Saturday Market Flowers

Lucas came at ten past nine every Saturday, rain or sun, and bought the same thing: a dozen tulips, whatever colour was best that week. He paid in coins, said thank you twice, and left without ever saying who they were for.

Elena had invented a whole life for the recipient. A partner who loved yellow. A neighbour in hospital. A grave, once, on a grey November morning when he chose white ones and did not smile.

In March she wrapped the tulips in brown paper and tucked a card inside without telling him. Whoever they are for is very lucky.

The next Saturday he did not come at ten past nine. He came at five to one, as she was stacking empty buckets, and he was holding the tulips she had sold him a week before, wilted now, their heads drooping over the paper.

'They were always for my kitchen table,' he said. 'I liked having an excuse to see you every week. I'm terrible at this.'

She laughed so hard she had to sit down on an upturned crate.

They walked to his flat with an armful of the last unsold peonies. His kitchen table was crowded with jars, each holding the dried remains of a Saturday. He had kept every one.

She kissed him among the jars, slowly, with petals in her hair, and later, in his narrow bed with the window open to the noise of the market packing up, she told him that next week the flowers were on her.