99 Stories of God

16. If Picked or Uprooted These Beautiful Flowers Will Disappear

A child had drowned that August morning, and two women were walking in what the town referred to as the moors but which were technically not moors.

“It’s so dreadful,” Susan said. “I just can’t get it out of my mind.”

“In cases like this, my heart always goes out to the other children, the camp counselors, their parents, and the emergency room personnel,” Francine said.

“It does?” Susan said.

“The child’s mother is an artist. She shows at the Main Street Gallery. Maybe people will buy her work now.”

“I prayed for the family, but I really didn’t know what to say.”

“When I was eighteen I was a camp counselor one summer and I knew nothing, absolutely nothing. None of the counselors did. That’s why I never sent my children to camp.”

Francine was in her sixties now. Neither woman would ever see sixty-four again.

“That poor, poor child,” Susan said. “I can’t understand how it happened. There are no dangerous currents there.”

“I heard that the child’s father’s brother drowned,” Francine said, wincing pleasurably at the strange circumstance. “But he was much older, and it was before this child was even born.”

“I guess that would make him his uncle,” Susan said vaguely.

“My Lucy’s best friend — well, she’s not really that good a friend anymore — dated him for a while, the brother. He was sort of a bad apple.”

“A bad apple?” Susan said.

“Oh, look at these pearly everlastings! They say not to pick them, but someone will. I’ll just take one.”

Francine bent toward the flowers, her striking slender neck handsomely exposed. Susan picked up a stone and smacked her with it. There was a sharp, even satisfying, crack.

There were two funerals but only one trial.