Red Shoes in the Hallway
“How are you holding up, Ann?” Sarahs voice crackled through the line, muffled by the rustle of a bag, as though she was speaking mid-bite. “You havent texted in ages.”
“Im all right,” Ann pressed the phone to her ear, turning to the window. Raindrops smudged the landscape beyond the train carriagea blur of sodden English fields, grey and flat under the autumn rain. “Im on my way.”
“Back early?”
“Yes. Early.”
Sarah paused, just a beat.
“Does Simon know?”
“No.”
A longer silence.
“Ann, call him. Give him a heads-up.”
“Sarah, Im coming home. My own house. What do I owe him a warning for?”
Her friend went quiet again. Ann could picture her clear as day, as if she were beside her: back straight, lips pressed, staring on as if she always knew more than she let on. But Sarah didnt really know. She just sensed things before the rest of them did.
“Right,” Sarah sighed. “Let me know when youre in.”
“I will.”
Ann tucked her phone into her battered navy coat, its collar worn nearly thin after three years wear. Shed barely noticed these details before. Now she noticed everything.
Six weeksforty-six daysshed spent in the village of Ashwood, in a house redolent of antiseptics and cat hair, where Mrs. Dorothy Clark always asked for water precisely as Ann sat down to lunch. The mornings meant coaxing warmth out of stubborn radiators because “the boilers on the blink, my sonll fix it,” though Ben never came. Not once. Forty-six daysnever showed.
Ann was carrying a cake home. Shed picked it up at the station in the city where she changed trains. Honey cake, laced with nuts, packed in a neat white box and tied with a gold ribbon. Simon loved honey cake. She remembered this at the counter, bought it without thinkingher hand pulled by habit, even as her head ran on empty.
She leaned her forehead to the icy pane, watching the scenery shift to Londons scattered outskirts, low-rent garages, weathered fence panels, then broader streets, lighter facades creeping into view.
Home.
Once, that word had been warm. Now it was hollow.
She thought about Ashwoodnot really thinking but feeling it, like an ache that lingers long after the strain is over. The body remembers, even after the mind has tried to forget.
Dorothy wasnt cruel. That mattereda reminder to herself. Not cruel: just a woman for whom order was law, one that divided the world into ours and theirs. Her sonone of us. Annthe daughter-in-law. Never the daughter. Never would be.
Ann tried at first. Cooked from the fading recipe book shed found behind tea caddies, fussed over pillows, sat through Dorothys endless village narratives until her eyes burned.
“Youve over-salted the soup,” Dorothy remarked, always averted. “Simon hates salt.”
“Ill fix it,” Ann replied.
“Please do. And the window last nightnext time, make sure its shut. I froze all night.”
“Yes, Mrs. Clark.”
“Dots finemakes it easier,” Dorothy sighed, then shrugged. “But do as you like.”
By the third week, the words blurred into a background drone, like rain on old slates or floorboards groaning. Ann moved through each day on autopilot: lighting the fire, breakfast, arranging pills, tidying up, lunch, a short amble with Dorothy to the gate and back, dinner, then the television, always blaring too loud.
That medicinal scentValerian and paracetamolsoaked into every curtain, every throw, and every item of Anns clothing. The droplets Dorothy swallowed twice a day, with the solemnity of a parishioner, would haunt Anns senses for months.
Simon called rarely. Once every five days, less sometimes.
“Hows Mum?”
“Better. She walks to the kitchen herself now.”
“Brilliant. Youre a star, Ann.”
“When are you coming up?”
“Soon. Still up to my neck in work.”
“My leave ends in two weeks.”
“Ill sort an extension. Dont worry.”
And so he sorted it. Ann learned that from HR: a sterile email delivered quietly, telling her Simon had requested unpaid leaveanother three weeks. She read the message twice, then closed the laptop and went out to chop firewood, needing her hands to remember their purpose.
It wasnt anger. She couldnt have named it anger then. It was something frozen and flat, like black ice: you know its there, walk cautiously, but still you walk.
