Page 60 of April Flowers

Lillian thought for a moment and rubbed her chest. “It must have been years and years ago.”

Margot wasn’t sure what to believe. Lillian didn’t have the best grasp of a timeline.

“Do you think he’ll visit me tomorrow? He’s got a good head for cards,” Lillian said. “And that’s a rare thing these days. Everyone is stuck in their cell phones!”

Margot laughed. “You’re right about that.”

Lillian sniffed. “You always had a pretty good head for cards, Margot.”

In Lillian’s world, this was a sensational compliment that she rarely gave out. Margot knew to hold it in her heart and always remember it.

Not fifteen minutes after Lillian fell asleep that night, Noah arrived. He carried a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, and a tiny bouquet. The bouquet was pathetic, made of grocery store flowers and baby’s breath. He apologized for it immediately.

“It’s beautiful,” Margot said, gushing with love for him.

“You don’t mean that.”

But Margot did. It was perhaps the worst bouquet she’d seen in years—far worse than anything the rival flower shop in Beacon Hill could put together—but it seemed to glow because it was from Noah. She hurried to put it in one of her mother’s vases and beckoned for Noah to come deeper into the house to make himself comfortable.

She bit her tongue to keep from saying,What’s mine is yours, you know that.

Don’t get carried away, Margot!

Noah poured two glasses of wine, and they sat on the sofa and smiled nervously at one another. Another gust of wintery wind blasted against the house.

“I feel like we’re teenagers, and I snuck you inside,” Margot breathed.

Noah touched her shoulder and wrapped his arm around her so that their noses were an inch away from each other. His breath was hot.

“I want to know everything that happened in your life since we last saw each other,” he breathed. “I want to understand who you are now.”

Margot’s heart felt heavy. She touched his chest and continued to breathe in his breath. It felt as though they were trying to morph into one person.

“I never should have left,” she said.

It was the first time she’d fully reckoned with this fact. But as soon as she said it, she knew it was true.

Noah’s eyes flickered. “I never should have let you go.”

“It’s strange how time passes,” Margot whispered. “One minute you’re fifteen and having your first kiss and saying things like I want to be an actress when I grow up. The next, you’re thirty-eight, and everyone around you has built a life you never understood you wanted.”

Margot remembered the Beacon Hill mothers and babies, the young couples who, under her watch, had gotten older, buying flowers for one another year after year. She remembered Andy Brennen, who’d sped into the flower shop on Valentine’s Day, out of his mind with fear because he’d forgotten to order flowers for his wife. She’d always assumed that other people were allowed beautiful things, long-lasting relationships, and joy. Not her. Never her.

“I was terrified when I learned that the teenager who’d broken in here was your niece,” Margot whispered. “But I shouldn’t have been.”

“I like to think she did it because she wanted to help me,” Noah said with a laugh. “But who am I kidding? She’s a curious teenager. She wants to make a mess of things just to see what will happen.”

Margot blinked. “Is this happening?” She meant her and Noah. She meant love.

Noah hesitated. “I want it to be happening.”

There wasn’t time for words after that.

Margot and Noah kissed in the dark shadows of the living room, listening as the wind howled outside and the wavescrashed on the beach. They kissed as the world turned, drawing them deeper into a better, more beautiful, and softer life.

There would be difficult days ahead. There would be losses. There would be pain. But they’d attack all of it together.

Chapter Twenty-One

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