She was almost glad olfactory privilege had escaped her, so each night when she returned home from work she didn't have to smell those lilies, permeating the apartment like a funeral home.
They had arrived at her office on the morning of her twenty-eighth birthday. She remembered guilty disappointment when the contents of the shrunken envelope revealed that they were sent by her parents instead of him. She took the flowers home that night after dropping the card in the trash under her desk. The florist had misspelled her name.
After nearly a week of mentally coaxing them to expire, the last stalk in the bunch quit. Setting the vase on the kitchen counter, she threw a black plastic garbage bag over the whole mess, a miniature abduction. Sealing the bag tight, she left it by the front door, where it waited to be carted out of her life like so many prior letdowns.
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