Page 30 of Forever Love at Fleur's Flower Shop

Bea’s eyes lit up. ‘Do you even need to ask? You know I have a soft spot for anything stationery related.’

‘A soft spot?’ Fleur laughed. ‘More like an obsession.’

Bea shrugged. ‘Fair enough, an obsession. Come on then, don’t keep me in suspense. Open it up.’

‘Right, here goes.’ Picking up a pair of scissors, Fleur sliced off the top of the envelope before holding it aloft and making a grand gesture of tipping the contents onto the table. ‘Ta da!’

‘Oh.’ Bea made a noise between a gasp and a whimper as the contents of the envelope settled against the tabletop.

Placing the now-empty envelope down, Fleur frowned as she looked at Bea. That wasn’t the reaction she’d been expecting from her. Bea usually loved any and all stationery, even it wasn’t particularly to her tastes. Looking down at the table, Fleur’s face dropped as the slow realisation that she’d got it wrong dawned on her. The envelope hadn’t been from her stationery company and what lay on the table weren’t samples from a new range of gift tags, cards or even tissue paper colours. No, they were envelopes. Sealed envelopes.

‘What are they?’ Bea picked one up, turning it over in her hand.

‘I have absolutely no idea.’ Picking up the envelope closest to her, Fleur peered at the address written on the front. It was in her grandma’s neat, cursive handwriting. Her hand flew to her mouth as she read the name and address. The address - one based in Kent - she didn’t recognise, but the names she did. ‘They’re addressed to my parents.’

‘Your parents?’ Bea held up an envelope towards Fleur, indicating the sealed flap. ‘But they’ve not been opened.’

‘No.’ Fleur shook her head. She was trying to make sense of it all. The letters must have been old, clearly sent by her grandma, who had passed away ten years ago now. But why had her grandma been sending letters to her parents? And why hadn’t they opened them? ‘I didn’t know she sent them letters.’

‘She must have sent them to the wrong address, which is why they’re all sealed.’ Bea turned over a few of the envelopes laying on the table, checking her theory. ‘Yep, every one of them is sealed. But why would the sorting office send them back after all this time? I always assumed people just shoved them back in the post box and they got returned to the sender straight away?’

‘I don’t know.’ Fleur turned an envelope over in her hands and frowned. ‘This one doesn’t have a return-to-sender address written on it. Do the others?’

Bea leaned back over the table and peered at the back of the envelopes. ‘No, none of them do.’

‘Then how did they get this address?’ Fleur shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t even make sense if my grandma had written an address on the back. They’ve come here, not to the cottage, and I hadn’t opened the shop when she was still alive.’

‘Umm, that’s really odd. Unless Jessie just knew you’d be here and not at home and assumed it was a parcel for the shop? What address does the big envelope they came in have on it?’

Picking the large brown envelope up, Fleur turned it over in her hands. None of this made any sense. ‘It has the shop’s address.’

‘Weird.’ Bea pointed to the floor. ‘Hey, something has just fallen out.’

Bending down, Fleur picked up a small scrap of paper. In fact, it looked more like something torn from a book or a leaflet than a piece of paper. She blinked as she deciphered the short, sharp note scrawled across it.

Found these in loft. Don’t need them. Shirley and Dave

‘Uh.’ A strangled gasp escaped her lips as she staggered back, throwing her hand behind her as she half-sank, half-fell against the wall, the envelope and tiny scrawled note fluttering to the floor next to her.

‘Fleur! What is it?’ Rushing to her side, Bea picked up the tiny scrap of paper and read it. ‘Who are Shirley and Dave?’

‘My parents.’ Fleur stared ahead. A fogginess filled her mind as she tried hard to work out what was happening. As the pieces of the puzzle joined together, she rasped out the words. ‘They never bothered to open my grandma’s letters and instead have just sent them here.’

‘Why?’ Bea sank to the floor next to her, her eyes fixed on the envelope still in her hand. ‘What do you think is inside?’

Fleur shrugged as she took the envelope from Bea and ripped it open. Holding it upside down, she watched three photographs flutter to her lap before pulling out the letter inside. Scanning it, she swallowed. ‘It’s an update about me. My grandma is telling them what I’ve been up to, how I was doing at school.’

Bea picked up one of the photographs. ‘This is you?’

Fleur nodded as she stared back at her young self. She was standing in the back garden, flourishing her arms towards a large terracotta flowerpot crammed full of blooms. She remembered that day, the exact moment her grandma had taken that picture. Her grandparents’ love for gardening had sparked her own passion for flowers and she’d felt so proud that the pot she’d lovingly filled with bulbs that spring had finally flowered, creating the beautiful display in the picture. Her grandma had told her to pose next to it, had told her it was definitely a moment they needed to preserve.

Fleur remembered she’d said Fleur had blinked so she had taken two. Fleur had always blinked when having her picture taken. Or that’s what she’d always been told. She closed her eyes. She hadn’t blinked at all, had she? That had just been an excuse so they could take another photo, one to send to her parents.

‘Why? Why would they do this? Why would they return them? And unopened at that?’ Bea twisted towards her, her face scarlet with emotion.

Fleur shrugged. The reason was simple. It was the exact same reason they’d dropped her off at her grandparents’ house, never to return. ‘Because they didn’t want me.’

‘Oh, Fleur.’ Bea held her arms out towards her.

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