Back on Blossom Street (Blossom Street #4)(2)
The ceiling above me creaked and I knew Colette was up. Colette Blake rented the small apartment over the shop. For the first two years, that tiny apartment was my home, my very first home away from family.
After I married Brad, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the apartment. It stood empty for a while. Then I met Colette, and I’d known instantly that she’d be the perfect tenant. The apartment would console her, give her a place to regain her emotional balance. A bonus—for me—is that she looks after Whiskers on my days off. My cat is a much-loved feature in my store, which he considers his home. I’ve had customers stop by just to visit him. He often sleeps in the front window, curling up in the afternoon sun. Whiskers generates lots of comments—and smiles. Pets have a way of connecting people to life’s uncomplicated joys.
Colette reminds me of myself three years ago, when I first opened the store. I met her shortly before Christmas, when Susannah Nelson, who owns the flower shop next door, brought her over to meet me. It wasn’t cancer that shook her world, though. It was death. Colette is a thirty-one-year-old widow. Her husband, Derek, a Seattle policeman, died a little over a year ago. When I mention that, people usually assume Derek was killed in the line of duty. Not so. Following a Seattle downpour, he climbed on the roof to repair a leak. No one knows exactly how it happened but apparently Derek slipped and fell. He died two days later of massive head injuries.
In the weeks since she’d moved here, Colette had only referred to the accident once, as if even talking about her husband was difficult. I’ve learned that she’s an easygoing person who laughs readily and yet at times her grief seemed palpable. Overwhelming. I understood how she felt. I remembered all too well that sense of anguish, that terror of what might happen tomorrow or the next day. Colette approached life fearfully, just the way I once did. I longed to reassure her, and I hoped my friendship provided some pleasure and solace. Friends like Jacqueline and Alix had done the same for me.
The apartment has an outside entrance, as well as the one leading into the store. Susannah Nelson had hired Colette soon after Susannah purchased what used to be known as Fanny’s Floral. Colette’s mother once owned a flower shop, and Colette had worked there as a high-school student. Her house sold practically the day it was listed, and Colette needed to move quickly. My tiny apartment was vacant, so we struck a deal. I assumed she wouldn’t be there long. Most of her belongings were in storage and she was taking the next few months to decide where she’d live and what she’d do.
The stairs creaked as she ventured down. Since Colette became my tenant, we sometimes shared a pot of tea in the mornings. She was always respectful of my time and I enjoyed our leisurely chats.
“Tea’s ready.” I reached for a clean cup. Without asking, I filled it and held it out.
“Thanks.” Colette smiled as she took the tea.
She was thin—too thin, really. Her clothes were a bit loose, but with her aptitude for style she cleverly disguised it. I noticed, though, as someone who’s done the same thing. Part of what I liked about her was the fact that she was lovely without seeming consciously aware of it. Despite her occasional silences, Colette was warm and personable, and I could see she’d be a success at whatever she chose. She hadn’t said much about the job she’d left, but I gathered it was a far more demanding position than helping customers in a flower shop.
This job change obviously had something to do with her husband’s death. She told me he’d died a year ago January fourteenth. She’d waited for the year to pass before making major changes in her life—selling her home, moving, quitting her job. These changes seem drastic in some ways and completely understandable in others.
Colette wore her long, dark hair parted in the middle. It fell straight to her shoulders, where it curved under. She seemed to achieve this effect naturally—unlike some women, who spend hours taming their hair with gel and spray.
In the short time she’d been here, Colette had made a positive impression on everyone she met. Everyone except my sister. Margaret, being Margaret, shied away from Colette, instinctively distrusting her. My sister’s like that; she tends to be a naysayer. She insisted that renting out the apartment had been a huge mistake. In Margaret’s eyes, a tenant, any tenant, wasn’t to be trusted. She appeared to think Colette would sneak into the shop in the middle of the night and steal every skein of yarn I owned, then hock them on the streets and use the money for drugs. I smiled whenever I thought about that, since not only did I trust Colette, I have a fairly expensive alarm system.
Margaret is, to put it mildly, protective of me. She’s older and tends to assume more responsibility than is warranted. It’s taken me a long time to understand my sister and even longer to appreciate her, but that’s a different story.
Colette held the teacup close to her mouth and paused. “Derek would’ve turned thirty-three today,” she said quietly. She stared into the distance, then looked back at me.
I nodded, encouraging her to talk. She’d only told me about Derek that one other time. I believed, based on my own experience, that the more she shared her pain, the less it would hurt. “Derek wanted children…. We’d been trying, but I didn’t get pregnant and now…”
“I’m sure you’ll have children one day,” I told her. I was confident that she wouldn’t be alone for the rest of her life, that she’d marry again and probably have children.