"I do, actually. I'm a florist."
"Really?" Her eyes beam.
"Yes, I own the flower shop in town. The Wildflower and Vine."
Sophie considers this with the gravity of someone deciding whether to trust me a secret. "My mom said she bought flowers there for her wedding. I had a basket and I threw petals everywhere."
"Did she like them?" I ask, silently praying those petals didn't get pruned from my floral displays.
"She cried that day." Sophie pauses. "She said she was so happy to be with my dad."
This is quite the endorsement, so I take it.
The woods open up after about ten minutes of walking, the trail widening into a meadow that catches the mid-morning sun. Black-eyed Susans scatter across the field in bright bursts, and as we step into the clearing, I catch a thread of something minty and sweet on the breeze.
"Okay, everyone," I say, pitching my voice to carry. "Who wants to learn about wild bergamot?"
Hands shoot up. Nice, I'll take the enthusiasm.
I crouch down near a cluster of purple flowers, their tubular blooms reaching toward the light. "This is monarda fistulosa, but we call it wild bergamot or bee balm. See how the petals look like little tubes? That's because it's designed for pollinators with long tongues, like bees, hummingbirds, butterflies."
Sophie leans in, her braids swinging forward. "Can you eat it?"
"You can make tea with it. It tastes a little like oregano mixed with mint."
"Can we try it?" A boy asks.
"Let's not eat the wildflowers today," I say gently. "But if you come by the shop sometime, I'll show you some dried bergamot you can smell."
This satisfies them, or at least redirects them, and we spend the next twenty minutes moving through the meadow. I point out coneflowers, goldenrod in its early green stage, a patch of milkweed that makes me mentally note to collect seeds later for the shop. The kids ask questions that range from genuinely curious ("Why do bees like purple best?") to deeply weird ("If I ate enough flowers, would I turn into one?"), and I answer them all with enthusiasm.
Sarah circulates between the groups, and when the kids scatter to examine a fallen log, she drifts over to me.
"This is wonderful," she says, shading her eyes against the sun. "You're a natural with them."
"I like this age. They're curious about everything."
"And it's even nicer when they're actually paying attention." She laughs. "I had a similar field trip in Pine Hollow last year and my class spent the entire day trying to catch frogs. Didn't listen to a single word I said."
We walk in comfortable silence for a moment, now checking on the kids from the rear. The woods around us hum with spring life, birds, insects, the rustle of small animals in the underbrush.
"So," Sarah says, her tone shifting to something more conversational, "I hear you're packed up with Pack Leroy."
I blink. "Sorry?"
"Mason, Arthur, and Knox." She smiles. "News travelled."
"Right." I try to arrange my face into something neutral. "Yeah. I—um. We're together."
"Well, good for them," she says. "They're such good people. I was really happy when I heard." She glances at me. "I don't know how much they've told you, but they were devastated when theirlast relationship ended." She shakes her head. "The whole town felt for them."
She lets that hang, the silence punctuated only by the rhythmic thud of our shoes on the pavement for half a dozen steps.
"Anyway," she says, her voice regaining its bounce. "I'm glad things are looking up for them. They deserve it."
She wanders off to redirect a child who's attempting to climb a tree, leaving me standing in the meadow with a cluster of black-eyed Susans and a new knot tightening in my chest.
I find myself staring at the patch without really seeing it, turning the same question over in my mind: Would they take Jessica back if she came running?