On the forty-sixth day, she rose before dawn, packed her belongings, rang a taxi to the station. Dorothy was still asleep. Ann left a note on the kitchen table: “All meals in the fridge. Pills for Wednesday and Thursday are in the blue box. Get well soon.”
She didnt write “Take care,” or “Forgive me.” Just facts.
In the cab, fields emerged under sunrise, stark and unfamiliar, her body finally loosening after weeks of being braced. Shoulders dropped. Each breath came easier. She thought: Ill reach home, have a shower, wear my clothes, sleep in my bed, and somehow all will be as it once was.
The cake in its box sat on her lap; Ann smoothed the rumpled ribbon with a fingertip.
When the train finally pulled in, she gathered her things and stepped onto the platform.
The lift took her to the eighth floor in her old block of flats. She reached into her bag for her familiar keys, slotting them into the lock as if nothing had changed.
But the front door was ajarnot all the way, but not how shed left it.
The first thing she noticed: shoes. Womens, cherry-red, high-heeled, slim gold buckles. Delicate, size four, maybe five, lined up by the skirting board, toes pointed towards the door.
Ann stood in the hall, heart hammering. She heard water running in the kitchen, then footsteps.
She appeared in the kitchen doorway: a young woman, not much over thirty, in a deep-blue towelling robeAnns robe. The one shed picked out last year, navy blue, with little daisies embroidered on the pocket. Ann could remember agonising over the shade in John Lewis, hunting through three different departments.
The woman noticed her and stopped. For a heartbeat, they just stared.
“Sorry, who are you?” the woman asked, calm, almost bemusedas if the sight of Ann was odd, but not alarming.
“I live here,” Ann replied evenly, even surprising herself.
The kitchen table was set: a half-drunk bottle of red, two glasses, a plate with slices of ham.
“Emily!” came Simons voice from the bedroom. “Whos that?”
Male, familiar. Simon.
Ann placed the cake on the hall table, aligning the corners. Then she walked down the corridor, opening the door to the bedroom.
Simon sat on the bedtrackies, vest, phone in hand, sleep-blurred. He looked up and stared for several seconds, as if seeing a ghost.
“Ann?” He finally managed. “You I thought you were gone another three weeks”
“I left early.”
He stood, rubbing at his hair.
“Wait, let me explain.”
“Go on.”
He stuttered into convoluted explanations. Ann listened, back to the wall, watching him pick his words, notice every pause, every hedged phrasedetails shed never really seen before. Maybe she always had, and had just refused to see.
Six months. It had been going on for six months. Emily worked for his companyshe brought in lucrative contracts; business had spilled into something else. Dorothy Clark knew. She deemed it “the sensible option””a man needs support,” “connections mean everything.”
“Mum always said you were strong,” Simon offered, staring at the carpet. “That youd cope.”
“Cope with what, exactly?”
He didnt answer.
Emilys footsteps echoed in the corridor; the click of the bathroom door.
“The flats in my name,” Simons tone shifted, becoming brisk, flat. “You know that.”
“I do.”
“Ann, I never meant for”
“Simon,” she cut him off, quiet, firm. “Just tell me. What happens now?”
He was quiet for a few seconds.
“Your things are there. In the bags. Ive packed them.”
Ann looked down the hall. Three massive holdalls, the tartan kind from the market, garish and bulging. Her winter coat poked from one; another bulged with the shape of hardback books.
She stared at those holdalls, then at the honey cake placed on the side. Simons favourite.
“All right,” she said.
She hefted two bags. The third didnt fit and she set it down again.
“Ill come back for the last one later.”
“Ann” he began, something else on his lips.
“No need.”
She left, the lift taking her down and out, into a light oily drizzle. Ann stood outside her block, not knowing where to go.
The bags hunched at her side, gaudy and cheap, matching nothing.
She fished out her mobile and rang Sarah.
“Ann?” Sarah answered at once, as if shed been waiting.
