The Flower Lady

• Katherine Coffey, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2019

She’s standing across the road from me, stooped and freckled, silvery hair hanging limply around her face. A basket of vivid flowers hangs over her left shoulder, bright yellows and purples and reds spilling over the sides. She has been there for as long as I can remember. Always standing on the corner of the street in a patched grey jumper, giving flowers to passers-by. I glance back at the cracked tarmac road, fingers twisting through the straps of my bag as I wait for my bus. Feet shuffling, I watch my breath create a mist in the air, my fingers tugging at loose threads on the elbow of my school jumper. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her hand a flower to a stranger.

The town I live in is rural, quiet, old. It has twisting mazes of dirt roads and a few winding cement streets. Whenever it rains the roads become like quicksand, pulling down anyone unlucky enough to set foot on them. It’s raining the first time I speak to the Flower Lady. A steady beat taps against the umbrella shaking in my hands. As I pass her along the sidewalk, she holds out a gardenia. She tells me, “Flowers all have hidden meanings. This one means joy.” The stem is small but rough in my hand. Her wrinkled, freckled face stretches into a smile, and I feel mine do the same. I whisper “thanks...”, but she’s looking somewhere else.

Sometimes I walk to school now, and she always knows when I’m coming, flower ready in a calloused hand. Her eyes smile as she tells me the meaning of each one. Freesia means friendship, marigolds mean happiness and dahlias mean elegance. Each time it’s a different flower, different meaning. I press each flower, splotches of colour filling my book.

It’s hot and humid, I’m sweating as soon as I leave my house, so I cross the road to stand at the bus stop, staring at a shimmering road. The Flower Lady turns to me and waves cheerily, and I smile back. Today her basket is filled with pink and purple hyacinths, peeking out from under her arm. The bus appears at the top of the street and a boy sprints down the sidewalk, eyes fixed on the bus. He doesn’t see the Flower Lady. He collides with her with a thud, sprawling along the sidewalk, knocking her over as the bus pulls up. She’s crumpled on the ground, her overturned basket spilling bright colours onto the grey sidewalk. But the people behind me are jostling and shoving and getting angry so I lift my feet up the steps. As I drop down onto a seat with a plooomp, legs sticking to the leather, I see her alone, lying on the ground. The bus pulls away from the kerb and I see a single, crushed purple hyacinth. And then the bus turns the corner, heading towards my school and the Flower Lady disappears from view.