Page 58 of The Little Flower Shop By the Sea
‘Yeah, I’m OK. Are you?’
‘Yes,I’mfine. Why wouldn’t I be?’
Jake shrugs. ‘Death is never easy to deal with, whatever form it takes.’ He looks down at the box. ‘Human, animal, it makes little difference if you loved what’s now lost to you for ever.’
I remain silent. I desperately want to tell him I know exactly what he means. I know exactly what that pain feels like. But I can’t. That ability has been buried too deep inside me to ever resurface.
I’m aware Jake is watching me. Waiting for a response. Still I don’t speak.
‘So, what about all this responsibility you’ve been asked to take on lately?’ Jake asks lightly, lifting his spade to resume digging. He’s obviously decided I’m a cold-hearted bitch with no feelings. ‘We all know responsibility isn’t yourthing.’
‘What responsibility?’ I ask, playing along, hoping he doesn’t really think that, but at the same time pleased he’s changed the subject.
‘First there was the flower shop, and now a dog…’
‘Basil?’ Basil wakes up at his name, and lifts his head. ‘Basil?’ I whisper this time. ‘I haven’t said I’ll take him yet.’
‘But you will.’ Jake adds another shovelful of earth to the pile beside the hole.
‘How do you know?’
Jake ceases digging, throws the spade into the soil, then wipes a few drops of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. ‘Because,’ he says, turning to face me, ‘underneath all that hard black armour you wear to protect yourself, there’s a heart that beats strong and fast. And it’s not just any old heart, Poppy; it’s a beautiful, kind and giving heart. Just like Rose’s was.’
While I’m still looking at him, surprised once more by his beautiful way with words, he lifts up the wooden box and places it in the hole he’s just dug.
‘Life stinks, Poppy,’ he says, as we both look down into the hole together. ‘We both know that. Some of us get a good crack at it, some of us, sadly, don’t.’
I’m about to agree, then I stop myself. As comfortable as I feel with Jake, he doesn’t know the truth…
Oblivious to my hesitation, Jake continues: ‘But whatever life throws at you, however bad it is, eventually you realise thatyourlife has to go on. Otherwise,’ he looks down into the hole again, ‘what’s the alternative?’
It doesn’t always move on, I think. Sometimes it’s easier to remain caught in a time you felt happy. A time before the never-ending sadness began.
‘Did you ever consider…?’ I nod at the hole.
Jake shakes his head. ‘No, I had the kids to think about, they needed me more than ever back then. That was enough to stop me going down that route.’ He smiles at me. ‘People need you too, Poppy. You may not realise it, but they do. You have to move on with your life.’
I’m about to ask Jake which people need me, and might he be one of them, when I feel a wet nose nudge at my hand.
‘Basil,’ I say, crouching down next to him, putting my arm around his slightly podgy body.
‘Heneeds you too,’ Jake says quietly from above us.
I stroke Basil’s head, but he stands up and leans over the hole.
‘Do you think he knows?’ I ask Jake.
Jake shrugs. ‘Probably, dogs are sensitive like that, aren’t they?’
I reach across Basil to pull up a daisy that’s growing in the grass.
‘Here,’ I say, putting it under his nose, ‘we’ll throw this in for your little boy.’ I toss the daisy into the hole on top of the small wooden box, and then Basil and I sit silently for a few minutes together watching Jake fill the hole with the earth he’d dug earlier.
Then before the three of us go back into the house to visit the other puppies, we stand for a few moments with our own thoughts of those we’d lost before.
Twenty
Freesia – Lasting Friendship
