.
Hard. Slow. Embarrassing sometimes. Still good.
Because every day, I choose to return.
I am studying social work. One day, I want to help women who grew up the way I did. Women whose stories sound like my mother’s story.
I will not rescue anyone. I will not change anyone. But I will stand beside them while they find their own way forward.
Maeve stood beside me until I found mine.
I have another title now, too.
Friend.
Maeve insisted on that one.
Every weekend, we fill the hours together. Sometimes it’s board games sprawled across the living room floor, pieces scattered and rules argued over. Sometimes it’s grocery shopping that turns into laughter in the frozen aisle when Maeve pretends to sword-fight with a baguette.
She made me watch Barbie movies. All of them. In order. She said it was cultural education. She cried during the one about the island. I pretended not to notice.
I didn’t know friendship could be this full of sound. I didn’t know it could wrap around you with warmth and leave no fear behind. I didn’t know it could be this simple.
She’s not my only friend.
When the café closes for fifteen minutes every afternoon, I take my break outside. I like the others, but I need the silence.
Those fifteen minutes belong to me alone.
I stop planning. I stop preparing. I stop holding my breath for whatever comes next. I just sit.
In the beginning, I sat alone.
Then Kieran started joining me.
He didn’t warn me he was coming. One afternoon he walked out with his coffee, pulled his chair a few inches away from mine, and sat. He didn’t talk or glance my way. He just drank his coffee and stayed where he was.
He never pushed conversation. He never jumped to fill the silence. Some days we said nothing. The quiet didn’t feel strange or heavy. It felt shared.
Other times, we talked about how the espresso machine had been acting up again, how Maeve had accidentally locked herself in the supply closet twice in one week, or how that crack in the pavement near the dumpster kept getting wider.
One day he asked if I thought the stray cat preferred chicken or tuna, and we spent the whole break watching it ignore both.
He’s leaning back in his seat now, arms crossed loosely, looking at me for an answer. Waiting. His whole body says there is no rush.
The question waits between us.
What is your favourite flower?
I search my mind and come up empty.
I don’t know how to answer that question. I have spent my whole life learning other things. How to scrub stains from fabric until the fabric gives way. How to bandage a cut and hide a bruise and make a hot plate of food when there is nothing left in the cupboard.
But a favourite flower?
No one ever asked me that. I have never stood in a flower shop and chosen something for myself. I have never received flowers that weren’t an apology or an obligation. I have never looked at a bloom and thought that one. That one is mine.
“I don’t know,” I say finally.
I wait for his face to change.
For the flicker. The one Julian always had. The one that came right before he said, You should know this. That small twist of disappointment that told me I’d failed another ordinary test.
My chest pulls tight. My fingers press into my palms.
But Kieran only smiles.
No flicker. No twist. No disappointment.
The tightness in my chest eases. He didn’t correct me. He didn’t tell me I was wrong. He just asked a question, and when I didn’t know, he didn’t turn it into a failure.
My hands open. My palms ache where my nails pressed in.
He’s still smiling. Still here.
“Okay,” he offers. “Then we’ll find it.”
I pause. “Find… it?”
He nods, his expression easy. “Your favourite flower.”
I study his face, lost. “Why would you want to do that?”
He lifts one shoulder, his tone unhurried. “I like knowing things like that about my friends. Favourite movie. Favourite colour. Favourite food. All of it. Every last favourite.”
I swallow.
No one has ever wanted to know my favourite anything. Julian wanted to know if dinner was ready. My father wanted to know if I had finished my chores. My mother wanted to know if I was okay.
Kieran wants to know my favourite flower.
He doesn’t need this information. It won’t help him. It won’t make his life easier or his day better. He just wants to collect it, hold it, keep it somewhere.
“We’ll start with flowers,” he adds. “Find your favourite.”
“How?” I ask.
His smile turns crooked, his eyes holding mine. “You’ll see.”
The next day, during break, he’s already there when I step outside. His hands are resting on his knees, and between his fingers, a single stem with a small, bright bloom. He holds it out to me as I sit down.
“This one’s a daisy,” he says. “They symbolize innocence, purity… new beginnings.”
I take it carefully, my fingers gentle around the stem.
It’s cool and firm between my palm and fingertips.
The petals feel impossibly soft, so soft I want to be tender with them.
I turn it over in my hand, watching the light catch the white petals, the yellow center, the thin green veins running up the stem.
“It’s beautiful,” I say honestly.
He watches my face, not the flower. “Is it the one?”
I study the flower again, hoping for something deeper than just thinking it’s pretty. A tug in my chest. A whisper that says this one. But there’s nothing. Only a soft, distant appreciation. The flower is lovely. Its meaning touches something in me. But it doesn’t feel like mine.
I shake my head.
He nods, accepting the answer without hesitation. “Okay.” He smiles. “That’s one down.”
