Sabina Herrscher walked down the polished marble stairs of her home, using the oak rail to steady herself. With her free hand, the young woman rubbed her dress' delicate, black fabric. Her usual attire consisted of a wool-blend school uniform or cotton yoga pants with hoodies, and the slippery polyester felt foreign against her skin. As she reached the ground floor, Sabina drew back her hand and a small piece of white cardstock fell out of her bell-shaped sleeve. After rolling her eyes, she ripped the plastic tether attaching the tag to the garment before glancing at the price printed on the bottom.
$349.99
Crumpling the paper and tossing it on a side table, Sabina pulled the sunglasses perched on her head down to her nose and walked out the open front door. The designer shades helped block the glare of the late-winter sun, as well as hide her tear-streaked cheeks from the delivery people as she dashed past catering trucks, rental vans, and other totally useless merchants parked in the circular driveway.
Why did people feel compelled to open their homes to feed and entertain guests on the most painful day of their lives? Couldn't they grieve in peace without having to pretend to be interested in stupid anecdotes about someone who was gone forever?
Sabina took a deep breath to keep herself from crying again as she passed a small box truck labelled Frühling Florist and decorated with pictures of colorful bouquets. Unlike the others that had serviced previous Herrscher family parties and gatherings, she'd never seen this one before, but as Sabina reached the adjacent walled garden, thoughts of vendors left her mind.
Pushing down on the wrought iron handle, she opened the heavy, oak gate. Inside, the miniature jardin à la française looked nothing like she had remembered. Once tidy and full of life, the garden had been devastated not only by the harsh winter, but also from the recent absence of its caretaker's loving hand. Brown leaves littered the gravel paths, withered weeds dotted the half-frozen flower beds, and even the evergreen boxwoods had lost their perfectly manicured shapes.
A shiver ran through Sabina, but it wasn't from the air's temperature. In fact, the sun's rays – trapped in the redbrick enclosure and safe from the wind – had warmed the space to a comfortable level. The apprehension came from something she had avoided lately: thinking about the future.
Who'd tend to this small oasis? Was it even worth cleaning up now? Was anything worth it at all?
She balled her fists and sighed. It was inevitable, really. Life went on for the living, and the dead stayed dead. But first they needed to be buried.
With a forced chuckle at her morbid thoughts, Sabina checked her watch. It was time and she needed to go, yet she couldn't bear to leave. Instead, her gaze fell on an overgrown rose bush – a climbing Golden Celebration that had the sweetest fragrance when in bloom – with its thorny stems drooping every which way, badly in need of a good pruning.
Sabina's breath caught in her throat when she realized something was growing at the base of the shapeless jumble. With trembling hands, she pushed the sunglasses off her face to get a better look, but the view remained unchanged. Rushing forward, Sabina stepped onto the thawing beds and crouched to touch the small, white petals dangling atop a slender stem just a few inches off the ground.
"Are you alright?" The voice came from behind her. Not until Sabina turned toward the boy who was about her age standing at the open garden gate and holding a vase full of white lilies did she notice the warm stream flowing down her face.
Wiping the tears with the back of her hand, she nodded. "Yes, thank you." It was an obvious lie, so she was relieved when he smiled back.
"What are you doing down there?" he asked, peering at her from under a mop of tousled brown hair.
"Snowdrops are my mom's favorite." Sabina's voice cracked when she inadvertently used the wrong tense, as she pointed to the bell-shaped perennial. "It's my last chance to give her one--"
"Wait!" The boy yelled, sensing her intent and stepping forward when she reached to pluck the stem. Pulling a lily out from the bouquet instead, he offered it to Sabina. "It would be a shame to deprive the garden of the only beautiful thing in it." His cheeks flushed red before he hastily added, "Besides you, of course. Here, take this."
Sabina knew he was right about the flower, but the compliment took her by surprise. "Uhm, okay. Just put it there." Not trusting her ability to quickly compose herself, she pointed to a stone bench adjacent to the gate.
The boy gently placed the lily down and turned to leave.
"What's your name?" Sabina - still crouched beside the lone snowdrop - called after him.
He turned and smiled again. "I'm Jake. Jake Frühling."
"Thank you, Jake." She self-consciously tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm Sabina. It's nice to meet you. Will you be coming by the house again?"
"As long as there are more of these." He jiggled the vase he'd been in the middle of delivering to illustrate the point. "I guess I will."
