Page 39 of When Wildflowers Bloom

“Do you remember your mom?”

I nod and smile easily. “I do; I was ten when she died. I have great memories—some fading a bit—of her. Dancing, baking. She always had freshly cut flowers in a vase.”

I allow myself one breath of imagining how different life would be if she were still here before shaking the thought and putting one block of cheese in my cart, one back on the shelf.

“Have you ever been in love?” he asks.

I snort a laugh, neither hesitating nor acknowledging the hole it opens in my chest. “No.”

I glance over at him as I stop in front of the yogurt. He’s married; I don’t need to ask if he’s been in love.

“That’s kind of sad, isn’t it?” he asks.

I raise my eyebrows. “Asks the man who lets his love life be controlled by a wife who ran away? Gee, I don’t know.”

His jaw clenches, making me wonder if I’ve overstepped before deciding I don’t care.

“What’s your greatest regret?”

His words bring me to a stop. A loaded question I’m not sure I can answer.

The thought of answering it feels impossible, yet somehow my mouth says, “I got pregnant when I was thirty.”

In the middle of an aisle, he’s next to me, throat moving slowly when he swallows as he waits for me to continue.

“I was dating a guy for a while, but somehow it wasn’t that serious. We used protection, a condom every time, and it worked until it didn’t. As much as I wanted kids, I already knew I didn’t want to give my problems to someone else, sowhen I was one day late on my period, I took a test. Pregnant. I broke up with the guy and cried for twenty-four straight hours.” I blow out a shaky breath, pulling my shoulders back slightly. “Then I found a place that could help me. I went and sat in the parking lot and stared at that building for hours every single day.” As I say the words, I’m instantly teleported back to a time seven years ago.

I’d just started my business, and for the first time felt like maybe, even if my life would never look like I hoped, it could still be good. Meaningful. Then the test, the pregnancy, and the decision that followed shattered that delusion. I can still see what I was wearing that day: leggings with two small holes in the knee and a mustard-yellow flannel shirt with brown lace-up boots. It was cold and grey outside, and the November rain pounded angrily on the windows. I had to reheat my coffee three times that morning. It’s funny, the things we remember about the days we want to forget.

“You put the baby up for adoption,” he says softly.

I almost laugh at how naïve he is when I look at him—how badly I wish it were that simple.

“I had an abortion.” Four words and I’m hollow.

His sharp inhale sends shame shooting to every corner of my body, but I don’t cry. I can’t about this. I mourned the baby I’d never have for so many hours—weeks—in the aftermath of my decision. I’d negotiated with myself then that I wouldn’t let this be the rest of my life: me crying about things I can’t change, no matter how tragic. I know myself well enough to know that once I let the tears fall, they’ll never stop. Notfor this, not for anything.

I blink my gaze away, studying boxes of something I don’t care about. I let the confession hang between us as a gentle song by Jewel starts to play over the speakers. The moment is mismatched. Soft music and hard truths.

“And that’s when everything changed.Ichanged. I stopped having sex, stopped putting any effort into forging real relationships, and became hyper focused on the things I can control. How I felt in that clinic wasn’t worth what I was doing with people I didn’t care that much about. I didn’t even agree with abortion until it was my turn to have this potential little person get scraped out of me. Funny how we’re able to bend our beliefs when we need them to suit us, right?” My laugh is borderline cold and anything but funny. “It was the hardest decision of my life. I’m not saying I’d change it, but I think of it. Constantly. It’s not a regret of my choice, more a regret that I had to make the choice. And Lucy...” I shake my head, as if trying to shake away my own reality. “She’s the same age my baby would have been. That first time I saw her, when you told me it looked like I’d seen a ghost. It felt like it. Like looking at a life not realized, I guess.”

Taking a deep breath—one filled with both relief and regret—I close my eyes and it’s like I’m standing in the middle of a tornado, everything around me spinning out of control trying to rip me apart. His sharp inhale, his speechlessness—I know this will be where whatever this is ends. The man who begged his wife to have a child will never want to be friends with the woman who willingly eliminated one.

And yet, when his big warm hand cups my cheek, it surprises me almost as much as the fact that I lean against it. He’s not running out of the store like his life depends on it; he’s staying. It pulls a relieved exhale from me that I didn’t know I was keeping in. His palm on my face is the singular thing that keeps me upright.

There’s a lot I don’t know about Bo. A novel’s worth of quirks and stories and habits I’ll never have the privilege to learn. But in this grocery store with all my broken pieces being brought to light, I’m certain that he’s a man who knows how to hold space unlike anyone I’ve ever met. An allowance, no matter how messy.

When I open my eyes, it’s our familiar staring: me at Bo, Bo at me.

“Birdie,” he says, voice low. “No one person was made to carry so much alone.”

“What’s your greatest regret?” I ask, my face still leaning into his palm.

He laughs softly. “Letting the wife who ran away control my love life.”

Whatever I open my mouth to say is swallowed by the rattle of metal colliding and a woman’s voice. “Excuse me, can I squeeze by y’all?” She looks apologetic when she asks, clearly aware that I’m having some kind of episode.

Then I notice—my Grocery Store Confessional is taking up the entire aisle.

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