(I have one too....)The Bouquet
(July 1984)
Cassie took the old bible out of the drawer in her night table. She sat down on the bed. The bible opened right to the page that held the two pieces of paper with the lily of the valley pressed between them. She lifted the top sheet up. The lily of the valley was all dry and flat now. She wanted to touch it, she wanted to hold it, but she didn’t. She was too afraid that the dried out flower would just disintegrate. Cassie lifted the book to her face. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. She imagined that she could still smell the little bouquet of flowers.
Cassie closed the bible and smoothed the cover. She didn’t read it much, but she had put the flower there because she wanted to make sure that it would be in a book that she would never give away. It once was her grandmother’s bible, Momma gave it to her the day she turned eighteen. Cassie remembered that day. She had just come out of the shower and she had put on baby powder, when Momma came into her room. She said it was time for her to have the bible. Cassie remembered how she held it to her heart. She had imagined that one day she would write her wedding day in it and then the names of her children. That day was so long ago.
Ennis had given her the flowers. He wasn’t supposed to come over, but one evening there was a knock on her door. Ennis was standing there, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand. It was a small bouquet, with some yellow and white daisies and the lily of the valley.
"Just wanted to bring you this” he said.
Cassie took the flowers in her hand, and she looked up at Ennis. “What for?” she asked.
“No reason” he said.
“Are you comin’ in? I’ll make you dinner.”
“Naw, he said. I gotta go, I’m leavin’ real early in the mornin’.”
“Where ya goin’? she asked him, but she had already known.
“Fishin’” Ennis said. Then he gave her a sweet kiss on the lips and turned around and left.
Cassie remembered standing there watching him drive away. She remembered holding the flowers for a very long time. It was just so unlike him. She never knew what got into him that day. That was the first time he ever gave her flowers. She didn’t know then that it would be the only time. Cassie put the bible back in the drawer. She went back to the kitchen and took the muffins that she was baking out of the oven. She sat down at the table, and put her head down in her hands.
She didn’t know that day, when she was holding the flowers, that it would never be the same again.
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