“Sarah, are you home?”
“Yeah. Why? Whats happened?”
“Do you mind if I stop by?”
A tiny pause.
“Come round.”
Sarah lived across the city, in a small two-bed in Peckham. When Ann arrived, Sarah answered almost straight away, eyes skipping from bags to Anns sodden coat to her face.
“Come in,” she said. “Ill stick the kettle on.”
She didnt ask questions at first. Just fetched a towel, poured tea, set out a packet of biscuits. Ann sat at the wobbly kitchen table, two hands cupping her mug, hands faintly shakingbut not from the cold.
Then Sarah sat opposite.
“Tell me.”
So Ann did. Calm and precise, no embellishments. Sarah listened, silent. Only once, at the mention of the holdalls, did she snort under her breath.
“Dorothy knew,” Ann repeated quietly. “She sent me up there on purpose. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“I have to say something,” Sarah spoke slowly. “Dont get cross, please.”
“Go ahead.”
“I saw something in Simon, even at your wedding. He always looked at you like you were convenient. Not loved. Convenient.”
Ann didnt answer.
“I never said, because well, you seemed happy. Least, thats what I thought.”
“Dont know if I was happy,” Ann admitted. “If Im honest, I dont know. I just got on, did the right things. Worked, saw his mum, cooked his dinners.”
“Thats called habit, not happiness.”
Ann said nothing. She picked up another biscuit, holding it without eating.
“Youll stay with me,” Sarah declared firmly, no room for doubt. “As long as you need. Ill pull the camp bed out.”
“I dont want to put you out, Sarah”
“Youre my mate of twenty years. Shut up.”
Ann nodded, closing her eyes. Outside, the rain drummed soft on the third floor. It sounded gentler here than it ever had on the top floor of her old place.
She didnt sleep that night, lying on the camp bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling. Sarahs steady, familiar snore from the bedroom was oddly comfortinga warm reminder of humanity close by.
Ann wasnt thinking of Simon. She thought of those polished red shoes in the hallway. The way theyd been lined up, toes out. The familiar blue dressing gown with daisies, worn by someone else. The cake, left behind, sitting on a sideboarda cake for someone who was long gone, but shed refused to see it.
She rose at seven, unable to lie still any longer. Popped the kettle on, searched for coffee. Sarah shuffled in at eight, dressing gown crumpled, hair an untidy mass.
“Sleep?” she asked, eyeing Ann.
“Not really.”
“Fancy breakfast?”
“Not hungry.”
“You need to eat.” Sarah opened the fridge, decisive. “Eggs, yoghurt? Toast?”
“Sarah.”
“Yes?”
“I need a job.”
Sarah shut the fridge, studied her friends face.
“Arent you still payroll at Sinclairs?”
“They put me on unpaid leave. Simon sorted it. I need to find out exactly whats what. Even then Im not sure I can go back. Its all his lot. He got me in there.”
“Right.” Sarah resumed her fridge hunt, hauling eggs onto the counter. “Eat first. Well think after.”
The first fortnight was the hardest, not because anything new happened, but because nothing did. Ann woke, drank coffee, rang HR, filled in forms. Slept poorly, barely ate. Sarah watched over her gentlyleaving soup on the stove, reminding her that there was food.
Evenings they spent at the kitchen table, Sarah gabbling about her job, stroppy neighbours, new baking experiments. Ann listened and realised that life around her had kept moving. People squabbled over parking, made pasta, discussed telly. The world hadnt stoppedjust she had, inside.
Simon messaged, once, a week on. “Lets sort the divorce amicably. Ill arrange compensation.” Ann didnt reply. Sarah found her a solicitor.
The solicitor was brisk: an older woman with cropped hair, scanning documents with quick eyes.
“The flat,” she confirmed, “is his. But assets?”
“Car. A share in a cottage in Kent.”
“Well sort it.”
