Speaking in Flowers
All the townsfolk are abed and asleep save for those who rise at sunset and grow lethargic at the sun's return. Oh, and Timothy.
The boy lies awake and watches a shaft of moonlight make its slow way across his room. Sleep will not come. He closes his eyes and rolls onto his side, counts sheep with pink wool coats until he forgets what number he has reached and is forced to start over. Still, sleep will not claim him.
A face so lovely it would make the night jealous keeps him awake. Pale eyes, rosy cheeks, a smile to break any man’s heart. He wonders if she knows.
Come dawn, with only a few hours of sleep stolen from the night, Timothy rises and puts on his smartest clothes. They are not much. His one waistcoat does not match his jacket and is falling apart at the seams. His good boots are only a touch less scuffed than his regular pair. No one could ever call his clothes fine, yet he wears them with only the smallest dent in his pride. He makes sure to wash his face – even behind his ears – and to scrub the dirt from his hands. Finally, he runs a comb through his unruly curls. He is far from perfect, but it will have to do.
Today is one of rest. He is not needed in the fields and so he takes the opportunity to visit one of the florists on the main thoroughfare. A second inside is enough to set off his hay fever. He pushes through it with red eyes that make rivers of his cheeks.
The shop assistant is kind. She listens to his requests with a smile and then takes him round the shop so he can select the flowers for his gift. Nothing fancy, but he buys what he can afford; lavender and lilacs, one peony and a sprig of baby’s breath. The florist explains each scent to him in turn.
By the time he leaves, bouquet in hand, his eyes are red and puffy to the point where several people stop him in the street to ask after his health. Timothy thanks them all with grace. He assures them he is well – the best he has ever been, in fact. It is a relief to step beyond the houses onto the little dirt track that runs up the low hill. No one else is on the path today.
Rows of grey stones greet him at the crest of the hill. He plucks a lilac from the bunch and lays it at his mother’s grave, tells the air he hopes she is proud of him, then walks on towards the gravedigger’s hut where it sits beneath a large beech tree. The man himself is at work nearby. He lays down his shovel when Timothy approaches. The gravedigger takes in his appearance and raises an eyebrow at the flowers.
His daughter sits at the foot of the beech tree darning cloth. He leads Timothy to her. She works by touch alone, pale eyes blind to the world, and yet her skill with the needle is unrivalled by any sighted weaver. Her father gently takes the cloth, the needle, and the thread from her hands, sets them in her basket, and draws her to her feet. He traces Timothy’s name on her open palm.
Is that a smile on her lips?
The boy gingerly holds out his bouquet. He has wiped his eyes while climbing the hill, but he is at this moment grateful she cannot see how red his face still is.
Cora holds the flowers to her nose and inhales. Without her hearing or her sight, she has learned a hundred other ways to communicate, and though not everyone knows her language, it is enough for her. Now Timothy speaks through the scents of the flowers, and the shy smile Cora wears grows brighter than the sun.