A Swing in the Park

10. Elsa

I stood before her door and knocked. Elsa opened the door, her long hair wet, her body wrapped in a large towel. I saw the purple nail polish on her toes and fingers.

"Come in," she said. "I'm running a little late."

"I did not bring you any flowers," I smiled. "You have so many."

"Is that a joke?" She laughed. "I love good jokes. Your father isn't here yet."

"Where is he?" I said.

"Still at the office, working late," she said, drying her hair with a second towel. "You can help me in the kitchen. "I'm making Housin chicken stir fry. You can cut the snow peas." I nodded and went into the kitchen.

She went to dress herself and came back in a bright blue shirt and shorts. Her hair was done up in a long ponytail. She stood at the counter, watching me work.

"You're very good with a knife," she smiled.

"My mom lets me cook all the time," I said. "She says she hates cooking."

"Then you must be very good at it by now, "she said.

"I guess," I said. "I've never made Housin chicken before. What it is?"

"It's the sauce," she said. "That's the secret." She studied me for a long time and then she sighed.

"I did not steal him," she said. "He just looked lost and I found him. It was never to be anything more."

"You're making it sound like you couldn't help it," I said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know that's how it sounds. I don't know what I'm doing. I love your father. I loved him from the moment I saw him."

"That's what he said about me," I said. "It was when I was born and he was holding me in his arms. He realized he loved two women."

"I have a better idea than talking," she said. "I will let you make a flower arrangement in the shop."

"Yeah!" I cheered. "Can I? This will be so cool!"

I followed her down the stairs and outside and she opened the door to the flower shop. I had never been inside it, only looked in through the window. Now that I stepped into the shop I could smell the deep sweet fragrance hanging there like a curtain that was drawn over everything. There were huge buckets on the floor with flowers in them and flower arrangements on small tables and on the counter.

"Do you know what flower arrangement you're going to make?" Elsa said, putting an empty glass vase on the counter.

"Yellow roses," I said without hesitation. "They're my favorite." I took a handful of the roses from the bucket and put them into the vase.

"Now you need some fern leaves," she said, "to complete it. They are over by the window."

I put them in among the roses, spreading them evenly to make it is look pretty.

"Well done," Elsa said. "You have a knack for it."

"What is your favorite flower?" I asked her. "Besides yellow roses?"

"Wildflowers," she said. "When I was growing up there was a field behind our house full of them. I would walk barefoot through the grass filling my basket with them, and there would always be a vase with freshly picked flowers in our house. I think it's why I became a flower girl in a flower shop."

"I know a place," I said, "where the fields stretch out to the horizon with a sea of wildflowers. There are toadstools as large as houses and there are dwarves that live in them."