Ann left her office feeling for the first time as if shed done something. Small, but something. She walked blocks in the cold, unable to face the tube. The autumn air was sharp, with wet leaves pasted to the pavements.
She wandered into a side street by accidentlined with shops: a chemist, a dry cleaner, and in the middle, a tiny florists.
“Azalea.”
She hadnt intended to stop, but she paused at the window. The bouquets werent showy, but full of intent. Little bunches: chrysanthemums tangled with sprigs of lavender, asters, clusters of unknown yellow wildflowers.
She stepped inside.
It smelt of earth, faint sweetness, not cloying. Buckets lined the walls, vases crammed with stems. A trim, sixty-ish lady in a green apron stood behind the counter, trimming leaves.
“Need a hand?” she called.
“Im just looking,” Ann replied.
“Take your time,” the woman returned to her work, sure movements.
Ann traced the shelves, fingers brushing petals until one stem tipped sidewaysshe straightened it on instinct.
“Know your way round flowers?” the woman remarked without looking up.
“Nonot really I just like them.”
“Youve got the knack. Good hands,” she said, meeting Anns eyes. “Most people just knock things over, or dont notice.”
Ann looked at her fingersnothing special, a bit chapped from cold.
“Ill take these,” she indicated the lavender and chrysanthemums. “How much?”
“Four pounds twenty,” she replied. “You local?”
“Round the corner. Just passing.”
“Maybe youll pass by again.”
She wrapped the bouquet in brown paper, tying it neatly.
“Margaret Reeves,” she introduced herself.
“Ann.”
“Come by any time. No need to buy.”
Back on the pavement, Ann held the bouquet to her nose. The scent was autumn, dry, with a bittersweet kick from the lavender.
For the first time in weeks, the tightness inside eased a little.
She returned to Azalea three days on”just passing.” Margaret was sorting deliveries.
“Ah, Ann,” she said. “Help me if youve got a tick.”
Ann stayed. She doffed her coat, rolled up her sleeves, and began snipping stems under Margarets direction: “cut on the angleyes, like that,” and, “not that one, its limpset it aside, please.”
Later, tea in the back room.
“So, what do you do?” Margaret asked.
“Accountant. Not at the moment.”
“For now?”
She nodded.
“My assistant left to get married and move north last month. I can offer a few hours workpays modest, Ill be honest.”
“How modest?”
Margaret named a figureabout half what Ann earned before.
“Ill think about it.”
“Dont expect bookkeeping,” Margaret chuckled gently. “This is different. Its cold work, hands get chapped, clients can be odd. But if you like it, youll stay.”
Ann went home and told Sarah.
“Seriously?” Sarah blinked.
“She offered.”
“Ann, youve got two decades behind a desk. You could get another job in days.”
“I know.”
“And youd rather do stems and leaves?”
“I dont know what I want. But there, I could breathe.”
Sarah studied her.
“You look more like yourself now,” she said quietly. “Just now, talking about it.”
Ann started at Azalea the next week. She kept applying elsewhere, sent out CVs. There were a couple of decent interviews, one offer; she bought time to think.
But every morning she went to the little shop, shrugged off her coat, donned an apron, and worked. Unpacking crates, learning names, Margaret coaching in concise instructions: when to strip leaves, how long each flower would last, why cut here and not there.
Ann listened, learned. If she forgot, she asked again; Margaret never snappedjust repeated, calm.
The work was nothing like shed imagined. Floristry wasnt all smiles and bouquets. It was physical: heavy buckets, freezing water, grit under nails, leaves that clogged drains if not binned, thorns that scored her hands. Customers came in asking for “something prettythough I cant say what,” or “a bouquet for someone Im not quite sure about.”
But something happened, too. When Ann started piecing a bunch together, something inside switched off: thoughts of Simon, the flat, the divorce, all faded. She just stared at stems and voices in her head quieted.
Margaret once came over, watching her arrange.
“Good,” she said simply. “You can see shape.”
“Shape?”
“You know when a bouquets alive. Some people never get it. You feel it.”
