“Are you … crying?” Katox asks, turning to look at me for the first time. His eyes are clear and dark behind the thick lenses, something coldly similar to bemused disdain inside of them.

“Mr. Katox,” I say, wiping away the moisture that came from nowhere. I feel like I’m seven years old, red-cheeked and mushy. “Did she say anything to you that day? I need to know.”

He considers me head-on. Then he glances at his little golden bell, as if about to ring it, before crossing his arms.

“She will never leave you, not unless it’s absolutely crucial to your survival,” he says, with the utmost seriousness. She will never leave you. As if she’s not already gone.

I can’t help but wonder why he says this in the future tense. Is it like his assistant said—he doesn’t think linearly? Or is he just a callous old man? Because it’s painful to imagine Mama abandoned me for my own good. Especially now, when she might be …

I banish the thought.

Before I can respond, he slides the vase over the chestnut countertop toward me.

“For you and your sister,” he says. “The bloom.”

The flowers are a gorgeously empty gesture: graceful expressions of nothing more than this man’s pride in his lifelong rapport with nature. For your sister, the bloom.

It hits me then—this memory of Tai crying, her face this hot, red, wet, yowling thing, on one of the last days Mama and I came back from our Katox outing.

Why did you leave me? she screamed in between sobs, a pint-size storm in the foyer. She’d been fighting a fever the night before. Why did you leave me?

Mama dropped the arrangement in my arms and ran to her.

For your sister, the bloom.

I want to shove the flowers right back at Katox, splashing his green smock and his prim expression.

He barely acknowledged my existence. I know I shouldn’t care, but somehow … this visit cheapened all my good memories here.

He turns back to clean the countertops, contented, and rings a golden bell with one hand. Malto darts out from the front of the store, shepherding me away from his teacher and out of the shop before I can gather my thoughts.

I stand on the front doormat, hands locked around the oversize arrangement.

This was useless.

There’s nothing here for me to collect, to pad and soothe my rough and scraped-raw psyche, my bottomless pit of need for her love.

But where will there be something?

I walk away, glancing through the luxury-store windows and debating walking inside, but I can’t imagine finding anything of value in any of them. This is Tai’s domain, not mine.

“Wait!” someone shouts behind me.