The Bouquet

         Someone had sent her flowers. They sat now, arranged in her best vase, brightening the breakfast nook. She hadn’t sat at that table for almost a year. She never went into her breakfast nook anymore. But that table is where bouquets had always been put, and that is where she found this bouquet waiting for her. It was where bouquets belonged.

There were roses, and daisies, and Baby’s Breath, and carnations, and other flowers whose names she did not remember. It was a beautiful bouquet, big and showy, and it must have been expensive. There was a small card that had come with the bouquet, but she had not opened it. She was afraid to read it, afraid of who it might be from, and sad because of who it could not be from.

But he was the only person to ever buy her bouquets. He had made sure to get her a big bouquet for their anniversary every year, it would be waiting there on the breakfast table in the morning when she got up, leaving him still asleep in their bedroom. And it was their anniversary, or would have been if he had not left her here, alone. Almost a year ago, now. She had held his hand until he was gone. He had said that he would always love her, that their love was eternal. And today there was a bouquet.