When our dinner conversation waned, I decided to talk about flowers.
“In London, daffodils were my favorite,” I told him. “Here in Los Angeles, I’m partial to roses, oh, and fuchsias. Did you know they’re the only native plant that flowers at the height of summer?” I smiled, my singsong voice sounding foreign in my ears, but at least I was trying. If Frank could take a step forward, I could, too. “They’ll be in bloom soon.”
“I wish I had a bouquet to give you now,” he said, cautiously reaching across the table for my hand. “My California rose.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if Frank showered his first wife with the same sort of compliments, at this very restaurant, even. The thought threatened to poison our evening, and so were the lingering memories in my heart—but I decided not to let them. Instead, I smiled back at him warmly.
“You look absolutely stunning tonight,” he continued. “Just as lovely as the day I first met you. Remember that?”
I squeezed his hand as I took a sip of the wine he’d ordered, a crisp Nebbiolo that immediately warmed my cheeks, or maybe it was just Frank’s gaze.
“You were standing in line at that bistro, and I bumped into you like an idiot.” He paused, smiling at me the way he used to all those years ago, the earnest American who wore his heart on his sleeve. Where had he been hiding all these years?
“And you spilled my tea,” I added.
He laughed, before his eyes filled with emotion. “It was…the best thing I ever did, and I mean that, Eloise.”
A burst of emotion bubbled up inside of me, too, and I blinked back tears. The California sun may have been warm, but until tonight, I’d mostly felt cold in Frank’s world. I wanted to believe that I could change, that we could change.
I felt tipsy as we left the restaurant and clutched Frank’s arm on the walk to the car. Out on the street, we passed a group of hippies, one of them strumming a guitar with a smoldering cigarette dangling from his lips. Frank tossed a few bills into his open guitar case.
He unlocked the car door and helped me inside, but I reached for his hand before he could step away. I pulled him closer, pressing my lips to his.
“Wow,” he said. “What was that for?”
“For nothing,” I said. “And everything.”
* * *
—
Frank unlocked the door and set his keys on the entryway table. The tick of the clock in the living room pierced the still air, lit only by moonlight streaming through the windows. Frank and I stood together at the base of the stairs. I knew he was about to tell me good night, to follow the well-worn path to his own bedroom and leave me to head to mine—alone—which was the routine we’d kept all these years after the miscarriage. At first it was a necessity—Frank had to get up early for work, and my sleep schedule was all turned around, so I stayed up late reading in bed. Books gave me comfort when I needed it most, but the light bothered him, so he took up in the guest bedroom. In the beginning it was an excuse, but it quickly morphed into the status quo.
I wondered if we had the strength to break down those walls, and when I searched Frank’s eyes, I found my answer, and a memory of my mother. She used to tell me the story of the night I came to be—the night she felt a shift in her heart. It began from a place deep inside her, she said, like an untapped well bubbling up from the depths of a parched, sand-swept desert. She knew the moment I was conceived. It was love, she said, but not for my father—love for the child she was meant to carry. Me.
As Frank kissed my cheek good night and turned to the stairs, I thought of my mother, her essence coursing through my veins as my husband’s eyes searched my face.
“Don’t go,” I whispered, letting my lips find his as he turned back to me.
I felt him hesitating and sensed his internal struggle. Losing one child was horrific, but Frank had lost two and his fear was palpable. But the sadness between us had festered for far too long; we were both on the verge of drowning in it. And I knew something he didn’t. I felt it.
When I kissed him again, he yielded to me, pressing his body against mine with a force I’d never felt from him before, a thirst that had to be quenched.
Upstairs, moonlight filtered into my bedroom window, illuminating Frank’s face as his body rose and fell against mine. I looked into his eyes, laser-focused on mine, and studied the way the muscles in his cheeks tensed and released, like a tug-of-war between pleasure and pain. “Tell me you love me,” he said, cupping my face in his hands.
“Darling, you know I do,” I said.
He shook his head. “But you…never say it.”
I realized, for the first time, that I’d underestimated the fragility of Frank’s heart. As much as he’d feared any more trauma and pain, he also doubted my love for him.
“Say the words,” he pleaded, his body hovering above mine. “Please. I…need to hear them.”
I parted my lips to speak, but nothing came out. My mouth felt as if it had been cast in cement. “I…”
Frank’s gaze was glued to mine, his heart hanging on every passing second.
“I…” I bit my lip, hating myself for my hesitation, for marrying a man I could never give all of my heart to. I might not have been able to force myself to love him in the way he wanted me to, but I could make myself say the words he deserved to hear. For Frank, I could pretend.
“I love you.”
His breath quickened as he kissed my neck, my collarbone, my breasts. I counted the stars twinkling outside the window, as the energy from Frank’s body surged through mine.
A moment later, he lay beside me, drifting off into the most peaceful sleep. He was unaware, of course, that the tiniest new life was forming inside of me. But I knew.
I was meant to be her mother.
The following week brought more of the same for the Book Garden. While the uptick in online orders was encouraging, it wasn’t nearly enough to pay the enormous tax bill. Instead of losing heart, we worked to get the front-end flower enterprise going, while also planning the details of the community fundraiser. We picked a date, and Jan offered to host the event at Café Flora, which was a godsend. My task this week is ticket sales. We’d need to bring in at least one hundred and fifty attendees to reach our funding goal, and even with that, the store’s future still looked grim. But Millie and I agreed that we wouldn’t close our doors without a proper fight, and both of us were prepared to enter the ring.
I’d get to the work of the fundraiser soon, but first, I show her my mother’s latest clue that I’d found in Regent’s Park. She nods, taking me to a nearby shelf, where I find two copies of Cicero’s work. Alas, neither contains another envelope.
“Now what?” I say, turning to Millie with a sigh.
“I don’t know. But don’t lose heart. You’ll find it.”