Death and Flowers

My grandfather had collected an impressive assortment of monsters in his lifetime, but none were as impressive as my mother, his eldest daughter. Even dressed for a funeral, she glided through the crowd like a graceful predator. And before I could edge further from the fray of condolence-wielding socialites, she pinned me with a sharklike smile. I froze.

She called my name as she wove her way to me, her syrupy voice pitched just loud enough to turn a few heads.

I greeted her with a thin smile as she wrapped her long fingers around my wrist in a parody of kindness.

“Are you happy with your share?” She asked, leaning in.

As if she hadn’t already been the recipient of most of grandfather’s assets. As if the inheritance were just another return from her aggressive investment portfolio.

“Of course,” I answered in the soft, unassuming voice I knew she hated.

“He left you just enough to cover your tuition,” she hummed. “You’d settle for anything, would’t you?”

“It’s what grandfather wanted,” I replied, my arm tightening over the purse I clutched to my side.

The edges of her manicured nails dug into my wrist for a heartbeat.

“Your ambition never fails to underwhelm,” she sighed, releasing me to seek more worthwhile acquaintances.

I let out the breath I’d been holding, my thoughts going to the little black book that I’d furtively pushed into my purse before she’d cornered me. Just a moment ago, grandfather’s attorney had pressed the book into my hand and whispered the strangest of instructions before striding off without a backward glance.

From your grandfather.

Open it at home.

Don’t let your mother see it.

My grandfather. Eclectic story teller. World traveller. Dramatic prankster, even after his death. He would have hated everything about this place. I shook my head as I turned to leave the funeral reception.

I pulled on my coat as I shouldered my way out. I paused to inhale the crisp, Montreal winter air as I shook off the smell of death and flowers. Even though my fingers itched to pull out my grandfather’s notebook, I ignored my curiosity until I had climbed the steep metal staircase to my second floor apartment. Shedding my coat and boots as soon as I was inside, I rushed to my kitchen table and upended the contents of my purse.

With trembling hands, I lifted the black notebook and pressed my nose to the supple cover. It still smelled of him; coconut oil and and coffee. Swallowing the lump of grief in my throat, I lowered the journal, running one fingertip over the curving lines of his name, which was stamped in silver foil on the black leather cover. I turned the notebook over carefully, examining the rounded edges. I smiled fondly as I snapped the elastic closure band against the cover, remembering how my grandfather used to close his many notebooks with the same flourish.

Sinking into a chair, I opened the book. A plastic card slipped from the pages and clattered on the tabletop, but I ignored it. My eyes were fixed on the note in my grandfather’s neat cursive.

This is a trip I wanted to take with you. Enjoy in August. Find the flowers.

I flipped through the pages. It was an itinerary of sorts, with an international address every few pages. The ivory pages were mostly blank, but some were punctuated by his personal travel notes and rough sketches.

This was a trip we could take together. Sort of.

I picked up the plastic card and gasped. It was a prepaid credit card for twenty thousand dollars. Excitement bubbled, displacing the shard of sadness twisting between my ribs.

As I counted down the months to summer, I researched every location, greedily devouring every anecdote that my grandfather had penned.

My trip was a flurry of bustling international airports, scenic train rides, and picturesque landscapes. I soaked up each and every anecdote in the book. I added my own stories too, and sketched out little pictures of my favourite sights.

To me, England was ivy crawling up stone walls of castles in sprawling pastures. This is a Tudor castle, I thought as I meandered through the walled rose garden of Thornbury Castle. I wondered what monsters my grandfather had learned about in Great Britain.

“Boggarts are mischievous little monsters,” he had told me when I was little. “They’ll make your milk go sour - even quicker than your mother’s glare!”

The island of Mallorca was sand dunes, turquoise water, and a lively nightlife. I laughed when I found the flowers at the Abaco cocktail bar in Palma. I sat and drew pictures of the overflowing displays of fruit and flowers that surrounded me as I toasted my grandfather.

Edinburgh was cobblestone alleys, castles, and rolling hills. I found the poems memorialized on Rose Street and copied each one into the notebook.

“Sweetheart, your mother might disown you,” my grandfather had said, “But study literature anyway. Ignore your mother. She’s like a kelpie, trying to lure you away to drown you.”

Brussels was canals, multi-storied guild houses, and chocolate. My breath caught at the sight of the flower carpet in the Grand-Place. I smiled to myself as I remembered grandfather’s notebook full of mythological plants.

“Watch for the chernova ruta, sweetheart,” he’d said. “It has yellow or red blooms and it’s said to bring good luck to anyone who picks it.”

Krakow was a medieval market square and food markets with smoked cheese and sausage. I explored the flower markets but knew from one of my grandfather’s sketches that he’d intended for me to see another scene, one he’d not explained when we had visited Poland together when I was eight. I’d asked about the infamous camp, and he’d refused to take me then . Now an adult, I looked at the wall of Block 11 and the rows of flowers in front of it.

