AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Now don’t take that attitude with me,” my mother said. “We’re the ones taking care of you.”
“Ah, and now I remember why I moved out so young,” I said.
“Shut up,” my sister said.
“You first.”
I turned myself around and wheeled into the adjacent room. I had just enough energy to reach back and slam the door behind me. It was a small room. Meant for nothing but entertaining and business. There was a small wet bar in the corner and a few leather couches. The smell of cigar smoke was still thick in here after all these years my father had been dead. The heavy wooden doors cut the room off from the library our house had and it was cozy. A place my father took many of his business associates to offer drinks, cigars, and opportune business connections.
A room that hadn’t been used since he passed and handed the company to me.
I closed my eyes and inhaled the smoke-scented air. It was a smell I’d come to identify with my father. His suits were tinted with the smell of tobacco and he would constantly chew mint gum so my mother could tolerate kissing him after one of those meetings.
Tobacco and mint.
The essence of my father.
I backed my wheelchair into a corner and stared blankly at the bar. I could see him leaning against it, clinking glasses with my mother as the two of them smiled. Happy and in love. Way before my father’s life was senselessly ripped away from us. A damn car accident on the other side of the fucking world. Burst into flames and charred his body beyond reason. We had to fly over there and have the rest of his remains cremated.
There wasn’t enough of him to ship back to have buried.
I was lucky, and I knew that. I was lucky to be alive, much less moving in a wheelchair. But it wasn’t the life I wanted. And I was angry that I couldn’t have the life I wanted. Not without more surgery and twelve other nurses and the bickering of my family and those fucking pity flowers.
My only solace were those beautiful eyes behind the bouquet.
Beautiful eyes that probably sang for another man in bed at night.
A man stronger than me.
A man who wasn’t stuck like me.
Fuck.
I hated my life.
Chapter Four
Grace
I continued to deliver flowers over the course of the next two weeks everyday. For two months, it was six times a week. And now, all of a sudden, it was everyday. The same arrangement with the same flowers in the same type of vase. I wasn’t sure why, but the prospect excited me. Writing that man more notes in the hopes that it was doing something positive for him made me smile. We were having to outsource our orchids from another florist across town, but it was worth it. I’d come in early, pick them up, and get to arranging them along with the lilies and the greenery.
Every day for two weeks.
But this time, things were a little different.
I drove out to the house, knocked on the door, and was greeted with a very tired mother. I’d come to get to know her a bit. Her story and how her son had gotten into the position he was in. She told me he enjoyed the flowers. That the backyard was a passion project between her late husband and her son for almost two years. The flowers in his room and around the house were her way of bringing the outdoors to him since he wasn’t interested in going outside of his own volition.
Which didn’t surprise me.
The man was obviously depressed.
However, when she opened the door she seemed more tired than usual.
“Where would you like them?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” his mother said. “Anywhere’s fine.”
I walked into the house with my brow furrowed. At the very least, his mother always had a smile to offer. A kind word or a thanks. But her shoulders were slumped and her feet were dragging and it seemed as if she couldn’t keep her eyes open.