The next day, it’s a sweet pea.
The stem is slender, almost delicate, with small, ruffled blossoms in soft pink and white. They look like tiny butterflies, like something that might lift off the stem and float away if I am not careful.
“For gratitude,” he explains. “A quiet thank you. And for departure. For saying goodbye without looking back.”
I think of the house I left behind. The ring I set on the desk. The note I wrote. The sweet pea is for all of that. For walking out and never looking back. For the courage it took to leave.
It’s meaningful. But it’s not mine.
“No,” I say.
He nods. “That’s two.”
The next, a violet.
A tiny, deep-purple bloom. “For loyalty,” he shares. “For a life lived quietly, but with roots that run deep.”
One morning, a forget-me-not.
A cluster of tiny blue stars. “For remembrance,” he says softly. “For being truly seen and chosen not to be forgotten.”
Another day, lavender.
A stem of soft, fragrant purple. “For calm,” he whispers, his voice gentle. “For peace after a long storm.”
Every day, the same question after I’ve held it, studied it, learned its name and its meaning.
“And?”
And every day, my answer is soft, honest, and mine to give.
“No.”
Some of those meanings fit. A few landed so close to home they made my chest ache. But none of those flowers felt like mine.
After a while, I start to wonder if maybe I’m just not someone who gets to have a favourite.
Maybe favourites are for people who grew up choosing things. Who learned to want instead of just make do.
Every day, I wait for Kieran to tire of me. For the sigh. For the patient smile that never reaches his eyes. For the unspoken message—you’re difficult—hovering just beneath his politeness.
It never happens.
He just smiles—real, bright, starting in his eyes—and brings another flower the next day.
My room has become a garden.
It’s almost accidental when it happens.
I’m taking the trash out through the side entrance, the bag heavy in my hand, the plastic cutting into my palm. I dump it in the bin, wipe my hands on my apron, and turn to go back inside.
That’s when I notice a man near the corner.
I don’t recognize him. He must be new. He has a wooden crate of loose flowers, nothing fancy, no arrangements or wrapping.
Just stems laid side-by-side, like a wild, colourful offering.
The flowers are not perfect. Some are slightly wilted.
Some have petals missing. They look like they were picked from a field, not grown in a greenhouse.
And then I see it.
Bright yellow. Unmistakable, even from a distance.
I stop walking.
My eyes fix on it before my mind catches up. I step closer before I’ve even decided to move.
The man looks up. He is older, his face weathered, his hands stained with soil. He doesn’t ask if I need help. He doesn’t try to sell me anything. He just watches, patient, while I reach for the flower.
It’s imperfect. A little wild.
The stem bends slightly when I touch it.
A fist closes in my chest.
“How much?” I ask, my voice soft.
He names a price so small it feels symbolic.
I hand him the money before I can second-guess myself.
“What flower is this?” I ask.
He smiles, the lines around his eyes deepening. “Dandelion.”
I’ve seen dandelions my whole life. Scattered through meadows. Crowding the edges of highways. Shouldering up through broken concrete. I never thought anyone bought them. They’re the flowers people dig out of their lawns and toss in the trash.
But here it is. In my hand. Chosen.
I walk back toward the café slowly, the stem warm between my fingers. I turn the corner and almost walk into Kieran.
He stops short. Blinks.
He was probably coming to find me. The trash should have taken two minutes, and I have been gone much longer.
His eyes drop to my hand, then back to my face.
“This,” I say, before I can overthink it, before the moment slips away, “is my favourite flower.”
Kieran’s face softens when he sees the flower in my hand. “Dandelion.” A soft laugh escapes him. “Of course.”
“You know what it means?”
He nods, the corners of his mouth lifting. “Dandelions have many meanings,” he says. “In the language of flowers, they represent the sun, power, and the fulfillment of wishes. Some traditions say that if you blow the seeds into the wind, your deepest wish will come true.”
He pauses, his eyes still on the flower in my hand. “But there’s another meaning, too. Persistence,” he says. “Resilience. Growing wherever you land. Making a home out of cracks in the pavement.”
He stops there, holding my gaze. When he speaks again, his words come softer. “Refusing to die just because the ground isn’t kind.”
My throat tightens.
“It suits you,” he adds quietly.
I look down at the flower again. I run my thumb gently over the cluster of petals, feeling their soft, stubborn texture. Then I hold it out to him.
His eyes widen. “You’re… giving it to me?”
I meet his eyes. “You’re the reason I found it.”
He takes it carefully, his fingers brushing mine, holding it like a fragile treasure, a thing worth protecting.
I step past him, the corners of my mouth lifting in a smile I don’t try to hide.
I pick up the mop.
And I get back to work. But the smile doesn’t leave my face. It stays there, small and stubborn, like a dandelion growing in a crack in the pavement.
Refusing to die just because the ground isn’t kind.