“A smart woman.”

Mari nodded. “I should’ve kept living by her rules after she passed away—maybe then I could’ve avoided Parker.” Her eyes grew heavy for a few seconds before she blinked away her pain and smiled. She hardly talked about Parker since he’d left her over two years ago, but whenever she did, it was as if a cloud of sadness hovered above her. She fought the cloud, though, and never let it release rain for her to wallow in. She did her best to be happy, and for the most part she was, though there were seconds of pain sometimes.

Seconds when she remembered, seconds when she blamed herself, seconds when she felt lonely. Seconds when she allowed her heart to break before she swiftly started piecing it back together.

With every second of hurt, Mari made it her duty to find a minute of happiness.

“Well, you’re living by her rules now, which is better than never, right?” I said, trying to help her get rid of the cloud above her.

“Right!” she cheered, her eyes finding their joy again. It was odd how feelings worked, how a person could be sad one second and happy another. What amazed me the most was how a person could be both things all within the same second. I believed Mari had a pinch of both emotions in that moment, a little bit of sadness intermingled with her joy.

I thought that was a beautiful way to live.

“So, shall we get to work?” I asked, standing up from my chair. Mari moaned, annoyed, but agreed as she dragged herself back out to her bicycle and started pedaling to our shop.

Monet’s Gardens was mine and my sister’s dream come to life. The shop was fashioned after the paintings of my favorite artist, Claude Monet. When Mari and I finally made it to Europe, I planned to spend a lot of time standing in Monet’s Gardens in Giverny, France.

Prints of his artwork were scattered around the shop, and at times we’d shape floral arrangements to match the paintings. After we signed our lives away with bank loans, Mari and I worked our butts off to open the shop, and it came together swimmingly over time. We almost didn’t even get the shop, but Mari came through with a final loan she tried for. Even though it was a lot of work and took up so much time I never even considered having a social life, I couldn’t really complain about spending my days surrounded by flowers.

The building was small, but big enough to have dozens of different types of flowers, like parrot tulips, lilies, poppies, and of course, roses. We catered to all kinds of functions too; my favorites were weddings, and the worst were funerals.

Today was one of the worst, and it was my turn to drive the delivery truck to drop off the order.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do the Garrett wedding and you do the Russell funeral?” I asked, getting all the white gladiolus bulbs and white roses organized to move into the truck. The person who’d passed away must’ve been very loved, based on the number of arrangements ordered. There were dozens of white roses for the casket spray, five different cross easels with sashes that said ‘Father’ across them, and dozens of random bouquets to be placed around the church.

It amazed me how beautiful flowers for such a sad occasion could be.

“No, I’m sure. I can help you load up the van, though,” Mari said, lifting up one of the arrangements and heading back to the alleyway where our delivery van was parked.

“If you do the funeral today, I’ll stop dragging you to hot yoga each morning.”

She snickered. “If I had a penny for every time I’d heard that, I’d already be in Europe.”

“No, I swear! No more sweating at six in the morning.”

“That’s a lie.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s a lie.”

“And, no more putting off our trip to Europe. We are officially going next summer, right?” she asked, her eyes narrowed.

I groaned. Ever since she got sick two years ago, I’d been putting off taking our trip. My brain knew that she was better, she was healthy and strong, but a small part of my heart feared traveling so far from home with the possibility of something going wrong with her health in a different country.

I swallowed hard and agreed. She smiled wide, pleased, and walked into the back room.

“Which church am I even going to today?” I wondered out loud, jumping onto the computer to pull up the file. I paused and narrowed my eyes as I read the words: UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.

“Mari,” I hollered. “This says it’s at the arena downtown…is that right?”

She hurried back into the room and peered at the computer then shrugged. “Wow. That explains all the flowers.” She ran her hands through her hair, and I smiled. Every time she did that, my heart overflowed with joy. Her growing hair was a reminder of her growing life, of how lucky we were to be in the place we were. I was so happy the flowers in the truck weren’t for her.

“Yeah, but who has a funeral at an arena?” I asked, confused.

“Must be someone important.”

I shrugged, not thinking too much of it. I arrived at the arena two hours before the ceremony to get everything set up, and the outside of the building was already surrounded with numerous people. I swore there had to be hundreds crowding the downtown streets of Milwaukee, and police officers paced the area.

Individuals were writing notes and posting them on the front steps; some cried while others were engaged in deep conversations.

As I drove the van around to the back to unload the flowers, I was denied access to the actual building by one of the arena workers. He pushed the door open and used his body to block my entrance. “Excuse me, you can’t come in here,” the man told me. “VIP access only.” He had a large headset around his neck, and the way he slightly closed the door behind him to avoid me peering inside made me suspicious.

“Oh, no, I’m just dropping off the flowers for the service,” I started to explain, and he rolled his eyes.

“More flowers?” he groaned, and then he pointed to another door. “The flower drop off is around the corner, third door. You can’t miss it,” he said flatly.

“Okay. Hey, whose funeral is this exactly?” I asked. I stood on my tiptoes and tried to get a peek of what was happening inside.

He shot me a dirty look filled with annoyance. “Around the corner,” he barked before slamming the door shut. I yanked on the door once and frowned.

Locked.

One day I’d stop being so nosey, but obviously that day wasn’t today.