Sabina nodded. "Then see you around, Jake."
"See you, Sabina." He turned and walked away.
~ ~ ~
Jake Frühling looked forward to his weekly trips to the Herrscher estate. His father's florist business hadn't received an order since the day of the wake, but he always managed to find a few extra stems for a custom bouquet. It was the only way he could even have a chance of seeing Sabina again.
Not that showing up with a hand full of flowers guaranteed an encounter. Not initially, at any rate.
The first week he returned to the imposing house, there were no signs of the residents. A morose housekeeper merely instructed him to leave the delivery on a foyer table. Luckily he had the forethought to pluck a stem out of the collection and before getting back in his truck, Jake snuck into the walled garden.
The single snowdrop had been joined by dozens of others creating a low blanket of white, but unlike seven days earlier, the girl wasn't there. Feeling a bit foolish, Jake placed the pink tulip he'd been gripping onto the bench and left.
The following attempt was just as unsuccessful. A vase of daffodils on the side table and a lone, yellow stem placed on the bench were the only traces of his visit.
Jake was disappointed, and on the drive back home, he decided he'd try one more time. If Sabina wasn't there for his next delivery, then it just wasn't meant to be and he'd never return.
A week later, she opened the front door even before he had a chance to knock.
"You've been leaving me flowers?" In spite of her inflection, the unusual greeting wasn't meant to be a question. By the way she was avoiding his eyes, it was clear she knew the statement's validity.
Jake couldn't guess whether that was a good or a bad thing, so he cleared his throat and handed her the latest bouquet. It was a brilliant mix of purple and fuschia, and it smelled like honey. "Yes."
He hoped for a show of some type of positive emotion, but when Sabina stepped back and closed the door in his face, he frowned. It wasn't the response he'd been waiting for, but at least he'd seen her.
Returning the following week, he found the girl in the garden. She wasn't crouched on the ground crying the way she had been on the day they'd first met. Today, she was busy with a rake, collecting dry leaves into a plastic bin. When he said hello from beside the garden gate, she paused only long enough to give him a quick hi over her shoulder before getting back to work.
If it had been anyone else treating him with such dismissal, he would have said the hell with it and never looked back. But there was something different about her that day, and Jake knew he hadn't imagined it. For a brief moment before her face turned away from his, small creases appeared at the corners of Sabina's eyes. Although her lips didn't join in the smile, he felt that there was a tiny spark of happiness growing inside her.
After dropping an orange colored daisy on the bench, Jake jogged back to his truck.
From that day onward, their weekly interactions became more routine and more friendly. Impersonal greetings like good afternoon turned into questions like how are you and eventually into full-blown conversations about the weather. He'd stand by the gate and watch her tend to the garden as they spoke, feeling as if stepping further into the enclosed space would prove too much of an intrusion. When they had discussed every type of meteorological event possible for their region, Jake took a chance on telling Sabina about his week. He'd hoped she would open up about how she spent her time between their meetings, but she was content on focusing on him.
That changed the second time he found her crying.
Spring was quickly giving way to Summer and the increasingly warm air smelled of an impending storm. The wind ripped into dark clouds at an alarming rate and Jake was sure Sabina would be in the house. He was already feeling dejected thinking their time would be fleeting, but he was wrong. When the housekeeper took the bouquet of hydrangeas without another word, he knew to check the garden.
Sabina sat on the stone bench with her back against the wall and her face covered in tears. He didn't even have to ask if he could join her because she automatically scooted to the far end to make room. The gesture made him more brazen and without thinking, Jake put his arm around her shoulder.
When the girl froze, he thought he'd made a giant mistake. But instead of jumping up and running away, she leaned into him and buried her face in his shoulder.
Jake closed his eyes and sighed. He wanted to say something comforting, but nothing good enough came to mind. Instead, he quietly squeezed the girl's arm in an attempt at solidarity. He didn't know how long they sat there in silence, just that he would have stayed there forever if it made her feel better.
"He's forgotten about her," Sabina whispered. "He doesn't care any more. He's moved on."
His heart thumped erratically in his chest as he debated whether to ask the question that could potentially change everything. It was just one syllable: who? But as Jake's lips formed the word, Sabina stood.
"I'm sorry," she sniffled, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. "My head hurts. I have to go."
With that, she disappeared.
