#les fleurs

Robby liked to watch you. Jack said it was creepy, but you didn’t mind.

You were full of color, from the way you dressed, to the way you decorated, to your personality. It was pleasing to the eye and soul alike, like every word, smile, and movement you made left a bright rainbow streaking in its wake. You were delicate, like a flower, in your motions, but strong in your convictions.

You smelled good, too. Somehow, though they were everywhere, your apartment never held the aroma of cats. Your skin smelled like apple body wash, your sheets like citrus dew, and the air like whatever seasonally appropriate concoction you had boiling on the stove. The combination of all three seemed to smell like sunshine itself.

And your energy. The ease with which you seemed to operate. Robby, the broken down, traumatized old doctor, hardly recognized himself when he was with you. It was like you took half the weight he carried around, but somehow, it didn’t bog you down at all. You were like a mythical metal, taking in only that which made you stronger. And according to you, every experience had its merit.

The days Robby started with you were good ones. The days without, felt sour. Simply observing you in your natural habitat, getting ready, washing up, tidying, purring to your cats, was lifegiving to him. More fulfilling than any hobby he’d tried to force himself into before, at the bequest of a quickly ghosted therapist. 

If he could do it with you, Robby was eager to do anything, no matter how mundane. It took the laundry from your arms to fold, took the sponge from your hand to scrub, took your feet into his lap to massage. Happily.

These were just some of the reasons Robby listed in his forty-five minute long rant explaining why moving in together would be a wonderful idea.

He didn’t just want moments in the sun. He wanted to live in the sun. Lounge to his heart’s content.

“I mean, I already spend most nights at your place anyways,” he said. “I have a key. And your neighbors know me. Eloise has totally come around to me.”

You laid over his lap. It was a balmy summer day in August, and the rain currently pounding the pavement below was the first reprieve from the stifling heat you’d had in days. The moment the clouds overtook the sky, and the first few drops tapped against the window, Robby hardened in his resolve to finally speak the words that had been on the tip of his tongue for months.

Rain reminded him of you. It had rained on your first date. Rained the day he told you he loved you, blurted it out, despite how early it seemed. You’d smiled and said it right back. It was raining again, and more than anything in that moment, he wanted you to say yes.

He hadn’t exactly given you a chance yet, though. After “I think we should move in together,” he launched immediately into his explanation, without giving you a second to formulate a response. Now, the better part of an hour later, he was finally winding down from his passionate speech. You’d listened patiently, humming and nodding, wrapped around him.

He fiddled with your stripy shorts as he ran out of words.

“Are you done?” you asked gently.

“Yes,” he said, pink in the face.

“Okay,” you said. “Let’s move in together.”

Robby pictured himself, should he have been so lucky for you to say yes, jumping to his feet with you in his arms, spinning you around, drowning you in frantic kisses. But when he heard those words from your lips, so long awaited, he collapsed under the comfortable blanket of relief and joy. All he could bring himself to do was sink into your hold, squishing his face into your warm neck. He laid on top of you, tangled in you, for hours into the night after that. You held him tight, playing with his hair, unable to stop your smiling so long as you could feel Robby’s against your skin.

The next day, you woke up bright and early to get a head start on classroom set up. As an experienced teacher, you weren’t naive enough to leave all the work until the last possible month. The school printers would have issues with all the tech people out on vacation and unable to fix them. Storage offered was often iffy, and in your second year teaching, you came in August first ready to set up, only to find that a leak had destroyed half of your decorations and supplies.

You never made that mistake again.

Robby insisted on accompanying you whenever he wasn’t working, helping to reach high places, and use his old handyman skills he gained helping his grandmother around her house. Indeed, your sticky lock hadn’t been bothering you for a while, and the top windows actually opened now.

That day, though, Robby seemed more interested in getting a jump on apartment hunting.

“You don’t like my apartment?” you asked, as he set up his laptop on your cluttered desk.

“I love your apartment,” he said, sliding on his glasses. “I hate your landlord.”

By lunch, you had cut out and laminated all twenty-six of your kid’s colorful nametags, and Robby had flagged several promising looking places to visit. It seemed simple. They were nice places. But none of them seemed quite right to Robby.

The first open house you attended, there were a pair of young huskies that howled bloody murder at the snap of a door closing, or the TV. The next, it was not enough natural light. The one after that, too much natural light.

