Chapter 34
He peeled away the decayed bits of moss, separating the good roots from the “toxic, rotten fuckery,” as Jeannie termed it.
“How long have you been clean, Nicky?”
“Always the same question. Four thousand seven hundred forty-seven days.”
“Why’re you staying clean these days, Nicky?”
She hadn’t asked him this part since the first day they’d met. It was thirteen years ago to the day since he’d walked into this shop for the first time.
She handed him a jar for the orchid’s water culture.
Jeannie was still walking, but she was so small and thin these days. Courtney had told him that it had gotten bad, but he didn’t realize it could get this much worse in the couple of months since the last time he’d driven up.
“Why’re you staying clean?” The repetition had no rebuke.
“For myself and who I am right now.”
Jeannie made a hmm noise.
“For the folks I love and what I do and the people my work supports and their families too.” He held the orchid up to the light to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. “For my future self, whoever he is, and whoever he loves.”
Jeannie nodded.
He cleared his throat. “And for a scared, grieving twenty-year-old kid who met a wicked angel in a dumpster almost thirteen years ago who showed him he shouldn’t throw himself away. And her scary aunt.”
“Good boy, Nicky.” Jeannie patted him on the knee.
“You know what? I shouldn’t be using the word clean all this time.
Found out recently that it makes addicts think that they’re ‘dirty’ when the disease is hurting them.
That old man of mine is always trying to teach me something new.
Even now.” She shook her head and snorted, pausing to look up at the photos above the potting station before continuing her work. Jeannie’s hands were bone thin now.
Nothing had been added to the bulletin board for the last year or so at least. No new postcards sent while Felicity was traveling.
The last additions had been pictures of her at a nursing school graduation and one from her brother’s wedding.
Nothing new since. After a long time watching this bulletin board, the pattern alteration unnerved him.
“You have to tell her, Jeannie.”
Jeannie sank down on the stool beside his. “She’s having a real tough time right now. Dylan and his husband are worried about her. Rest of the family is too. She’s not letting anyone in after what happened. Moved back in with her parents.”
“You still won’t tell me what happened.”
Courtney had let something slip one time in a conversation between her and Thea, but none of the details. Just enough to give Nic something else to worry about beyond Jeannie’s abrupt frailty.
“Not my place, kid.”
His jaw tightened. “Even still. She deserves to know what’s going on with you. You always said you were going to tell her before you got to this point. Why haven’t you?”
“Why haven’t you flown out to Maryland and told her you still think about her? Why aren’t you giving yourself a second chance? You haven’t mentioned having anyone in your life for a while now.”
Nic stuck the orchid in its glass home and swept up his mess. He cleaned the tools and put them away. He took an envelope he knew she didn’t want out of his pocket and put it on the counter in front of her. “Guess I’m scared.”
A spindly hand covered with liver spots and garden shear scars grabbed on to his wrist. “Guess I am too.” She cocked a gray eyebrow at him. “Aren’t we a pair.”
“That we are.” A pop of purple caught his eye at the corner of the greenhouse. An orchid with distinctive coloring. “I’ve never seen one like that before. It’s beautiful but looks expensive. New client with fancy taste?”
“Just a little project that’s been keeping me busy while I can’t do much else except shuffle around in here. All that drainage work outside is supposed to be done tomorrow. We’ll see how it turned out.” She eyed the envelope. “You didn’t have to—”
“If you need more help here, maybe—”
She waved off his concern. “I’m glad you like that orchid though. Found a place that grows this particular variety special. More resilient than most of its kind. It’s probably my favorite of them all.”
“I thought white orchids were always your favorites.”
“Depends on who they’re for, I suppose.” She traced the elegant deep purple bloom with a paper-thin fingertip. Her hand clenched into a fist.
When she sat back down, she winced, losing her breath in a way that had her bracing a hand on her shrinking frame.
Nic hopped up to stand beside her. Ready to catch her. Ready to call for help.
“Stop being dramatic, Nicky.”
“If Mr. Greene’s not here, I could call Samantha’s dad to come over to check—”
“Dr. Powell is a busybody old veterinarian, and I don’t need to be checked on by no one.”
Nic rolled his eyes, secretly overjoyed to hear her usual saltiness, but any relief vanished as he watched how carefully she walked when she led him out to the front of the store. She had to stop several times on the way, getting winded. Seventy was too young for this.
“Guess it’s now or never.” Her attention passed over the garden beyond the window.
He followed her gaze but found nothing out of place. “What?”
“I thought you’d be more pigheaded than you were.”
Nic replayed the words several times but still couldn’t figure out what she meant.
“A dying woman always has a few sins to confess.”
“Jeannie, what—”
In her hand she held a torn and folded piece of notebook paper, yellowed and fragile. He opened it to find his own scrawled cursive.
His breathing sped up. “You never gave … but she left the tree. I thought—”
“I brought you the tree. Felt bad about how we ended it that day. Thought you needed something to grab on to. I thought it would help you find your way back to her someday, but it seems to have done the opposite.”
He crumpled the paper in his fist. “You never … how could you never tell me?”
“Guess I was scared then too. Scared she’d make the same mistakes as I did. Scared you’d end up turning out like the foolish man I fell for. But I didn’t have the measure of you back then.”
“Maybe your measure of me was right.” He couldn’t hide the bitterness in his voice.
Jeannie’s hand found his shoulder, her eyes clear as they locked in to his. “No, it wasn’t.”
His hand was on the door handle when she spoke again. “Whatever happens, can you check on her sometimes?”
Nic squeezed the metal handle. He couldn’t hold on to his anger when he heard her voice quiver like that. “Please tell her, Jeannie. Give her the chance to come say goodbye.”
“You get on home. Weatherman says there’s gonna be some storms tonight, and you got a long drive ahead of you. Don’t you dare make that drive all in one day starting out so late.”
Nic couldn’t help but cock his eyebrow with a grumble. “Aren’t we a pair.”
She huffed a laugh through her tight mouth. “You don’t have to forgive me for it, you know.”
“Tell her, Jeannie. Please.”
“Maybe tomorrow, Nicky. Maybe tomorrow.”