Perennial Regards

I flew back to visit my family in Ohio. My mother was living in an old red brick house that had ivy along the walls. She had started a flower delivery service with her sisters, and they ran the business out of her house. I took a nap when I got in, and after I woke up, I found them all working in the front room. One of my aunts was typing out the messages for the cards on a black typewriter; another one was running a sewing machine, embroidering these silk cloths that they wrapped around the flowers; and my mother was at the island in the kitchen, clipping and boxing the bouquets and getting them ready for delivery. There were pastel colored rotary phones, pink and orange and blue, all around the room, near where each of them were working. From time to time, all the phones would ring at once, and they would all grab for the call, and whoever picked it up first would take down the person’s order.

There was a pot of coffee made, and my mother still had the same coffee cups up in her cabinet that I remembered. I poured myself a cup and took a seat in an armchair in the corner and I watched them all bustling around. I sipped my coffee and listened to the whir of the sewing machine’s needle and the punch of the typewriter keys. My mother got off the phone and called over to me from the kitchen. I brought my empty coffee cup to the sink, and she pointed to a set of keys hanging on a hook near the wall calendar, and she asked me to go to the garage out back and get their delivery vehicle and pull it around to the front of the house.

I threw on my coat and went out. There were a couple of acres of land out behind the house, and as I followed the long dirt driveway, I passed a couple of greenhouses set up in an open field. The driveway wound around under the shade of a few maple trees and eventually led to the very back of the property where there was an old carriage house that they were using for a garage. The doors to the garage were open and there were standing puddles from the recent rain in the muddy yard in front of the garage. Parked just inside the doors, there was a shiny black station wagon with the front end pointing out and ready to go. The name of the flower delivery business was stenciled in white on the side of the door with the phone number underneath. In the back I could see the loose clippings and fallen petals and snagged thorns from countless deliveries. I jangled the keys in my hand and smiled. It was nice to see that things were going well back home.