“It’d be a workout just to get some simple privacy!” Robby argued, gesturing to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

You? You were flexible, as always. You were no stranger to shitbox apartments, what with living on a teachers salary all your adult life. You knew how to brighten a place up, even the dankest, grayest places.

Where Robby saw cramped, you saw cozy. Where he saw old and dingy, you saw charming and vintage. Where he saw ugly, you saw potential. 

But it was going to be his house too, and you wanted him to be happy, just as much as he wanted you to be happy. You were quite content being dragged from showing to showing, while running out your lease with Robby by your side.

By the end of August, however, you had no choice but to start packing up. Robby kept insisting the right place would be just around the corner, and it wouldn’t serve you to renew the lease, which would expire in September. So you agreed to just move into his apartment until the “right place” decided to finally make an appearance.

And it did, about one week into the school year. You were bubble wrapping the last of your picture frames, when Robby returned from work looking much more excited than a man just off a twelve hour shift should have. He set down his things, toed off his shoes, and planted a big kiss on your lips.

“Hello,” you said.

“Hi,” he said, collapsing down next to you on the floor. “I’ve found the perfect place.”

You raised a brow.

“While you were at work?”

“Yep,” he said happily, scratching Lisa behind the ears. “An old teacher of mine is retiring, and he’s moving to Florida and selling his house. It’s an old brownstone downtown. It’s closer to the hospital and your school.”

You had to set down your tape. Living in a classic brownstone in the city had long since been a dream of yours, but you’d never be able to afford it. And in a prime spot like the one Robby was describing? It seemed too good to be true.

“That sounds… amazing,” you said truthfully.

“It is,” he said, beaming. “It will be. I promise.”

He hadn’t broken a promise yet, so you agreed to go see it that Saturday. Robby’s old teacher and his wife were very nice people, who seemed excited to move on to the next chapter in their story, away from the toxic highs and lows of medicine and the hustle and bustle of the city. The place was both everything you could have dreamed of, and your worst nightmare.

The large apartment you had in mind, which already seemed luxurious to you, was quickly blown away by the reality of the massive, three story rowhouse you explored. There was brick, and real hardwood floors, and big windows. The ensuite bathroom was ginormous, far bigger than anything you’d ever peed in before. Everything from the deck, to the open kitchen, to the ornate banisters filled you with both dread and excitement.

“It’s served us well for thirty years now,” said Mrs. Hinsen fondly. “Robby assured me it would be in the best of hands.”

“Yes, it’s very important to Sarah that it goes to someone who won’t go modernizing,” said Dr. Hinsen. “Someone who’ll care for the wood, and preserve the molding, and such.”

And you wanted to explode, because of course you wouldn’t think of tarnishing such a beauty as this. After the tour, the couple left you to discuss. Robby was watching you apprehensively.

“Tell me this isn’t perfect,” he said, watching your wide, sparkly eyes rove around the room.

“It’s perfect,” you said. “But Mikey — five bedrooms. Three stories. A deck. A fireplace. A laundry room.” He nodded. “We can’t afford this.”

“Yes, yes we can,” he said, grabbing your waist gently. “They said they’d let it go at a better price for me. And I’ve spent years saving up for something just like this.”

You bit your lip.

“You can afford it,” you said, smoothing the collar of his shirt. “But I —”

“So let me,” he interrupted. “Just let me take care of you. Please?”

You let out a breathy laugh.

“Robby, this is — this isn’t like buying me lunch, or the fancy whiteboard markers,” you said. “This is a house.”

“It’s our future,” he said softly. “Besides, if teachers were paid what they deserved, you’d be able to buy a house ten times bigger than this.”

You shook your head, but you were already tearing up. Robby rubbed his thumbs back and forth on your hips. It was a lot. It was bigger and better than anything you could have imagined. But maybe, for the first time, you didn’t have to work yourself to the bone. Because Michael was watching you with his big brown eyes, brimming with happiness, begging to do this for you.

Before you could change your mind, you were nodding.

“Okay. Let’s do it.”

That time, Robby did spin you around and jump for joy.

And so began the process of moving in. You realized that you had much more stuff than you thought, but it still wasn’t enough to fill the new place. You got a lot of cardio running up and down the many sets of stairs, at your old apartment, Robby’s old apartment, and the three floors of your new house. You ordered runners for the stairs, rugs to fit spaces much bigger than your old ones could, and a real dining table with matching chairs.

