When the flower shop called, the first thing I felt was anger. Not grief. Anger. I want to be honest about that because it’s the part I’m most ashamed of now. The girl on the phone said, “Mrs. Reeves, your husband had a standing order with us. Monthly roses.

Prepaid twelve years out.” And I just stood there in my kitchen with the dish towel in my hand thinking, twelve years. Jim died eleven months ago, and in thirty-one years of marriage that man never once brought me a single flower.

So I said it. “He never sent me roses.” Kind of cold. And the woman, her name was Donna, she got real careful with her voice. “Ma’am,” she said. “They weren’t for you.” I didn’t say anything. She read me the delivery address like she was reading something off a wall she didn’t want to be looking at. Sunrise Assisted Living. A woman named Grace. Room 14.

I’m not proud of what I did with that information. I want to make excuses but there aren’t any. I got in the car. My hands were shaking on the wheel and the whole drive over I built her up in my head. Some woman. Some long thing he’d kept going behind my back. I had thirty years of marriage flashing through me and every nice thing he ever did was turning sour as I drove, like maybe none of it had been real. I almost called my daughter Katie. I didn’t. I wanted to be wrong before anybody else knew I’d thought it.

Here’s the thing about Jim. He read to our girls every single night. Katie and Lauren, all the way up till they were too old for it and even then he’d sit on the edge of the bed.

He used to run his finger under the words while he read. I always thought that was just a habit. I teased him about it once and he kind of laughed it off and changed the subject. I didn’t think about it again for thirty years. I’m thinking about it now.

The place smelled like cafeteria food and floor cleaner. A nurse pointed me down a hall. I was still angry when I got to that door, I really was, my whole speech ready in my mouth. Then I pushed it open and there was just this tiny old woman in the bed. White hair. Big glasses that made her eyes look soft and huge. And a vase of red roses on the nightstand, fresh ones, this month’s I guess. She turned and looked at me and before I could get one word out she smiled like she’d been expecting me my whole life.

“You must be Jim’s wife,” she said.