Chapter 35
ANTONELLA
Istop outside Mimosa with my hand on the door.
Through the glass, I can see the buckets along the left wall and the tall paper rolls behind the counter. Edith has put yellow flowers where the blue hydrangeas stood, their heads turned toward the light. Nearly everything else is the same, which makes it harder to push the door than I expected.
Vasily waits beside the car. A few feet behind me, Miron stands with his nose still slightly swollen. Neither tries to hurry me.
The handle is cool beneath my fingers. I could wait here until Edith notices me, let her come outside and make the choice smaller.
We could talk beside the car, where I can see everyone who approaches.
I look back once. Miron has stopped far enough away to give me room, but he’s watching the door too.
I don’t want another conversation about this place from somewhere else. I want to stand at the counter while Edith searches for the pen she’s just put down. I want to be annoyed by ribbon that won’t lie flat. Those things belong here as much as the memory of being taken out through the back.
When I press the handle, it gives easily. The sound of the door opening makes Edith look up, and I step inside before I can change my mind.
Edith puts down her pen. She comes around the counter slowly enough that I can reach her before she opens her arms. At first, I hold her carefully. Then I stop worrying about how tightly I’m doing it and let her hold me too.
“I’ve wanted to do that,” she says.
“Me too.”
Someone passes the window, making us both glance toward it. Edith lets out a breath that becomes an embarrassed laugh. I step back and look at the place where the glass fell. It’s been cleared away. A pale mark shows where a pot stood before she moved it to cover the damaged board.
“We can work out here,” she offers.
“I want to see the back.”
She leads me through the narrow passage without telling me there’s nothing to fear. Beside the worktable, I stop. The delivery door is open, and Miron is crossing the lane to check the gate. I can see sunlight on the paving where Jonah pulled me toward the car.
My right arm aches with a feeling that isn’t quite pain. I keep it against my side and look at the flowers Edith has put within reach. White roses sit in shallow buckets beside cream blooms and branches of leaves. The ribbon samples I sent home with her after her last visit lie on the table.
“These were your first choice,” she says. “You can change them.”
I lift a rose beneath my nose, touching cool petals to my upper lip. Its sweetness takes me back to the moment before Dad knocked. I liked these flowers then, before anything happened to make the workroom frightening.
“I still want them.”
Edith moves a bucket closer, then stops with both hands on the rim.
“I should have told Filipp. I knew why you wanted to speak to your father, but I knew why you hadn’t mentioned it at the front counter too. I didn’t ask because I was afraid of the answer.”
I keep the rose in my hand while she looks toward the delivery door. When she turns back, her eyes are wet.
“I was frightened of losing the shop. He’d helped keep the credit open, and I let that decide for me while pretending it was only a family conversation.”
I put down the flower before I bend its stem. “You didn’t bring the guns.”
“I still let him through without telling the men protecting you. I’m sorry.”
She leaves the apology there, without asking me to say she had no choice. I rest my hand over hers on the bucket. I’ve wanted to come back to this room with her. I don’t want fear to be the only thing we’re allowed to keep from it.
“I wish you’d told Filipp. I wish I’d told Evgeny. But Dad and Luca chose what they did. I’m not giving them your place in my life.”
Her fingers turn beneath mine. For a moment, she holds my hand as tightly as she did when I came through the door.
“I keep thinking about what I should have done,” she says. “I’ll be working, and suddenly I’m back here with you before it happened, as though thinking hard enough will let me do it differently.”
I know the temptation well enough that I have to look down at our hands before answering.
“I nearly stayed outside. I thought you could come out to the car, and I wouldn’t have to see any of this.” I look toward the worktable. “But I wanted to be here with you more.”
She nods without letting go of my hand. I’m still angry when I think of the meeting we kept quiet.
Being here doesn’t make that disappear. It does let me feel how badly I’ve missed her while she’s standing close enough to hold on to.
I squeeze her hand before letting go, giving us both a moment to turn back to the flowers.
Edith wipes her face with her wrist and leaves a smear of water that makes her look offended at herself. I find a clean cloth for her, and we laugh a little at how clumsy crying has made us. She uses it before showing me the delivery that arrived this morning.
