Chapter 9 â What Annie Would Say
âIâll tell her you said thank you,â he said.
Clara looked at him. She understood, not literally, but in the way of a man who had carried someone he loved long enough to know what she would have said.
She looked at the letter in her hand. âTell her,â she said.
He did on Friday. Clara was not there, but she thought about it that afternoon in the shop, in the way you think about someone you have never met and somehow know.
The Denver supplierâs reply had contained something Clara had not told Thomasânot a simple partnership agreement, but a position: seasonal, well-paid, in Denver itself. Someone to oversee flower sourcing for four months in spring, working directly with the growers. It was the kind of opportunity that did not come to Millfield. It would require her to leave in February.
She had been holding this information for two weeks, looking at it in the evenings after Thomas left on Sundays, turning it over the way you turn over something you do not know what to do with. She wanted to go. She also knew, with the specific clarity of someone who has been paying careful attention, what it would mean to leave.
On a Sunday in January, she told him. Thomas read the second page of the letter, set it down, and looked at the table. Then he said the thing Clara had hoped he would not say: âYou should go.â
She looked at him. âThatâs what you think?â
May you like
âItâs what Annie would have said,â he said. âDonât keep something small because youâre afraid of what happens if it grows.â
Clara was quiet for a moment. âThomas,â she said.
