Chapter 4: Four Hundred Peonies

At eight the next morning, a refrigerated truck backed into the alley behind Bishop Studio.

My drafter looked out the window and said, "Ellery, there's a man unloading flowers."

"Is it a funeral?"

"There are a lot of flowers."

I went down the back stairs in my socks.

The driver was stacking buckets along the brick wall, pink and white and deep crimson, the whole alley smelling like a wedding.

Kieran stood in the middle of it with a leather folder under his arm.

He was dressed for a board meeting and looked like a man who had been awake all night rehearsing.

"How many?" I asked.

"Four hundred."

"Of what?"

"Peonies. You said once they were your favorite."

"I said that at Odile's birthday two years ago. I said they were what my grandmother's church smelled like."

He opened his mouth, shut it, and looked at the buckets.

"I got it wrong," he said.

"You got the flower right. You got the year wrong."

He held out the folder.

"I bought the building," he said.

"I heard."

"It's yours. I had the deed drawn up this morning. I put your name on it."

I did not take the folder.

"You bought my building," I said slowly, "to give me my building."

"Yes."

"Without asking."

"I didn't know how to ask. You don't pick up."

"Kieran. I have nine people upstairs who think they are about to be evicted by my ex-husband. They are standing at the window."

He glanced up.

Nine faces vanished from the glass at once.

"Let me start over," he said.

"You can't start over. You have to start somewhere."

His jaw worked.

He opened the folder, took out a single sheet, and held it out.

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