The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh Read Free Book Online

it.
    “Elizabeth!” I screamed, growing frustrated. The house was quiet.
    The darkness was becoming thick, heavy. The vineyard seemed to stretch in all directions, an inescapable sea, and all at once I was terrified. With both hands I reached for the trunk of a dense bush, thorns piercing my soft palms as I pulled as hard as I could. The plant uprooted. I continued, pulling up everything I could grab, until the earth was bare. In the overturned soil the spoon lay alone, reflecting moonlight.
    Wiping my bloody hands on my pants, I grabbed the spoon and ran toward the house, tripping and falling and picking myself up without ever letting go of my prize. I bounded up the steps, pounding the heavy metal spoon against the wooden door relentlessly. The lock turned, and Elizabeth stood before me.
    For just a moment we looked at each other in silence—two pairs of wide, unblinking eyes—then I launched the spoon into the house with as much strength as I could gather in my thin arm. I aimed for the window over the kitchen sink. The spoon flew just inches past Elizabeth’s ear, arched high toward the ceiling, and bounced off the window before clattering into the porcelain sink. One of the small blue bottles teetered on the edge of the windowsill before it fell and shattered.
    “There’s your spoon,” I said.
    Elizabeth took a barely controlled breath before lunging at me. Her fingers dug into my lower rib cage, and she transported me to the kitchen sink, all but throwing me inside. My hip bones pressed againstthe tile countertop, and my face hovered so close to the shattered glass that for a moment the whole world was blue.
    “That,” Elizabeth said, lowering my face even closer to the glass, “belonged to my mother.” She held me completely still, but I could feel the anger filling her fingertips, threatening my descent into the glass.
    With a jerk she pulled me out of the sink and set me down, letting go before my feet touched the ground. I fell backward. She stood above me, and I waited for her hand to fall on my face. All it would take was one slap. Meredith would return before the mark could fade, and this final experiment would be over. I would be declared unadoptable, and Meredith would stop trying to find me a family; I was ready—past ready.
    But Elizabeth dropped her hand and stood up straight. She took a step away from me.
    “My mother,” she said, “would not have liked you.” She nudged me with her toe until I stood up. “Now get yourself upstairs and into bed.”
    So
, I thought, disappointed,
this is not the end
. My body filled with a palpable dread, heavy and overwhelming. It
would
end. I did not believe there to be even the slightest possibility that my placement at Elizabeth’s would be anything but short, and I wanted to have it over right then, before spending a single night in her home. I took a step toward her with my chin pushed forward in defiance, hoping my proximity would push her over the edge.
    But the moment had passed. Elizabeth looked over my head, her breathing even.
    With heavy steps I turned away. Pulling a slice of ham off the table, I climbed the stairs. The door to my room was open. I leaned for a moment in the empty frame, taking in all that would be temporarily mine: the dark wood furniture, the circular pink rag rug, and the desk lamp with a pearly stained-glass shade. Everything looked new: the puffy white eyelet comforter and matching curtains, the clothes hung in neat rows in the closet and folded into stacks in each dresser drawer. Crawling into bed, I nibbled the ham, salty and metallic-tasting from where my bleeding hands gripped. Between bites I paused to listen.
    I had lived in thirty-two homes that I could remember, and the one thing they all had in common was noise: buses, brakes, the rumbling ofa freight train passing. Inside: the warring of multiple televisions, the beeping of microwaves and bottle warmers, the doorbell ringing, a curse uttered, the snap of