‘The old neighborhood.’ A turn of phrase that made him almost smile. It was well-meant, he knew, but there was very little about that part of town that could be considered neighborly, and anyone who could avoid it was smart to do so. Still, it had been a home when he’d nowhere else to turn, and the hardship of it paled in that light.
“I know Vincento’s.” He nodded. “I–” Lip caught between his teeth as he thought back. “Gamlen, right?” It had been a while since he’d heard that name, but he thought he remembered Merrill mentioning the man’s relation to Hawke. Honestly, he was almost certain the man had lifted his wallet once, but since there’d been little enough to steal he wasn’t about to mention such to Hawke.
“You’re right.” He said gently. “I think she’d like chrysanthemums.”
He twisted, looking around the shop as though he wasn’t certain exactly where those flowers waited.
“They’re my sister’s favorite.” He added, tilting his head to indicate she should follow him. “But you’ll have to help me pick the color.”
“Oh, you have a sister? What’s her name? Is she younger or older?” Hawke asked in quick succession, letting her curiosity trample over a twist in her heart as a picture of Bethany in her big bonnet and sunglasses, waving from the hatch of her plane to Columbia–six years ago–rippled past like a fish in a dark pool. Perhaps she and mother were together now. Trying on dresses.
She followed Iander’s gaze, not really knowing what she was looking for but eager to help in any way she could. When Hawke was being useful, she was at ease. “A color, a color…” she echoed. There were orange marigolds in a flat that reminded her immediately of Aveline; white daisies in another corner that brought Merrill to mind, anything tropical would fit Isabela…but Mother?
She closed her eyes and pictured the long, pinned up hair, trim waist, and the green eyes that could turn from calm meadows to tornado clouds the moment you set so much as one toe out of line. “Hmmm. Do they come in violet?“ Hawke asked after a moment. “She had this blouse, a present from father. I knocked a mug of hot chocolate all over it, once.”
“Thought she was going to hang me out with the laundry.”
The bell above the door didn’t get his attention, but it almost never did. Merlin’s tail flicked lazily at the sound, however, and when Ian didn’t immediately attend his shop keeping duties, she rose laboriously to stretch, jumping down from the counter to pad across the floor and bump her nose gently against his elbow.
“Mmm? Oh!” Hands entangled in a vat of potting soil, he leaned over to give his familiar an affectionate nuzzle, touching their noses before he tugged his hands free and smeared the damp earth across the apron that protected his bright tights.
“Sorry!” He offered, stepping around a growth of purple clematis that was so enthusiastic it threatened to topple its trellis. “Merrill said you might be coming by soon. I–”
His expression fell a little from the enthusiastic greeting he usually offered people who entered his shop, ears dropping in sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your loss.”
The first answer Hawke received was a soft mew, followed shortly after by an exclamation of surprise and then apology as an elf appeared from behind a curtain of violet petals. There were bits of soil speckling his wrists that seemed to match the freckles on his face. Watching him pass under the vines, Hawke had an immediate suspicion Iander here could maneuver around his entire shop blindfolded without so much as disturbing a petal.
His bright greeting dimmed as he reached Hawke, ears wilting like leaves someone had forgotten to water. She’d had this effect on people all month. Especially at the newstation where all her coworkers smiles crumpled into pitying looks and their good mornings became anemic ‘How are you doing?’s.
Still, the elf meant well, and Marian was pretty sure Mother would have risen from the grave for the sole purpose of lecturing her eldest child if she forgot her manners now.
“Thanks,” she nodded, taking a moment to card through her thoughts. “I understand you and Merrill go back to the old neighbourhood,” she went on, choosing a gentler word for ‘slum’. “I used to live just around the bend with my Uncle, near Vincento’s restaurant? Though I think they do more smuggling than actual cooking in the back…”
“Anyway, I was hoping you could help me put together a bouquet – nothing too flashy, Mother hated showing off – just something so that the last flowers she got weren’t from…weren’t…”
Hawke had to stop and fight a brief battle with the lump that had been wedged in her throat for weeks, smothering all her jokes. She filled her lungs with the humid air of the shop, that clean feeling, and reminded herself she was here on a mission. Like back in flight school. “I was thinking chrysanthemums!”
“C’mon, chicken,” Hawke sighed as she looked up at the sign for the flower shop she’d been standing outside since her coffee was warm. Her gaze traveled across the word Iander’s then back down to the window, crowded with plants. “This is no harder than meeting the psychologist.”
She scarcely recognized the face reflected amid the blooms and brambles, though she should have. It was the same dull-eyed stranger who had been drifting in and out of her bathroom mirror at home: too wan and too serious.
Determined, Hawke twitched her arm and captured the door handle, stepping out of the world of drab marble and lowering clouds into what looked like a scene out of Fern Gully.
“Hello?” she asked the dappled shadows. “I’m looking for Iander.”
Nothing.
She ventured a few more steps into the shop, wondering fingers drawn inexorably to the leaves around her. “I’m Hawke. Merrill’s friend?”
Marian Hawke 