The Art of Arranging Flowers by Lynne Branard

Author:Lynne Branard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-06-03T05:00:00+00:00

•TWENTY-EIGHT•

WELL, can’t you just apologize?”

Will, Clementine, and I are sitting at his mother’s grave. We have already put some flowers at Daisy’s plot and after cleaning up Diane’s, we have put her arrangement in the vase by the headstone and now we’re just resting.

Will asked me what was wrong with Jimmy and Nora because he walked in right as they drove away. He told me that he had waved at them but that Nora was crying and Jimmy wouldn’t even look at him when they passed. When he asked me at the shop what had happened, I explained that I had said a horrible thing and I had hurt their feelings.

“I will apologize,” I answer him. “Just as soon as I talk to them again.” They weren’t answering their phones. I figure they either went to a meeting or were just refusing to take my calls.

“What was it that you said?”

I look at the boy and try to think of what to tell him, how to edit the grown-up version. “I told Nora to mind her own business and I said something bad about her and Jimmy. I didn’t think Jimmy was there, but he was, and he heard me.”

Will is sitting cross-legged facing his mother’s headstone. He has a stick and he’s drawing lines in the dirt. I am sitting beside him. Clementine leaves us and starts sniffing along the line of the trees that borders the cemetery.

“I said something about Mama’s boyfriend once. I thought he was gone and I yelled at her for dating such a loser. He was in the bathroom and when he came out, he hit me with his fist.”

“Yeah, well, I wish Jimmy had hit me,” I say, recalling the long, silent way he had looked at me, the hurt in his eyes as he turned and walked away.

“Not like this guy hit. He almost knocked my tooth out.”

“Ouch!” I reply, and rub the top of his head. “You’re right, I wouldn’t want to get hit.”

“Why did Nora make you mad?”

I didn’t really expect to be analyzing my recent argument with a ten-year-old.

“She thinks I need a boyfriend,” I answer.

“Do you?”

I smile. “I don’t think so,” I say.

“Mama always had a boyfriend,” Will tells me. “Some of them were okay, but some of them were not very nice.”

“Like the one who hit you in the mouth.”

“Yeah, he was the worst.”

Clementine makes a dash into the woods. She’s chasing something, but I know she’ll be back soon. She never strays too far away.

“I asked her once why she needed a boyfriend all the time,” Will says. “Especially because she would always tell me that we were a good team together, that we didn’t need anyone else.”

“What did she say?” I lean back on my elbows and watch the stars begin to appear.

“She said she gets lonely sometimes when I’m at school and that she thought I needed a man around.”

“Did you think you needed a man around?”

He shakes his head.

“Did your mom ever marry

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