The Language of Flowers

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The bouquet was white as a wedding and spoke of prayers, truth, and an unacquainted heart. No one would know.

It wasn’t as if the flowers themselves held within them the ability to bring an abstract definition into physical reality. Instead, it seemed that Earl, and then Bethany, walked home with a bouquet of flowers expecting change, and the very belief in the possibility instigated a transformation.

“Hazel.” Reconciliation. Grant pulled at a stubborn root of crabgrass, avoiding my eyes. “I thought, someday, she’d bring you back to me.”

“You cook this much for yourself?” I asked. “Sometimes,” he said. “When I can’t get you out of my head. But today I cooked it for you. When I saw you jump the fence, I turned on the oven.”