“There were true monsters here,” he’d said. And even then, I’d known that his thoughts had drifted far away from me to the horrors in the fields of Auschwitz and back to the darkness of the Japanese occupation of the islands.

I remembered a row of red-bound notebooks in his library. Books with black-and-white photos tucked between tear-stained pages filled with memories, sketches, and the names of disappeared relatives. When he’d caught me leafing through the notebooks, he’d simply said, someday you’ll tell your own stories, and I hope they’re happier than mine.

And then Canada. Canada was home.

I almost laughed aloud when I saw my rental car at the airport south of Edmonton.

Wild Rose Country, I mused silently as I followed the GPS directions to the final stop in my grandfather’s itinerary, having only spent a third of his money.

I pulled up to a stately, three-storey home and stared at it for a full five minutes before mustering the courage to leave the car. 5 Alexander Circle. I checked the address for the thousandth time as I shuffled up the path to the front porch. I rang the doorbell and straightened, trying for a smile and feeling ridiculous.

The door opened.

A woman in her early fifties appeared with a warm smile.

“Hi, what can I do for you?” She asked.

Then she saw me. Really saw me. She paused. Swallowed. And her face crumpled.

“So,” she rasped, “He’s dead.”

My chest tightened and I fought the urge to turn and flee.

“I don’t know….” I stuttered to a stop and then tried again. “My grandfather sent me here, I think?”

“Yes,” the older woman said, “Yes, of course. We’ve been waiting for you. Please come in.”

I blinked.

“He certainly had a flair for the dramatic, didn’t he?” she said, coaxing me into her home with a gentle hand on my elbow.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I sat gingerly on one of the armchairs. “I don’t understand.”

“Well,” the woman said as she took the seat opposite me, “It’s a long story.”

She glanced down, crossing her legs. The woman was elegant, but soft. Her gentle beauty lacked the sharpness of eyeliner and the smoothness of botox. Laughter lines winked at the edges of her eyes as she smiled ruefully, lost in thought.

“So, I’m assuming your grandfather send you on the scavenger hunt of a lifetime?” She finally asked, meeting my eyes.

“You might say that. He left me this notebook, and it was full of places to visit - including your home,” I said, squeezing the beloved black book to my chest.

“Your grandfather was always one step ahead of us all. He always looked out for us too, even though he didn’t have to,” she replied.

“I still don’t understand,” I said with an apologetic shake of my head.

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. Then she turned and raised her voice. “Honey, could you come down please? There’s someone here that you need to meet.”

I heard footsteps on the stairs and then a young woman rounded the corner into the plush living room. And suddenly I was standing, my mouth slack with shock and my notebook on the floor.

It was like looking in a mirror. She had a fuller face perhaps, with different lips and framed by different hair. But she had my nose, my eyes, my cheekbones.

“Mom? Is this her?” The daughter asked her mother.

“Yes,” breathed the woman, looking between us.

The older woman took a hesitant step forward and gently pulled my hand between hers.

“Your father had an affair…with me. Your mother paid me to sign a non-disclosure agreement and disappear. She threatened to take my child and smear my name in the media if I didn’t.” Her voice cracked slightly as she continued, “I didn’t have the resources to fight her. And your father didn’t even try. So I left. Moved away.”

I felt light, my stomach turning as my thoughts spun.

“You’re my half-sister?”

Even as I spoke the words, I felt their truth. I stumbled backward into my seat, my head reeling.

“What’s your name?” I asked, my voice strained and shaky.

“Fleur,” my half sister replied.

Look for the flowers, my grandfather had instructed.

I choked on a laugh, my hand covering my mouth. My wily, storyteller grandfather had managed to send me on a marvellous adventure to find my family.

Fleur regarded me gravely for a moment before turning to pull a book from a nearby shelf. She held it out to me.

It was a notebook.

I took it, gingerly turning it over in my hands. A black, leather bound pocket book with my name stamped onto the cover.

“He left this for you,” Fleur said softly.

I gently pulled the cover open and smoothed my palm over the familiar handwriting. The last words my grandfather had written blurred as I blinked back tears.

Fleur started speaking.

“The last time he visited, he told me to tell you that-”

“A life with stories has many doors,” I finished for her, reading the note our grandfather had written to me.

Fleur nodded.

“Thank you,” I said, as I pulled the notebook into my chest, “Thank you so much for keeping this for me.”

I bent to pick up the worn travel notebook, and I held it out to her.

“Here,” I said, “I think it’s time you got to know our grandfather better too.”

Fleur took the book with both hands. Her eyes lit with curiosity as she flipped through the pages.

“There is still plenty of room for notes,” I said, pointing to the blank pages left in the notebook.

“This would be an amazing adventure,” she said.

“Sites worth seeing again and again,” I answered.

She looked up, her expression hopeful.

“Would you go with me?”

I smiled.