“I didn’t make that daffodil,” you said, nodding towards it. A couple of the petals had come off and the others were bent. I could feel the pump of blood around my body, the flush of heat up through my neck, to my cheeks.
“I stole it,” you continued. “When I wasn’t much older than some of you, my mother became very ill. She was rushed into hospital and my father telephoned and told me to come immediately because she wouldn’t last the day. I lived a long way from the hospital and so I left what I was doing—writing or reading, perhaps—and jumped in my car. I had a distance to go, hours of driving, and I went fast without stopping, thinking about my mother, who I was very close to, in her hospital bed. I arrived in the early evening, parked the car haphazardly, and ran in.
“My mother was an old-fashioned woman. She had rules of behaviour that had to be followed—an etiquette that we’ve almost forgotten now—and as I rushed into the building, even on her deathbed I knew my mother would want it done properly. I couldn’t turn up without a gift or some flowers, but the small hospital shop was closed.
“So I went into the first ward I came to: a children’s ward. No one questioned who I was or what I was doing there. I’d hoped to find a bunch of flowers or some chocolates that I could take, telling myself I’d replace them as soon as the shop opened, but of course no one brings flowers or boxes of chocolates to ill children. Just as I was thinking I would have to go to my mother without taking anything, I saw a homemade daffodil alone in a vase on a bedside table.” You nodded towards the flower. “The child in the bed was asleep and he had no visitors, so I took the flower and found my way to my mother’s room. We said our good-byes and she died a few minutes after I gave it to her.”
We were silent, watching you, watching the daffodil. One of the girls opposite me sniffed and wiped her eyes. And what did I think? Your story sounded so true, so heartfelt, that I nearly found myself believing it and questioning whether it was the same daffodil. It took me a long time to work out the truth from the fiction.
I don’t remember what secrets my fellow students offered up in that lesson—none of them have stuck with me. All that remains is the stunned silence when we picked up our bags and coats to leave. I gave you no secrets; I didn’t stick my arm in the mire during that class or any other. It was much later that I made up a story for you. That afternoon, when I told Louise about the lesson, she said, “That man’s an idiot; you should stay away from him.”
Gil, we miss you, please come home.
Yours,
Ingrid
P.S. Whatever happened to your bicycle?
Chapter 3
Richard’s Morris Minor was the only car on the last ferry. Before Flora set off, he had given complicated instructions about how much choke she needed to get “the old girl” started, how the clutch was a “little sticky,” and how Flora mustn’t put the car into first gear when it was rolling or she might break a tooth. Flora imagined one of her canines cracking and splitting up the middle. But the car, even if it wasn’t practical, was pretty and smelled of raspberry-coloured warm plastic.
The ferryman, wearing fluorescent-yellow oilskins, waved Flora on and told her they would be closing the service because of the bad weather.
“High winds, my love,” was what he actually said.
“But my sister is coming across tonight,” Flora shouted through the small gap she had wound in the car window, although now she couldn’t remember what Nan had said about when she was coming home, and Flora thought perhaps she should have gone to the hospital after all.