Ann looked at her hands, at the riot of red poppies and tiny cream blossoms she cradled. It felt right.
“Some people just have it,” Margaret murmured. “I dont know why.”
By December, Ann stopped sending out accounting CVs. She did it quietly, for herself. Her hours at Azalea became full days. Margaret upped her pay a little.
Evenings meant study: floristry books, YouTube seminars. She signed up for an online course.
“Youre all in,” Sarah observed one evening, as Ann jotted notes at the kitchen table. “Are you running from it, or running to?”
“Both,” Ann admitted, not looking up. “When Im busy with flowers, the past cant catch me. I need this.”
“And after?”
Ann sighed.
“Well see.”
The divorce was final in February. The lawyer secured her a slice of the Kent cottage and the car, which she sold immediately. Enough to rent a tiny room and spare Sarah. “No bother at all,” Sarah insisted.
She let a bedsit off Sutton Lane from an old lady named Mrs. Jenkins. They barely spoke, just passed in the hall.
The first night, Ann set a battered bouquet on the sillsalvaged blooms, yellow gerberas and green fronds. She just watched them in the lamplight, the smell grounding her in an unfamiliar place that was starting to feel hers.
Spring came early. By March, the pavements smelled of wet concrete and weeds. Azalea filled with the seasons first daffs and tulips, and Ann worked extra hours as the orders rolled in.
One late evening, Margaret lingered. They tidied in sync.
“Have you thought of training properly?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Theres a brilliant course at the City Schoola friend teaches there. Six months, hard work. Its pricey, but its real training.”
“I dont have that sort of spare cash, Margaret.”
“Ill lend you. Pay me back as you can, no rush.”
Ann stared, cleaning rag in hand.
“But why?”
Margaret shrugged. “Im nearly seventy-one. I run this because I love it. But watching you, I see someone whos found their calling. Thats rare. Money shouldnt get in the way.”
Ann said nothing for a moment.
“I will pay you back.”
“I know,” Margaret smiled.
Classes started in April. Three nights a week, proper lessonshistory, practice, practical tests. Ann came home late, exhausted, rarely finishing her dinners.
But she stuck it out.
At the third session, the teacher set them a challenge: “Make what you like, from anythingjust let your hands decide.”
Ann hovered, picking silvery twigs, dark glossy leaves, a handful of tight white tulips. She built them together, took away a leaf, paused.
“Thats it,” the teacher said quietly as he walked past. Ann heard.
In May, Ann rang Sarah.
“You know your colleagues selling that studio on Cavendish Street?”
“Yes? Still interested?”
“Ive saved a bit. I want to look.”
A pause.
“Its not been a year.”
“I know.”
“Arent you scared?”
“Terrified. But that bedsit isnt my home. I need oneeven tiny.”
The studio was a square: one room with a nook for a kitchen, a minuscule balcony, fifth floor, overlooking leafy trees. Ann circled the walls, stared at the view.
“Ill take it.”
The young, exhausted owner blinked. “Dont want to think it over?”
“No.”
She moved in June. First: mattress and a table, then a shelf, then curtains. The balcony got window boxes with geraniums from Margaret.
Sarah dropped by that first weekend, wielding a pie.
“Small,” she said, eyeing the square room.
“I like it.”
She peered at flowers on the balcony. “Did you plant these?”
“Yescuttings from Margaret.”
“Shes good people.”
“The best.”
They drank tea, door open to the balcony, the sounds of children, dogs, the faint echo of distant music drifting up.
“Youre different,” said Sarah, barely above a whisper.
“How?”
“Less on edge. Like youre just here. Really here.”
Ann looked at rustling trees.
“I suppose I am.”
That autumn, Ann finished school. At the final show, her worka twisting installation of branches, dry grasses, and fresh chrysanthemumsdrew special notice. Margaret stood at the edge, silent, then later confessed how glad she was to have urged Ann forward.
