flower shop.â
âA flower shop? I thought she was a graphic designer.â
âShe wasââhe feels his throat tighten with sadnessââbut she lost a baby. He died when she was six months pregnant.â He has to swallow before he can say his name. âRyan.â
âShe was going to call him Ryan?â Margaretâs eyes widen.
He has to look away. âI thought sheâd never recover, to be honest. But the shop has been great for her. All those people and all those flowers.â Lara always loved flowers. Was always at his elbow in the garden, soaking up the Latin names for plants like a thirsty plant herself. âItâs that little place on Camden Street, you canât miss it. Itâs painted bloody pink. Blossom & Grow.â
âThat rings a bell.â Margaret smiles down at the photograph for a long moment. âSheâs lovely,â she says.
Laraâs dark hair is as long as it was when she was a little girl, long enough to sit on. She still has the bony-shouldered gymnastâs body she had back then and the same watchful kindness in her dark eyes. Only her hands show her age, the skin dry and flaking from so much time in cold water, her fingers permanently nicked from thorns.
âWhat about him?â Margaret touches the glass over Philâs face with a fingertip.
âDonât talk to me about that fella. I put him through college. You know what he did with his degree? Pulled a bloody rickshaw. Heâs a motorbike courier now. With an IQ of a hundred and forty-five.â
âHe looks happy.â
Phil was born happy. A C-section. He was pulled out of his motherâs belly like a rabbit out of a hat. The first thing he did was pee all over the pompous obstetrician, and when the nurse handed him to his father to hold, he was smiling. Ted half expected him to wink.
âIs he married too?â Margaret asks.
âAre you joking?â Ted snorts. âHeâs had a string of girlfriends. It was like bloody Miss World at home till he moved out. A herd of leggy beauties trampling up and down the stairs, but he wonât settle. Heâs twenty-bloody-seven. I donât know what heâs waiting for.â
Margaret puts the photograph back and swings her legs up onto the bed. She moves the oxygen tube out of the way and tucks her head into the space between his chin and his shoulder. âDonât you?â she asks.
And suddenly, he does. This is what his son is waiting for, the feeling of fitting perfectly against another person, like the parts of a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.
He turns his face so he can press his lips against the crown of her head. â
Miluji tÄ
,â he whispers.
â
Miluji tÄ
too!â She rubs her nose against a patch of stubble on his Adamâs apple. âYou missed a bit. But I like the aftershave.â
âItâs for you.â
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
âWhatâs for me, Dad?â
He opens his mouth and pain slams into his chest like a juggernaut. He claws for the morphine pump, and by the time he can breathe again, he is too worn out to speak.
âLook.â Lara holds a bunch of small flowers close to his face. His cheek touches the damp velvet of something that smells of the garden and rain. Pansies. The name comes from a French verb. To something, he thinks, but to what?
Margaret used to press pansies. Heâd pick up a book, years aftersheâd gone, and the wafer of a dried flower would slip out and slice open the scar sheâd left like a scalpel. He feels for the pump again.
âDad?â He hears his daughterâs voice from a long way off. She sounds frightened.
âGone to sleep again,â his son says teasingly. âLazy bugger!â His voice softens. âBut you look like you havenât slept for a week. Come on. Let me buy you a hospital canteen-achino, a.k.a. the worldâs worst coffee. Weâll let him