The Flowers

She bought him flowers. SHE bought HIM flowers.

She had to smile to herself, because it was so against the norm. Just in the simple act of picking out something along his favorite color (she picked out some Lily of the Niles fluffed up with Scorpion grasses.) In her mind’s eye, she could so see his face as she took the flowers to the grocery store clerk to pay for them, paying no attention to the cost. She thought that his face would at first seem confused. He would probably assume some admirer in her life had bought them for her, and he would wait for the story instead of growing jealous. And he’d still wear that look when she handed them to him, until she told him that she was at the store, and they reminded her of him, and she wanted him to have them. And he’d kiss her on the cheek, and she’d pout out her lower lip until he kissed her there as well.

He was the first one to buy her flowers. She couldn’t remember specifically what kind, but she did remember that he said they came too long, and so he cut them down, but misjudged, so that her first bouquet of flowers looked rather like children struggling to keep their heads above water in the vase on the center table. If she thought hard enough, she’d remember there was a couple daises, their petals resting on the rim. Her favorite flowers were Irises, which those were not, because they were her first flowers, and so they were her favorite ones, specifics be damned.

No other guy had bought her flowers before, and so when she got the bouquet, shorn too low for their own good, it still filled her with such joy and warmth that nothing could stop her from loving him more. He was handsome, and nice to strangers, and good with kids, and had beautiful, white teeth. (The good smile was important. The smile was always important to her.) He was a man’s man who could change a flat tire, and he was a perfect man for her as he cooked Italian like his heritage wasn’t English and discussed the nuances of dating as she watched The Bachelorette. He liked action movies, and hiking, and being barefoot, and sweating, and hated beets, and bees, and when she got too hormonal, and doctors.

He promised to love her the rest of his life. And he kept that promise.

So, a man like him deserved flowers. She bought him the blue bouquet.

And left them on that perfect, manicured lawn underneath the stone that said his name.