Azaleas second year blurred into a third. Ann handled big orders, corporate clients, deliveries. She made her own buying trips, knew suppliers by name, crafted new arrangements, tried daring styles.
Her hands grew tough, deft. Thorn scars marked her knuckles nowa sign of the work.
It was at a winter trade event that Andrew entered the picture, as Ann assembled an archway of pine and white chrysanthemums.
“Need a hand?” he asked.
“No, but you can hold this, please.”
Wordlessly, he held the framework steady. Then she glanced over.
He was about fifty, tall, his manner composedthe kind of man who measured his words as architects do.
“Architect,” he offered, matter-of-fact. “I see how things fit. This is impressive.”
“Ann.”
“Andrew.”
They talked while Ann finished the arch. No condescensionhe enquired as a peer: Hows the structure held? Whats the frame? How long will it last?
As he left: “May I take your number? We sometimes need florists at sites.”
“Go ahead.”
He called a week later, businesslike: his firm needed a fresh look for their opening. Ann did what hed askedplus a touch more.
“Better than Id hoped,” he said.
“I see space differently,” she replied.
He grinned, a soft, true smile.
They worked together. Eventually, he phoned just to chat, ask how she was. It felt natural and unforced, like a plant uncurling when its ready.
“I like you,” he said one night in a cafe, over coffee. “Not sure if this is the right time. Just say, if it isnt.”
Ann held her coffee, considered.
“Not the wrong time just, slowly. I need slow.”
“Thats fine.” And that was all he said.
He didnt rush. They saw each other every week or two: walks, talks. He shared work storieshow a building breathes, how he reads a room. Ann told him about flowers, and the precise moment a bouquet comes alive.
“Were not so different,” he mused once.
“How do you mean?”
“We shape and animate. A room without life is just lines. A bunch of flowers without form is just stems.”
She pondered.
“Maybe youre right.”
One spring, Ann was offered a share in a new shopMargarets friend was selling her shop near a bustling shopping area. Ann checked it out.
Just a small space, forty square meterssimple but well-placed. She felt its promise at once.
“How much?”
The sum made her gulp, but shed saved most of it. She called Sarah, and Margaret. Sat with her notebook running numbers, checked bank loans.
She told Andrew, who only asked:
“What does your gut say?”
“Feels right.”
“Then do it.”
Ann signed the contract in late April. She called it “Wild Mint.” Shed agonised over names for weeks before the right one clickedfresh scent, untameable, something comforting about the word “Wild.”
At opening, Sarah, Margaret, some loyal clients, and Andrew showed up. He brought a little pot of succulents, chosen himself.
“Why a succulent?” Ann laughed.
“Tough survivor,” he answered seriously. “Like you.”
The first year of Wild Mint was tough. She worked every dayhandling suppliers, social media, deliveries, paperwork. Home meant collapsing into bed, dinner untouched.
It grew, bit by bit. Loyal regulars, then offices through Andrews network. A couple of local press pieces about young floristsAnn laughed at the youngbut didnt mind.
She bought herself a new long wool coatcharcoal grey, chosen after much deliberation. Shoes to match: classic, with a small heel. Sarah just nodded with approval.
“This is how I pictured you,” she said. “Not the coatthe confidence.”
Ann also made another purchase: a simple white dressing gown. No daisies.
The second year brought further change: her first employee. A young woman, Lauren, just twenty-eight, passionate but green. Ann taught her as Margaret had taught her: clear, succinct, unhurried.
By now, she and Andrew had taken things slow, still in separate flats, meeting often. The space in their relationship was a comfort.
“Ever been to St Ives?” Andrew asked once.
“No.”
“Lets go? In OctoberI have meetings for a week, then we could stay a few days.”
She went. St Ives had different air, different rhythm. She wandered the markets, marvelled at local flowers, found a tiny dried-bouquet shop down a lanelost there for hours, gesturing and guessing with the owner.
Andrew waited, reading on his phone outside.
“Are you always this patient?” she laughed leaving.
