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Jamie walks through the front door after closing the flower shop for the day. She stops short when she sees Flora, sitting at the kitchen table. She doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge Jamie’s presence. She just sits.
Their house has been too quiet since Dani. With Miles in Boston, it just leaves Jamie and Flora. Alone. Alone together, in their little house in Vermont. Flora helps Jamie with the shop and does her school work online but other than that she just sits. She’s different now and Jamie wishes it weren’t true.
“Hi love.”
Flora blinks, as if she hasn’t in hours. She turns her head and gives a halfhearted smile.
“Hi.”
“What are you up to?”
Jamie joins her at the table and lets out a sigh. It’s the first time she’s sat down pretty much all day.
“You alright?”
“Just thinking about some stuff.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Flora looks off over Jamie’s shoulder. She can’t tell if the conversation is over, or if she’s thinking about what she wants to say. There’s a long, quiet, moment before Flora asks,
“What happens now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is this just it now? We stay in this house that’s too big for two people, run a flower shop, and just wait?”
“Wait for what?”
“Wait to... to die, I guess.”
Jamie winces. She fights it but it happens anyway.
“You’re unhappy here?”
“No. Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just trying to figure out the point. Like, if dying is all there is left what’s the point of trying to do anything at all? What’s the point of being a good person if we all end up the same way?”
Jamie reacts the way she always does. Flora is secretly thankful for the calm, serene expression because inside she feels like she’s spiraling out of control.
“I see. I can’t speak to the point of life. I’m not sure there’s anyone alive who can. But I know the importance of being a good person.”
“Oh yeah?”
It’s a challenge. A gentle one, but a challenge nonetheless.
“Being a good person, is complex. It’s not black and white like everyone thinks it is.”
She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest. Flora has seen her sit like this a million times, her usual stance, but this time it’s stiff.
“Being a good person, more often than not, means doing the right thing, even when no one’s looking. It’s not easy. It’s really, really, difficult actually. But there are so many things in this world that make it hard to look at yourself in the mirror, and feel proud of who you are; the choices you’ve made shouldn’t add to that list.”
“Do yours?”
“What?”
“Do your choices make it hard for you look in the mirror?”
It isn’t cheeky. In fact, she isn’t sure that Flora even fully understands the weight of her question. There is so much of Jamie’s life that she doesn’t know about; so much Jamie has sworn to never tell her. And yet, her eyes seem to know more than Jamie ever thought.
“Sometimes, yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She almost ends it there, but she feels there is more to be said. One look at Flora’s expression, her yearning for answers, and she knows it’s true.
“Listen, I’m not saying you’re never going to make a bad choice. There will be some that seem right at the time, you feel it in your gut, but later on down the line, somewhere, it turns out your gut was wrong. There will be some situations that leave you no other choice. And sometimes it’s just a mistake. Nobody’s perfect. It’s a part of life; an unavoidable misfortune.”
“But?”
Jamie purses her lips and shakes her head slowly.
“But, the good decisions. The opportunities that arise and the moments that pass through because you were brave or honest, those are the ones worth all the rest. And when you have more of those than you do the others, that’s the sum of a good life. That’s the point. That’s what being a good person gets you.”
Flora looks down at her hands, still clasped together on top of the table.
“Do you think she had more good than bad?”
It’s out of habit, that Jamie’s mouth starts to form the word ‘who’. She doesn’t need to ask. She knows who. Flora hasn’t mentioned Dani much, or at all really. It worried Jamie and Miles at first but it’s her way of coping. It’s how she’s able to keep the thoughts and memories of her untainted by the words of others. She’s keeping Dani in mint condition in her mind.
“I know she did. Her death, the way she… It had nothing to do with the life we had here. For some people, there are choices that follow them. They chase them farther than they can run.”
Flora lets out a sob but catches the second one in her throat before she completely falls apart.
“Dani Clayton was a good person; she did the right thing.”
“Even when no one was looking?”
“Especially then.”
Flora nods. She feels the same weight inside her chest that’s been there for weeks. It grew heavier, larger, during the funeral. It gets fiercer at night or when she hears Dani’s name spoken aloud; when she sees it written on the mail that still comes for her. She swallows, thick, around the lump that weight has forced up into her throat.
“No one knows their end.”
Jamie fights the urge to add, except Dani. She always knew.
“But life is in the not knowing, the good and the bad, and if you’re unhappy here then you need to go. As much as I would hate to see it, you need to do whatever it is that makes you happy.”
“What if I don’t know what that is?”
Jamie shrugs, “I can help you. If you want the company.”
Flora seems to think about it.
She thinks about her life. All the moments she can remember. She thinks about Dani, as much as it hurts, she remembers her face and her voice, her laugh, the way she said her name. She thinks about all the things Jamie has done for her. All the moments that have made their lives.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Thank you.”
“Always, my love. We’ll live a life she’d be proud. I promise.”