The Language of Flowers

Pulling myself away, I walked down the stairs. The pot on the stove was almost empty. I filled it to the brim, returned it to the stove, and slipped silently out the door.

My hatchback skidded down the long dirt driveway, and I continued toward the highway without looking back. What had started as a dull, dislocated ache had become centralized in my left breast. When I touched the nipple, a pain shot through my flesh and down my spine. I started to sweat. The windows were down, and I turned on the air-conditioning as well, but still I was hot. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw the empty seat where the baby had been. There was nothing but a thin spray of dirt and a single hair-fine coil of bright green moss.

I turned on the radio and spun the dial until I found something loud and vibrating, too many cymbals and a voice without words. It reminded me of Natalya’s band. I drove faster, flying over the bridge and through intersections, neither red nor yellow lights slowing me down. I needed the blue room. I needed to lie down and close my eyes and sleep. I wouldn’t emerge for a week, if I emerged at all.

Screeching to a stop in front of the apartment, I came bumper to bumper with Natalya’s car. The trunk was open. Boxes and suitcases were stacked on the sidewalk. It was hard to tell if she was coming or going. I got out of the car quietly, hoping I could slip inside the blue room and lock all the locks without her noticing.

I tiptoed across the empty office space and nearly collided with Natalya at the bottom of the stairs. She did not step aside. I looked up and could tell by her expression that my face looked as hot as it felt.

“You all right?” Natalya asked. I nodded and tried to get by, but still she did not move. “Your face is pinker than my hair.”

She reached out, touching my forehead, and recoiled as if she’d been burned. I pushed past her but tripped and fell on the bottom step. I didn’t even try to stand but crawled on my hands and knees up the stairs. Natalya followed. Collapsing into the blue room, I pulled the door closed behind me.

Natalya tapped on the half-door. “I have to leave,” she said, her voice a whisper, full of fear. “Our tour has been extended—I’ll be gone for six months at least. I just came to get some things and tell you to use my bedroom if you want.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I really have to go,” she said again.

“So go already,” I managed to say.

Something loud hit the door, likely Natalya’s foot. “I don’t want to return in six months to the smell of your rotting corpse,” she said, kicking the door again. The next thing I heard was the sound of her shoes stomping down the stairs and a car door slamming. The engine of her car sputtered and started. Then she was gone.

Would she call her mother? I wondered. Would she realize the baby was gone, and report me to the authorities? If she was going to call someone, I hoped she decided on the police; I’d rather do time than face Mother Ruby and her disappointment.

I lay on my left side on the featherbed, the hard rubber ball of my breast supported by the mattress. My body, which did not feel like my own, shook uncontrollably. I was freezing. I put on every sweatshirt I owned and pulled up the brown blanket. When that didn’t warm me, I crawled underneath the featherbed. I stayed there, barely able to breathe, my body and mind an ice storm under a heavy cloud. My chill became something black and swirling, and I had the fleeting, comforting thought that the sleep I was entering was eternal, a state from which I might never return.

From far away, sirens whirled, growing louder, nearer, until they sounded as if they were coming from Natalya’s bedroom. Flashing lights soaked under my door. And then, just as suddenly, they stopped.

For just a moment the room was black and silent as death; then the door was pushed in and I heard the trampling of feet on the stairs.

16.

I lay in an ambulance, strapped to a white cloth board. I couldn’t remember how I got there. I was still in only my underwear, and someone had draped a hospital gown across my chest.

Beside me, Elizabeth sobbed.

“Are you her mother?” a voice asked. I opened one eye. A young man in a navy uniform sat near my head. Whirling lights shone through the window and flashed across his sweaty face.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said, still crying. “I mean no. Not yet.”

“She’s a ward of the court?” he asked.

Elizabeth nodded.

“You’ll need to report it, then, immediately. Or I will.” The man looked apologetic, and Elizabeth wept harder. He handed her a heavy black phone, connected to the side of the ambulance by a cord that spiraled like the one in Elizabeth’s kitchen. I closed my eyes again. We drove through the night for what felt like hours, and Elizabeth didn’t stop crying.