Over his subsequent visits, the story Sabina was reluctant to tell that day became - for better or worse - unavoidably clear as a woman Jake had never seen before started spending more and more time at the Herrscher residence. The beautiful blonde was always in the company of Sabina's father, but the girl never brought up the subject again.
Instead, she began finally talking about herself. On long summer days as she tended to the garden, Sabina revealed her love of puzzles and cozy mysteries and admitted liking Broccoli over ice cream. During his weekly visits, Jake was able to see the climbing roses bloom in their full golden glory and marvel at the perfectly spherical shapes of the topiaries the girl artfully clipped. He hoped she'd find their chats therapeutic, but as Fall arrived, she became increasingly thinner and began to look more tired. Her headaches also got more frequent, often cutting their time shorter.
It was on the October day Sabina revealed her father's intentions to remarry that Jake finally asked her to see a doctor. It was on that day her head hurt so much she began to cry. It was on that day he last spoke to her.
~ ~ ~
Sabina very much looked forward to Spring. It was inexplicable, given that she had no idea why she would like that particular season. But she had no idea why she liked anything at all, so the girl didn't waste time pondering it.
She was also excited about using the tennis court her new stepmother was having installed. It would be a nicer addition to the house than that weed-filled garden just under her second story bedroom window. The contractors had already ripped out the dead bushes and removed the ugly walls before the first frost. In the next few weeks when the weather improved, they'd finish paving the surface and raising the fences.
Getting rid of the garden didn't bother her at all. She was actually relieved to see the place go. The first time she noticed the small pile of cut flowers on the stone bench, Sabina thought someone had just forgotten a bouquet. She threw out the wilted mess, but when a new stem showed up in its place a week later, she became suspicious and even a bit scared.
After she mentioned it to her father, the flowers on the bench stopped coming. And so did the boy who delivered the arrangement for the entry foyer. He had never talked to her, so Sabina shouldn't have been surprised that he turned out to be a creeper.
Yet she was; he had such kind eyes.
She sighed and looked out her bedroom window. The torn-up ground was a pock mark on the otherwise flawless landscape, but soon a lovely tennis court would cover the surroundings. Sabina smiled at the thought, but movement further up the estate caught her eye. Recognizing the shadowy figure, she ran out of her room and left the house.
"What are you doing here?" She crossed her arms to question the florist boy. He'd tried hiding behind a low holly bush on the far edge of the property, but she'd already noticed.
He stood slowly and scratched his head. Without looking up, he kicked the dirt. "I . . . I wanted to see if they were ready," he stammered.
She furrowed her brows. "What was ready? This is my house. You shouldn't be looking at anything here. You're trespassing."
He lifted his head. The kind eyes were now sad. "Your dad said it was okay for me to come." He held up his hands defensively. "He knows what I've been doing." Stepping back, he gestured to the plot of ground behind the hollies.
A chill ran through Sabina. Was he telling the truth? Did her father approve of this stranger lurking around their yard? And what did he want to show her hidden behind the bushes?
Slowly walking forward, she strained her neck to see without having to go all the way around, but all that came into view were small, white flowers. Seeing her apprehension, the boy moved aside. "I wanted to wait for them to be in full bloom before showing you," he said. "But you beat me to it."
Sabina's breath caught in her throat and she was overcome by a sudden urge to cry. "Snowdrops? Why?"
"I can't tell you that." He shook his head. "But maybe one day you'll remember and they'll make you happy."
She shrugged. "Why would flowers make me happy?"
"They used to," he whispered. "Before your seizure."
Sabina stepped back. "How do you know about that?"
The boy bit his lip, as if regretting having said too much already. "I--," he hesitated.
"Tell me," she demanded.
"I used to bring you flowers every week. We talked. Then you got sick and forgot me."
She crouched down and touched a white petal. "I forgot everything."
He shook his head. "I don't think you did." Pointing to the flowers peeking through the ground, he continued, "You felt something when you saw the snowdrops. I could see it on your face. I think one day you'll remember why they're so important to you."
Despite the cold, Sabina's face flushed. She wanted to ask more, but the boy had turned and began to walk away.
"What's your name?" Sabina called after him.
He turned. "I'm Jake. Jake Frühling."
"Thank you, Jake," she said, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "Will you be coming by again?"
"Only if you'd like for me to." He smiled for the first time.
Sabina nodded. "Then see you around, Jake."
"See you, Sabina," he said before turning and walking away.
The End