“My gran taught me: dont rush someone doing what matters.”
She smiled, feeling something slot into place.
That year passed steadilya word that had once meant dull, but now brought comfort, footing, breath.
In her second autumn at Wild Mint, a man came into the shop she didnt recognise at first.
It was October, a quiet Tuesday. Ann was behind her worktable arranging an anniversary bouquet. Lauren served a customer at the front.
The bell jingled, door squeaked, a man entered. Ann focused on her arrangement, until she glanced up.
Simon. Older now, rough at the edges. The weight that once gave him presence now seemed unkempt. His suit hung clumsily. He stood near the door, scanning the room, uncertain.
Ann met his gaze, steady and unblinking.
He approached, something flickering in his face.
“Ann,” he nodded. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
Lauren glanced back, but Ann just shook her head: shed handle this.
“Can we talk?” Simon asked.
“Say what you came to say.”
He looked over at Lauren and the customer, uncertain.
“Could we”
“No. Im working. If youve something to say, say it.”
He hovered, then drifted over, lowering his voice.
“Mums not well. Not getting up any more.”
She said nothing.
“She asks about you. Says you looked after her best.”
“She needs a professional carer,” Ann replied. “I can give you a good agency.”
“Ann”
“What?”
He hesitated.
“Emily left in February. Met someone else. Business failed. All those contracts she promisednothing materialised. Then it all unravelled.”
“I see.”
“I know I have no right” Simons words faltered, the speech hed rehearsed falling apart. “I know what I did to you. But maybe we could just talkremember the good times?”
Ann set her stems down. Looked him in the eye.
“I dont hate you, Simon. I let that go ages ago.”
He flinched.
“But when you say good, you mean my routine and your comfort. I know better now. I didnt then.”
“Ann”
“No.” Calm, firm. “Not Ann. Im my own person. I did everything for you and your mother. Looked after her, kept quiet, coped. You both took that for granted.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I understand.”
“About your mother: Ill leave the agencys number with Lauren. Theyre excellentmedical staff, the lot.”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Couldnt you”
She looked at him, long and steady. She saw only emptiness, the hollow of someone trying to reclaim a prop that was gone.
“No,” she said softly.
He nodded, resigned.
“You look well,” he said, quietly.
“I know.”
He lingered, then left. At the door, he paused.
“Ann Im sorry.”
She didnt agree, didnt denyjust watched him go.
As the door closed, calm returned. Lauren finished at the till and came over, eyebrows raised.
“All okay?” she asked.
“Fine. Write this agencys details in the order book, pleaseCaring Hands. Contacts in my phone under partners.”
“Of course, Ann.”
Ann returned to her arrangementlilac asters, gleaming foliage, wisps of dried grass, space for light to drift between. She adjusted a stem, stepped back.
Nearly there.
Andrew called, as he always did in the late afternoon.
“You all right?” It was always his first question.
“Fine. Simon turned up.”
A pause.
“And?”
“Nothing. Hes gone.”
“How do you feel?”
Ann looked out at the October street: leaves skittering along the path, strangers braced in their coats, a young mother with a buggy pausing by a shop window.
“You know, I feel peaceful. Not happy, not sadjust at peace.”
“Thats something.”
“Yes.”
“Ill drop by tonight, if thats all right?”
“Of course. Ill make soup.”
“Chicken?”
“If thats what you fancy.”
“It is.”
She pocketed her phone and looked down at her nearly finished bouquetpurple asters, lush green, a hint of bronze grass giving it life. She turned it in her hands, finding the balance.
“Lovely,” Lauren murmured behind her.
“Not quite,” Ann replied. She reached for a final stem, tucked it in, and everything slotted into place.
“There. Now its finished.”
Lauren nodded, readying the wrapping. Ann wiped her hands, moved to the window, and watched the world spin onher world, on steady feet, breathing in the cool scent of mint and chrysanthemums, with a quiet supper and warm company waiting come evening.