“I chose this supplier myself,” she says. “The new credit has no Bellandi name attached. Look at the roses. They’ve arrived in better condition too.”
I watch her straighten as she speaks. She’s pleased with the flowers and the person she ordered them from, pleased enough to examine a stem instead of looking toward the door. I pick one up to help her.
We work for nearly an hour. My hands remember how to hold the stems without squeezing. Edith turns the little bouquet while I add leaves, then removes one I’ve pushed too high. Water cools my fingers. A thorn catches the cloth beneath us, and I free it without letting it reach my skin.
Edith lays out two ribbons beside the bouquet. One looks white against the table and cream when I lay it over the flowers. The other is a little darker, close to the color I remember comparing with Evgeny in the kitchen. I wind each loosely around the stems before choosing the first.
“That one,” I say. “It lets you see the flowers.”
She holds the bouquet while I tie it. The knot takes two attempts because I leave too much slack the first time.
Edith waits, keeping the stems level, and I adjust it myself.
I’d worried that she might handle me like something she was afraid to break.
Having her trust me with an untidy ribbon is a relief.
I don’t forget where I am. A van door slams, lifting my shoulders before I can stop them.
Edith keeps the bouquet turned toward me and waits until I’ve chosen another stem before asking about the trailing ribbon.
It’s too long. Cutting it feels satisfying, a small decision I can finish without wondering who will object.
When we’re done, I take the bouquet to the front window. Daylight reaches between the roses, showing separate flowers and green leaves instead of one heavy white ball. It rests lightly in my hand. I can imagine carrying it toward Evgeny without thinking first about how much it weighs.
Edith wraps the trial bunch for me. Before I leave, we eat biscuits at the counter, scattering crumbs over the paper. Mine tastes of butter and the sugar crystals pressed into its top. I reach for another, still hungry, and she gives me two.
At home, Filipp is reading on his phone with his arm supported. He looks up when I put the parcel on the breakfast table.
“More flowers?”
“Important flowers. These are for the wedding.”
“I’ll practice looking impressed.”
I lift the wrapping so he can see. His teasing expression softens as he moves the phone aside, making room for the bunch. While I’m finding a vase, Evgeny comes in with his sleeves rolled back and his jacket left elsewhere. He looks ready to belong to the afternoon.
He stops beside the table. “Have you decided?”
“I have. You’re looking at them.”
He bends to smell the roses, then nods. “I approve.”
“I’ll tell Edith she can stop worrying.”
Filipp makes a quiet sound over his phone, and I start laughing before Evgeny can object to either of us. For a moment, we’re all occupied with the flowers.
Then my phone vibrates. I see Dad’s Office before reading the message from his former assistant. My father would welcome a chance to explain whenever I’m ready. There’s no urgency in it, no demand I can point to as unreasonable.
It’s exactly the sort of message I used to keep to myself. My fingers grow cold around the phone while Evgeny turns the bouquet, putting the longer stems toward the back. I hold out the screen before I can decide there’s no reason to spoil the afternoon.
“This just came.”
He reads it. I wait for questions about why they still have my number or whether I’ve answered before. Instead, he gives the phone back.
“Do you want to reply?”
“No. I don’t want them asking again.”
“Then tell them that.”
I sit because the relief makes my legs feel loose. The message is still painful to look at, but it hasn’t become a secret I’ll carry until the next one arrives. Evgeny waits while I type my answer.
Please don’t send me any more messages on my father’s behalf.
I show him because I want him to see the choice, then send it. Filipp has returned to his reading. Evgeny settles the flowers in the vase, and the afternoon continues without anyone making me explain why Dad’s disappointment should matter more than what I’ve said.
I put the phone beside the wrapping paper. For a few seconds, I keep looking at it, expecting another message before I’ve finished breathing after this one. Nothing lights the screen.
Evgeny moves the vase so I can see the front. One stem has slipped below the others, and I reach past his hand to draw it up. He steadies the vase while I work. By the time I’ve found the right height, I’m looking at the flowers instead of the phone.
“I wish he’d been different,” I tell Evgeny. “I still wish that. But I don’t want to spend today waiting for a message that makes him different.”
He draws me against his side, and I stay there without reaching for the phone. There are flowers to finish arranging, and I’m happy to stay beside him a little longer.