The cats settled in pretty quickly, chasing each other through the halls, and looking out the windows for hours at a time. You could tell they were still getting acclimated to having this much space, and you were too. You had a bedroom, a cat room, and a craft room, and still had two more empty ones to spare.

You liked being able to decorate a front stoop that was really all yours, and you pictured sitting out with a bowl of candy on the fast approaching night of Halloween. Robby screened in the back deck so the cats could get fresh air like they’d never had before. Harry, in particular, loved it. You’d find him out there any time, night or day.

It was a dream. You pictured yourself hosting Thanksgiving dinner, and birthday parties. Your book club would finally have a steady meeting place. And yes, maybe one of the spare bedrooms would be converted to a nursery, one day.

The first really chilly October day of the season found Robby grumbling, sniffling, and sent home early with a cold. Even still, it sent a thrill through his congested chest that home meant this.

The leaves crunched underfoot as he dragged them up the steps, past the pumpkin display you set up, and through the unlocked front door. Through his clogged up nose, he was hit with the unmistakable scent of something rich and savory cooking on the stove. The lights were on, and he could hear you humming along with a Nat King Cole record. He could picture you even before you were in his sight, swaying as you stirred.

“Moony?” he called out, kicking off his boots haphazardly.

There was a clang, a pattering, and you appeared around the corner. You were wearing your usual beaming grin, along with a frilly apron, a pair of star strewn pajama pants, his hoodie, and your worn slippers.

“You’re home!”

You hopped over to bestow upon him a hug and a sweet kiss. He glanced at the clock, and saw that it was four in the afternoon. You started undressing him, taking his bag, then his sweater, then his scrub top.

“Yeah, what are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you had the spelling tests to grade?”

“I do,” you said simply, hanging up his things and steering him further inside. “I brought them home. I didn’t want you to come home and crash without eating anything.”

“How —”

“Dana called me when she decided to send you home,” you said simply.

“Meddler,” he mumbled halfheartedly.

“She cares about you,” you said. “I’m making you a stew. Go shower, I already set out comfy clothes on the bed.”

“Wait,” he said, “how was your day?”

“Good, I’ll tell you once you’re showered and full. Pip pip! Off like a bunny!”

He let the steam loosen up some of the gunk in his head, then slipped into his fleecy clothes. With the day’s stress washed off, the exhaustion was settling in. Not the frantic, nagging exhaustion being at work gave him, but the safe, warm, cozy exhaustion you brought. It was nice, because deep in his bones he knew he was safe, and this was where he would rest.

When he slouched back out to the living room, it was to find a steaming bowl of something delicious waiting for him on the coffee table, and the couch made up with bed pillows and blankets. You sat on the floor with your back to it, grading papers with concentration scrunching your face.

“Sit down, mister,” you said without looking up, jabbing a thumb behind you at the inviting set up. “And before you do anything, drink that entire glass of water.”

“Yes ma’am,” he croaked, collapsing readily, and grabbing the cup.

While he drank, Lisa wandered up to settle on his chest, purring. With protest, you scooched her down to his lap so you could replace the glass in Robby’s hands with the bowl. He still gave her some scratches in between bites.

“Good?” you asked, tucking the blanket up around him.

“Great,” he said. “Thank you, honey.”

You leaned back against his knee and kept grading, glancing backwards every so often to ensure he was still eating. It wasn’t until the bowl was completely empty that you set it aside, and pushed him back onto the stacked pillows.

“Get some rest,” you said, kissing his forehead.

“Hold on,” he said, clutching your hand with all his remaining strength. It wasn’t much, but you stayed perched next to him anyway. “You have to tell me about your day now.”

You smiled, and leaned against him. Your free hand went to his hair and began brushing it back in slow rhythmic motions.

“Alright,” you said, thinking. “Well, I think Tommy and Andre are finally friends again. They really let a silly tiff about a Kpop Demon Hunters pencil case go way too far. And I think the new book of the week is going to be The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear.”

By the time you had explained the plot of the book to him, both Robby and Lisa were fast asleep. You smiled fondly, pressed one last kiss to each of their heads, and turned back to your papers. With the roaring fire, Eloise lounging on top of the half-filled bookshelf, Harry trying to get a sniff of your dinner, and the love of your life safe and snoozing comfortably behind you, you were content.

You had to pinch yourself when you remembered that this was the norm. From now on, it would be you and your Mikey, Mikey and you, for all the years to come.

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