Chapter 15 - The Gardenia on the Counter
Two months later, the first heavy snow of January blanketed South Boston in sixteen inches of powdery white.
West Broadway was quiet, the sound of car engines muffled by the drifts piled high against the curbs.
Inside Bellamy Blooms, the radiator hissed a steady, comforting rhythm, filling the shop with dry, pleasant warmth.
The peeling exterior window trim had been freshly sanded and coated with rich, dark forest-green enamel that repelled the freezing sleet.
A new brass lock had been installed on the front door, turning with a smooth, silent precision that required no shoulder jerks or curses.
On the counter sat a clean glass vase holding a single white gardenia, perfectly bloomed, its velvety petals pure and unblemished by human hands.
I stood behind the counter in my green apron, checking the shipping manifests for the weekend orders.
Thirty corporate centerpieces for Vance Shipping, twelve wreaths for the parish church down the street, and eighty bundles of winter roses for the Friday evening crowd.
The brass bell above the door chimed, and Mrs. Bernardi shuffled in from the cold, stamping the snow from her boots onto the cocoa mat.
“Good morning, June, child,” she said, pulling a knitted scarf from her chin.
“Terrible wind out there on the corner.”
“I have a pot of fresh peppermint tea on the burner in the back, Mrs. Bernardi,” I said, smiling as I reached for her coat.
“Come sit by the radiator while I wrap your winterberry.”
As Mrs. Bernardi settled into the wooden armchair by the ferns, the telephone on my desk rang once.
I picked up the receiver.
“Bellamy Blooms, June speaking.”
“Miss Bellamy,” Marcus Vance’s deep baritone came across the line, carrying the faint background hum of a harbor tugboat whistle.
“The weather service says the harbor ferries are shutting down at three o'clock due to the squall.”
“Our delivery van is already loaded, Mr. Vance,” I told him, looking out at the swirling white snow on West Broadway.
“Your lobby flowers will be on the pedestal by noon.”
A short, quiet chuckle came through the earpiece, warm and distinctly unhurried.
“I never doubted it for a second, June.”
“When you finish at the terminal, come up to the tenth floor.”
“Julianna and I have coffee waiting.”
“I’ll be there,” I said.
I hung up the receiver and looked down at the brass counter where the fraudulent deed and the cheap cubic zirconia ring had rested ten weeks ago.
The wood had been sanded smooth, polished with beeswax, and cleared of every ghost that had ever tried to haunt it.
Graham Vale was sitting in a federal holding cell in Plymouth, awaiting a trial that would ensure he spent his forty-second birthday behind concrete walls.
Julianna was rebuilding her life with clean, honest independence across the river.
May you like
And on the wall behind me, my mother’s Massachusetts Master Florist license hung in a new, polished oak frame, catching the soft golden light of the display lamps.
I picked up my floral shears, tucked them into the pocket of my apron, and went back to work.
