The Language of Flowers

Elizabeth rolled onto her side and draped her arm over my body. I stiffened but did not protest, waiting for her to continue. “A year later, Grant was born. For years I couldn’t look at him without remembering his father, without replaying in my mind everything I’d lost. But his father was gone; I don’t know if he ever knew Catherine was pregnant. She raised Grant completely alone.”

Elizabeth inched closer until her bent legs tucked into the space behind my kneecaps. When she spoke next, her face was pressed into the blanket covering the top of my head so that I had to strain to hear her words.

“I had a chance to forgive her,” she whispered. “Once, when Grant was still a baby, Catherine approached me at the farmers’ market. She apologized, crying, and told me how much she missed me. It was my chance to have her back in my life, but instead I turned her away. I shouldn’t have done it. I said awful things, things that keep me up at night.”

She deserved it, I thought. Catherine deserved everything Elizabeth had said and more. The idea that Elizabeth was about to move in to the home of the woman who had betrayed her made my chest fill with rage. I took a deep breath, willing myself to be patient.

For what seemed like hours, I waited for Elizabeth to speak, tense in her gentle grasp. But she was quiet, her story complete. Just as I began to worry that she had fallen asleep, she stood up and tiptoed out of the room. The faucet in the bathroom sink turned on and off, the toilet flushed, her bedroom door closed, and then all was quiet. I slipped out of bed.

Downstairs, I sneaked through the kitchen and out the back door. The canvas bag was underneath the steps where I had stashed it, full and heavy. I picked it up and hugged it to my chest. Inside, the glass jars clattered and resettled.

I had decided earlier, crouched in the ditch, exactly where I would go, and I walked quickly in the direction of the road. There was no moon, but the stars illuminated the property as I walked to the northeast corner. Here, wedged between the concrete of the farmers’ market and the highway, the grapes were dusty and constantly dry. In the fall, they remained sour long after the other acres had ripened.

I unscrewed the lid of the first jam jar. Lighter fluid seeped over the edges and spiraled through the ridges at the lip of the glass. Slowly, I emptied it onto the trunk of the vine, holding the jar away from my body, so the fluid wouldn’t run back to my bare toes. When the first jar was empty, I opened the second, moving down the row. The bag felt bottomless, and I began to move quickly, sloppily, the lighter fluid a wild spray from my hands to the vines. When I reached the end of the row, I retraced my steps, picking up the empty jars that littered the ground.

On the top porch step—in the same place Elizabeth and I had once sat, stringing chamomile—I lined up the jam jars, one after the other, and then went into the kitchen for matches.

I started back toward the road, looking for the wet trail. It ended by the driveway. I stepped back. Holding a fistful of matches together, I struck them on the wide, sandpapery strip of the box. One lit, and the others followed in a rush, until I held a flickering, glowing orb. The flame descended toward the tips of my fingers, and I waited until the heat grew uncomfortable, and then painful, before flicking it onto the ground.

There was a pause, and then a rushing noise—like a river, tumbling—followed by a quick series of loud pops. Then the heat. Turning, I ran toward the house, as I had planned, for a pot of water. But the fire was faster than I was. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the flames fleeing away from me, following an invisible trail through the brush and vines. I had expected the fire to be contained to the trunks of the vines I’d soaked, to flicker there until I ran inside for buckets of water, but the fire didn’t wait.

I leapt up the steps three at a time, racing into the kitchen. Replacing the matches, I screamed for Elizabeth. She rose immediately. I heard her thumping into my bedroom, calling my name.

“Downstairs!” I yelled. I was at the sink, filling a soup pot with water. The pipes of the old house clanked, and water emerged slowly, in breathy waves.

Clutching the full pot, I crossed the kitchen at the same moment Elizabeth descended the stairs, and we turned, shoulder to shoulder, our gaze drawn to the light.

The sky was purple. The stars were gone. As we watched, the fire dipped into the roadside ditch, a quarter-mile of dry thistle igniting in a single moment. The wall of flames that rose seemed to climb halfway to the sky. Beyond it, the surrounding properties disappeared, leaving Elizabeth and I completely alone.

Like electricity on wires, the fire spread in lines across the vineyard.

13.