Chapter 2 – Annie

Clara stood at the counter while the Wyoming October was going about its business. Two years of Fridays, and she had not known. Something about that—about a man who brought wildflowers to someone who could no longer receive them every Friday without explanation—stayed with her for the rest of that afternoon.

Annie Hail had died in the spring of 1881. The baby came too early, and by the time Thomas reached town, the doctor had already run out of hopeful things to say. Annie had held on through the night, holding Thomas’s hand through the last hour. She had been twenty-six years old. The baby, a boy they had decided to name James after Annie’s grandfather, had not survived the night either.

Thomas had buried them together—his decision, the right one—in the small cemetery on the hill east of Millfield, with a view of the mountains Annie had loved since she was a girl growing up in this same valley. He had been bringing her wildflowers since the first spring after. Not because anyone told him to, but because Annie had loved wildflowers. She had told him once, early in their marriage, that roses were for people who needed to show off, and wildflowers were for people who actually paid attention. He had been paying attention every Friday for three years.

Bennett’s flower shop was not the first place he had come for flowers. The first year, he had gathered what he could from the hillsides himself. But Bennett’s opened in the spring of 1882, and Clara Bennett sold wildflowers when the season allowed, seeds and herbs when it did not, dried wreaths and arrangements for the church, and nearly every funeral piece placed on a grave within twenty miles of Millfield.

Thomas had started coming in the first summer and had not stopped. The town of Millfield knew about Annie; small towns remember. What the town had not paid much attention to was Thomas himself: the quality of a man who works alone, does his necessary business, and carries something that doesn’t show unless you know where to look.

Clara Bennett had been looking. She had not known what she was looking at until the Friday she asked. But by the following Friday, she had already decided what to do about it.

The next Friday, Thomas came in at half past three. As usual, Clara had set out what she had: the same late asters, some white clover, and something she had not included the week before—a few stems of dried lavender from the bunch she kept for wreaths.

Thomas looked at the arrangement. He looked at her. “You added something,” he said.

“Lavender,” she said. “I thought she might have liked it. I wasn’t sure.”

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He was quiet for a moment, looking at the lavender. “She loved it,” he said.

Clara began wrapping the bouquet. “It keeps longer than the asters. It’ll last the week.”