Some institute students pass me then, whispering, their bags stuffed with bundles of clean-bristled paintbrushes and plastic-wrapped sketchbooks for summer session. They wear rainbow-colored leather loafers and cashmere sweaters, one with this distinctive curling script on it reading I’m a boss that reminds me of something I saw Tai wearing once. “I’m finally ready to focus on my art,” one says, and they don’t notice me in my old baseball cap, my run-down sneakers, my untrendy jeans. And that’s fine: I aimed to disappear. Only a solitary man reading on a bench lets his newspaper dip for a moment to eye me as I approach the shop: Katox Floral.

I bite my lip to keep from crying: It looks exactly the same.

Same telltale green sloped roof, same carved wooden door—out of place and quaint here, where most buildings are slick and composed of glass and basalt.

For fifty years, Katox has been known far and wide as one of the most esteemed practitioners of the school of Viloki floristry. Mama ordered an arrangement from him once a week in the early years, coming in from Stökéwood to pick it up herself and nestling it in her library office. Those days, she’d ask me to meet her by her desk—Shh, she’d said, it’s our secret; don’t tell Tai—where she shared old Viloki stories and taught me how to write my own. One morning, she brought me to Katox for the first time. My face hurt from smiling while she showed off just how much I knew, to this diminutive older man with chunky glasses who looked like a wise old owl. She took me the next week, then the next. It was our day.

When I was fifteen, I read an old interview where Mama said she considered her florist to be a “close friend and spiritual guide,” and I knew she meant Katox. I knew how much those visits meant to her—to us. When I emailed his store weeks ago to schedule an appointment, his assistant—an accommodating, if curt, Foix Institute alum—told me a short afternoon session would have to suffice, because now Katox works only two hours a day, two days a week, certain seasons.

I hold my breath, feet tingling as I step inside. The shop is freezing—and empty. I glance back outside, wondering if the curious man reading the newspaper was Katox, but he’s disappeared.

I look around: the showroom is crafted entirely of chestnut wood, like I remember, its beams of light showcasing minimalist arrangements spaced along the thin tables, and an emerald-green silk curtain separates this showroom from the back of the shop.