Fiction: Floral Arrangement

It was windy that day in St. James’ Cemetery, and the flowers that were laid with love at the eastern end of the cemetery had been repositioned to decorate other graves. I left my hat in the car so I wouldn’t have to chase after it.

Her stone was taller than it was long, and I used my pocket knife to dig in the painfully well-manicured grass on the windward side. I set the yellow rose, still in its water tube, in the little hole and scraped earth around it with the flat of my blade.

“Think nothing of it,” I said. “It’s just one flower.”

Janet didn’t respond. The dead are like that.

But then, Janet hadn’t spoken to me for almost fifty years.

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