The crowded art gallery had throbbed as an erratic pulse. After painting alone in my attic, this show had been the ten-year culmination of my work. It was my forty-eighth birthday party and there were forty-eight paintings, the last ten of which I’d painted in a sleepless haze over the previous month. My actual birthday wouldn’t be until September, and this party was in late July, but the coordination with Mother’s fundraiser was a bit more important than my date of birth.

I paint flowers—all kinds. It thrills me that I could do this art for the rest of my life and still not examine every known flower. It had been Mother’s idea—the forty-eight for forty-eight. She always had a gimmick, a plan.

But that was Mother—taking something she didn’t approve of (my art) and turning it into a societal and charitable event with her name written all over it (literally, because ten percent of the money went to the charity she founded for homeless children).

I’d stood in my silk dress at the podium, where the Atlanta crowd took on a hazy quality, as if morning fog rolled over the room. There they were—friends, family, and strangers—touching and talking about my art, which until that night had been piled around my attic studio like discarded heirlooms. Rusty came up next to me and kissed my cheek; I turned to him.

“I am so proud of you,” he said.

“Thanks.” I held a glass of wine in my hand, but I was too nervous to drink.

I caught Sadie’s gaze and she smiled at me. Then there was Mother—she hadn’t moved an inch from my side all night.

Sissy Parkland approached us, her headband yanking her hair back so tight that she looked as if someone stood behind her pulling her hair. “Oh, Ellie, I bought the gardenia painting. I’m going to hang it in my sunroom. I am so thrilled. I wish I could buy all these paintings.”

“Gardenia jasminoides,” Mother said with a tight smile.

“Huh?” Sissy asked.

“The real name,” Mother said, touching my arm. “Ellie here likes to call her paintings by their ordinary name, but all flowers have a botanical name; a real name.”

“Well, ordinary or botanical, it’s beautiful.” Sissy waved at someone across the room and blew us a good-bye kiss off her palm.

I’d always insisted—either out of stubbornness or laziness—on calling all flowers by their ordinary name. Mother—either out of stubbornness or precision—always corrected me, explaining again and again how every flower had a first name and a surname, just like a person.

Lil came to stand with me. “Mom, they want a picture,” she said, grabbing my hand.