The Spare Phone Held Years Of Spare Love Chapter 10

The Spare Phone Held Years Of Spare Love Chapter 10

The town was even smaller than I had imagined. 

It took twenty minutes by cab from the train station to the center of town. 

The driver was a woman in her fifties, and she pointed things out to me the whole way. 

“That’s the farmers‘ market. Best stuff is in the 

morning. That’s the urgent care clinic, good 

enough for anything minor. And that’s the 

elementary school. They just renovated it this 

year.” 

She looked at me through the rearview mirror. 

“Here for vacation?” 

“To open a shop.” 

“What kind of shop?” 

“I haven’t decided yet.” 

She laughed. 

“Then settle in first. You can figure it out slowly.” 

The cab stopped in front of a three–story building. 

There was a storefront downstairs and living 

space upstairs. 

The agent was waiting by the door and handed me 

the keys. 

“Ms. Bennett, just like you asked. South–facing storefront, with enough room out front for 

flowers.” 

I took the keys and stood inside the empty shop. 

The three o’clock sunlight slanted through the 

glass door, cutting clean squares of light across. 

the floor. 

Dust drifted slowly in the beams. 

It was so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. 

Later, I opened a flower shop. 

It was not big, but there was enough room for a cooler, a worktable, and an old wicker chair. 

The chair had been left by the landlord. A few strips of wicker were broken, so I wrapped them. with twine. 

I made my flower runs at four in the morning. 

( 

The wholesale flower market was on the north 

side of town, twenty minutes away by e–bike. 

Winter mornings were cold. My fingers would go. 

numb, and I had to soak the stems in buckets for 

a long time before I could cut them properly. 

But I liked that ride before dawn. 

The sky would still be dark, the streetlights 

glowing amber, and the only vehicles on the road 

were delivery vans and produce trucks. 

The wind was cold. 

The flowers were fresh. 

I never put up a sign with the shop’s name. 

When people asked, I said I had not thought of one 

yet. 

Regular customers called me Claire. 

They didn’t know where I came from, and no one 

asked. 

People in that town didn’t pry too much into other 

people’s pasts. 

The jasmine plant by the door was a gift from Mr. Cooper during my first month in business. 

He repaired bicycles next door. His hair was gray, and he said his daughter lived out of town too. 

“This one’s easy to keep alive,” he said as he 

helped me move the pot into the sun. “It blooms in 

summer. Smells beautiful.” 

That summer, the jasmine produced seventeen 

blossoms. 

At night, after closing, I sat in the wicker chair and 

counted them. 

When I finished counting, I gathered the white petals that had fallen onto the leaves into my 

palm. 

Later, I used those petals to make a little sachet. 

I hung it by the window. Whenever the wind came 

in, there was a faint sweetness in the air. 

The money from Laurel arrived the following 

spring. 

Three hundred forty–five thousand dollars. 

She had sold the condo and the car. She had also 

sold all the jewelry, bags, and clothes Ethan had given her over the years. 

There were only a few words in the transfer note. 

[Debt settled. Do not reply.] 

I didn’t touch the money. 

I put it in a separate account as a certificate of 

deposit. 

The interest was not much, but it was enough to 

buy flower seedlings. 

I heard a little about Ethan after that. 

He was suspended from the institute, then 

resigned. 

Laurel didn’t stay with him. 

She had taken his condo, his car, and the six 

hundred thousand dollars he had given her. 

Those were mistakes she could not deny. 

But in the end, at least she didn’t keep the man she 

had called Mr. Bennett for eight years. 

Last winter, Mr. Cooper asked me, “Ms. Bennett, 

you’re here all by yourself. Doesn’t your family 

worry about you?” 

I was trimming thorns from a rose, and my 

scissors paused. 

“No one’s left to worry.” 

He didn’t ask again and bent back over the bicycle 

he was repairing. 

But that was not really true. 

My father worried about me. From wherever he was, he had been worrying for five years. 

Ethan worried about me too. 

The court had valued his concern at five hundred fifty thousand dollars. 

One evening in June, just before closing, the wind 

chime by the door rang. 

My back was to the entrance as I washed the 

pruning shears by the sink. 

“No lilies left today,” I said. “Come back tomorrow.” 

No one answered. 

I turned. 

A little girl stood in the doorway. 

She was about five, with a ponytail and a red 

backpack. 

Something was clenched in her hand. 

I set down the shears. 

“Who are you looking for?” 

She looked at me. 

Then she lowered her head and unfolded the 

paper in her hand. 

It was a page torn from a sketchbook. 

On it was a drawing of a jasmine plant. 

The lines were crooked, the petals colored white, the leaves colored green. 

In the lower right corner, one uneven name had 

been written: [Nellie.] 

Wind blew in through the doorway. 

The wind chime rang again. 

The jasmine plant by the door had produced 

nineteen blossoms that year. 

I wiped my hands on my apron and crouched 

down. 

“Did you come by yourself?” 

She shook her head. 

“Mommy’s at the corner.” 

I stood. 

Through the glass door, I saw someone standing 

across the street. 

She looked older than she had five years ago. Her 

hair was cut short, and she wore a gray shirt. Her 

hands were empty. 

She didn’t come closer. 

She only stood there, watching from a distance. 

I looked down. 

The little girl was still staring at me. 

“Ma’am,” she said, “Mommy asked me to ask you.” 

“Can I have this jasmine plant?” 

The jasmine by the door swayed gently in the 

evening wind. 

White petals, green leaves, nineteen blossoms. 

I stood there for a long time, until the sunset faded 

from gold to gray and the streetlights came on 

one by one. 

Then I picked up the pot and handed it to her. 

“Hold it carefully.” 

She took it with both hands and hugged it to her 

chest as if it were a small animal. 

“Thank you, ma’am.” 

She turned and ran across the street. 

She ran fast, her ponytail bouncing with each step. 

The red backpack flashed under the streetlights with each step. 

I stood in the doorway and watched her reach that 

woman. 

Her mother bent down and took the flowerpot 

from her, then lifted her head. 

Across one street. 

Across five years. 

Across three hundred forty–five thousand dollars. 

Across the letter I had never truly answered. 

She looked at me and gave a small nod. 

The wind chime rang again. 

I turned and walked back into the shop. 

The glass door closed slowly behind me. 

The water for tomorrow’s flowers was still soaking 

in the sink. 

The pruning shears were clean, resting on a towel. 

The wicker chair stood by the window, with the evening light falling across it from the same angle 

as always. 

Everything was the same. 

Everything had changed. 

I sat down in the wicker chair. 

The jasmine by the door was gone, but its scent 

was still in the wind.