The Language of Flowers Read Free Page B

corner, walking up the front steps only when her white car wasn’t parked in the driveway. Eventually she divined my tactic, and in early September I unlocked the front door to find her sitting at the dining room table.
    “Where’s your car?” I demanded.
    “Parked around the block,” she said. “I haven’t seen you in over a month, so I figured you must be avoiding me. Is there a reason?”
    “No reason.” I walked to the table and pushed someone’s dirty dishes out of the way. Sitting down, I placed fistfuls of lavender—which I haduprooted from a front yard in Pacific Heights—on the scratched wood between us. “Lavender,” I said, handing her a sprig.
Mistrust
.
    Meredith spun the sprig between her thumb and forefinger and set it down, uninterested. “Job?” she asked.
    “What job?”
    “Do you have one?”
    “Why would I have one?”
    Meredith sighed. She picked up the lavender I’d given her and launched it, tip first, in my direction. It nose-dived like a poorly constructed paper airplane. Snatching it off the table, I smoothed its ruffled petals with a careful thumb.
    “You would have one,” Meredith said, “because you’ve looked for one, and applied, and been hired. Because if you don’t, you’ll be out on the street in six weeks, and there won’t be anyone opening their door for you on a cold night.”
    I looked to the front door, wondering how much longer until she’d leave.
    “You have to want it,” Meredith said. “I can only do so much. At the end of the day, you have to want it.”
    Want what?
I always wondered when she said this. I wanted Meredith to leave. I wanted to drink the milk on the top shelf of the refrigerator labeled LORRAINE and add the empty jug to the collection in my room. I wanted to plant the lavender near my pillow and go to sleep inhaling the cool, dry scent.
    Meredith stood. “I’ll be back next week when you least expect me, and I want to see a thick stack of job applications in your backpack.” She paused at the door. “It’ll be hard for me to put you out on the street, but you should know that I’ll do it.”
    I did not believe it would be hard.
    I walked into the kitchen and opened the freezer, poking through egg rolls and frostbitten corn dogs until I heard the front door close.
    I spent my final weeks at The Gathering House transplanting my bedroom garden into McKinley Square, a small city park at the top ofPotrero Hill. I’d found it while pacing the streets for help-wanted signs, and been distracted by the park’s perfect combination of sun, shade, solitude, and safety. Potrero Hill was one of the warmest neighborhoods in the city, and the park was located at a peak, with a clear view in every direction. A small, sandy play structure sat in the middle of a manicured square of lawn, but behind the lawn the park became forested and steep, tumbling downhill in a tangle of shrubs overlooking San Francisco General Hospital and a brewery. Instead of continuing my job search, I’d transported my jugs one at a time to the secluded spot. I chose the location for each planting thoughtfully—shade-loving plants under tall trees, those desiring sun a dozen yards down the hill, out of the shadows.
    The morning of my eviction I awoke before dawn. My room was empty, the floor still damp and dirty in patches where the milk jugs had been. My imminent homelessness had not been a conscious decision; yet, rising to dress on the morning I was to be turned out onto the street, I was surprised to find that I was not afraid. Where I had expected fear, or anger, I was filled with nervous anticipation, the feeling similar to what I’d experienced as a young girl, on the eve of each new adoptive placement. Now, as an adult, my hopes for the future were simple: I wanted to be alone, and to be surrounded by flowers. It seemed, finally, that I might get exactly what I wanted.
    My room was empty except for three sets of clothes, my backpack, a toothbrush, hair gel, and