Epilogue #2
The third has flowers I’ve seen before but can’t quite place, and then I can. They’re from the anniversary bouquet I made him the year Rowan was born. I’d taken pictures of it because I was so tired and so happy and I wanted to remember.
Each centerpiece has pieces of our history threaded through it. Flowers from old bouquets. Varieties from significant moments. Blooms from the Boston shop, the shop I built myself, the shop that was mine before it was ours.
“You kept all of these?” My voice is doing something strange.
“I kept everything.”
“That’s-” I press my fingers to my eyes. “That’s extremely sentimental of you.”
“I know. I’m disgusted with myself.”
“You should be.”
“I am.”
I lower my hands. Rhodes is blurry through the tears, but he’s smiling now, that soft smile he saves for moments when he’s genuinely happy and doesn’t care who knows it.
“I also kept this,” he says.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small glass bottle. Champagne bottle shape. And inside-
“Is that-”
“The ranunculus from the night we met.” He holds it up to the candlelight.
The flower is so dried it’s almost brown, the petals curled in on themselves, so brittle they might crumble.
“I never let it go. Not when you left. Not when I sold the house. It’s moved with me to every place I’ve lived since, in this bottle, with the date written on masking tape. ”
“You kept a single dried flower for seventeen years.”
“Apparently I was already in love with you. I just didn’t have the good sense to realize it.”
Rowan tugs on my sleeve. “Mama, did you bring Daddy’s present?”
I laugh, wiping my face. “I did, baby. It’s in my bag.”
I pull out the bouquet I made this morning, ranunculus, naturally, because I can’t help myself.
Coral and peach and cream, all those ruffled layers that look like they’re keeping secrets.
I’d wrapped the stems in ribbon that matches our bedroom curtains, because I’m nothing if not consistent in my sentimentality.
“Happy anniversary,” I say, handing it to Rhodes. “Of the night we met. Not either of our weddings. Just, the beginning.”
“Thank you.” He takes it carefully, like it’s fragile. Like I am. “It’s beautiful.”
“I know. I’m very good at my job.”
“Humble, too.”
“Extremely.”
Rowan is examining the centerpieces with the critical eye of someone who has grown up around flowers and knows quality when he sees it. “I think this one needs more green,” he announces, pointing to the listing arrangement.
“It needed more green four hours ago,” Rhodes says. “But someone kept adding ribbons.”
“Ribbons are important.”
“Ribbons are supporting elements at best.”
“That’s not what the video said.”
“The video was wrong.”
I watch them argue, my husband and my son, standing in the middle of the room where my life fell apart and then, slowly, put itself back together.
The centerpieces are objectively horrible.
The dried ranunculus is brown and fragile, and the bouquet in Rhodes’s hand is already starting to wilt in the warm air.
None of it is perfect.
I’m learning to be okay with that.
Later, after Rowan has been carried upstairs to one of The Sinclair’s suites, asleep before Rhodes even made it to the second floor, exhausted from the weight of keeping secrets, we stand alone in the ballroom.
The candles have burned down to pools of wax. The centerpieces are still horrible. Through the windows, the city lights are starting to blink on, and somewhere out there, Jamie is probably processing those peonies and giving my empty workstation that disappointed look.
“I should text Jamie,” I say.
“You should.” Rhodes doesn’t move.
“She’s going to be upset.”
“She’ll survive.”
“She takes peony prep very seriously.”
“I know.” His hand finds mine. “I’ve seen the spreadsheets.”
We’re quiet for a moment. The ballroom settles around us, all that history, all those ghosts.
The version of me who stood here seventeen years ago, making centerpieces for a stranger.
The version who stood here three years later, married to him, lonely in a way I didn’t have words for.
The version who stood here two years ago and heard him say I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
“Are you happy?” Rhodes asks.
It’s not a complicated question. He asks it sometimes, not constantly, not anxiously, just. Checking in. Making sure. The way you do when you’ve broken something precious and spent a long time learning how to hold it right.
“Yes,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I lean into him, my head against his shoulder. His arm comes around me, steady and warm. “Not because everything’s perfect. I still get mad when you work late. You still get annoyed when I rearrange your calendar without asking. We’re still, us.”
“Deeply flawed individuals with strong opinions about flower arrangements.”
“Exactly.” I smile against his sweater. “But I’m not waiting anymore. For you to notice me, or for things to get better, or for some version of our life that might show up eventually if I’m just patient enough.”
“I’m glad,” he says quietly. “I’m glad you’re not waiting.”
“I’m glad you’re not making me.”
The ballroom is quiet. Somewhere upstairs, Rowan is dreaming about rockets. In a day or two we’ll fly back to Boston, and before long Rhodes will be off to California again, and our life will keep being the imperfect, beautiful, ordinary thing it’s become.
But tonight, we’re here. In the room where it started.
I look at the centerpieces one more time, lopsided, overstuffed, wrapped in too many ribbons.
“They really are terrible,” I say.
“I know.” Rhodes presses a kiss to my hair. “But they’re ours.”
THE END