This time, there was no escape, I could not turn away, could not leave without accepting what I had done. There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.

There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.

The open forgiveness in her eyes, the uncensored love, terrified me.

Nothing you could do would make me send you away. Nothing.

Hyacinth. Please forgive me.

Anyone can grow into something beautiful.

I’m talking about the language of flowers. It’s from the Victorian era, like your name. If a man gave a young lady a bouquet of flowers, she would race home and try to decode it like a secret message. Red roses mean love; yellow roses infidelity. So a man would have to choose his flowers carefully.

I believe you can prove everyone wrong, too, Victoria. Your behavior is a choice; it isn't who you are.

She was perfect. I knew this the moment she emerged from my body, white and wet and wailing. Beyond the requisite ten fingers and ten toes, the beating heart, the lungs inhaling and exhaling oxygen, my daughter knew how to scream. She knew how to make herself heard. She knew how to reach out and latch on. She knew what she needed to do to survive. I didn’t know how it was possible that such perfection could have developed within a body as flawed as my own, but when I looked into her face, I saw that it clearly was.

Her eyes were open, taking in my tired face... Her face twitched into what looked like a squinty smile, and in her wordless expression I saw gratitude, and relief, and trust. I wanted, desperately, not to disappoint her.

Over time, we would learn each other, and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.

I would keep her, and raise her, and love her, even if she had to teach me how to do it.

For eight years I dreamed of fire. Trees ignited as I passed them; oceansburned. The sugary smoke settled in my hair as I slept, the scent like a cloud left on my pillow as I rose. Even so, the moment my mattress started to burn, I bolted awake. The sharp, chemical smell was nothing like the hazy syrup of my dreams; the two were as different as Carolina and Indian jasmine, separation and attachment. They could not be confused. Standing in the middle of the room, I located the source of the fire. A neat row of wooden matches lined the foot of the bed. They ignited, one after the next, a glowing picket fence across the piped edging. Watching them light, I felt a terror unequal to the size of the flickering flames, and for a paralyzing moment I was ten years old again, desperate and hopeful in a way I had never been before and never would be again. But the bare synthetic mattress did not ignite like the thistle had in late October. It smoldered, and then the fire went out. It was my eighteenth birthday.

Now, as an adult, my hopes for the future were simple: I wanted to be alone, and to be surrounded by flowers. It seemed, finally, that I might get exactly what I wanted.