Before the Petals Fell

Now:

The day of Anya’s funeral is disappointingly beautiful, the sun shining far too brightly, the grass glimmering too green beneath its dewy coat. Every bird song a noisy annoyance, every inch of blue sky an offensively bright distraction. The whole world should be as gray and bleak as mine is without her, I feel. This beauty seems to taunt me, remind me that somehow the rest of the world will go on without her even if I cannot.

I hear the patter of dirt on the coffin, a steady drumbeat urging me forward. One fistful after another, so much family, so many friends, too many fans. So, so many fans, fans who are here for me, and not her, whatever they claim. The lines of mourning fans are coils of a black snake, constricting and choking me out at their center. Or maybe they’re a centipede, with a thousand legs shuffling forward toward the grave, toward Anya, slowly winding about me. I watch them all process by with a numb antipathy, slowly crushing the carnation in my hand.

When they’re all gone—or at least, further away—I finally step to the grave’s edge. I try to ignore the coffin, ignore who’s inside. I fail. Yet I am mute as I drop in the carnation. It’s the only thing around me that seems to match my mood: after clutching it all day, the stem is flaccid, broken, the petals flaking off as it spirals through the air before folding sullenly over the coffin’s lid. “Carnations are hardy,” Anya loved to say. And she was right. But even the hardiest flowers eventually wilt.

But before that (Winter 2021):

The winter’s wind had shaken the last of the leaves from the trees and the cold had settled itself firmly into our weary bones before the last of the carnations’ petals fell. The poor man’s roses were surprisingly tough flowers; as Anya always said, roses are pretty, but roses are pampered. Carnations are hardier things altogether, and they grow to last. With just a little tending, they’ll always grow back. Perennials.

Anya, our dog, and I were on the porch to see the last petal drift away. The rocking of her chair on the floor was the only noise besides the susurrations of leaves in the breeze. Our dog, a golden retriever, whined once, and moved to stand by the door, ready to go inside. A gust of wind rose up, clattering the shutters, shaking the trees, blowing our just-silvering hair frantically. Anya smiled as her hair flared out like a mane. Then she coughed, just once, but loudly, and a flock of birds shot from a skeletal tree. She gargled and spat into the garden, and it was as scarlet as the petal blowing off in the breeze.

But before that (Fall 2016):

Closing night for the rollicking success that was The King’s Favorite Enemy. My desk was cluttered with carnations—bouquets of them, cards printed with them, even crocheted versions of them. Some from castmates and crew, most from fans. They were sweet in a way, but when each show closed and these gifts accumulated, there was a certain bitterness in me that carnations were no longer just mine and Anya’s; somehow, the secret had gotten out. Maybe I’d let it slip on some late night show, or else, been spotted bringing them home one too many times. I couldn’t remember, but this closing night brought in that bitterness stronger than ever before.

With every flower I bagged, I thought of the fans whom, as much as I appreciated them, I hated for their presumptiveness. For their unknowing invasion, led on by their love. I wasn’t even halfway through the pile up on the desk when I took out my phone and made two calls. I called my agent first, and the conversation was long and heated, a battle. But the second call, to Anya, was short, simple, and sweet. “I’m done,” I said. “I’m done with it all.”

But before that (Spring 2005):

Anya was crying in the chair beside the hospital bed. I wanted to cry too, but more to cry with her than to cry for myself.

“We can always adopt,” I said instead. I tried to smile. “I’ll even promise to do the paperwork.”

“It’s not the same,” she said, sniffling. Remarkably, she smiled just a little bit, too. “And you wouldn’t get far on the paperwork without me, either.”

“Maybe not,” I said, simply. I stretched out toward her, but with the IV running to my arm, her hand had to meet mine halfway. She used the other to dab away tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “Dogs are easier anyway.” She choked out a laugh that choppily disintegrated into a sob. “And I’ve always wanted a golden.”

We held a moment of silence mourning for the version of our future that we’d dreamed of. “It isn’t fair,” she eventually managed. “You would’ve been a great dad…”

Through my finally teary eyes, I can see the vase of carnations she brought me sitting in the windowsill, two days old, drooping just a little.

But before that (Summer 2004):

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

“No,” Anya said. “I don’t know if any bride ever is.” She adjusted a centerpiece—pearl-wrapped bundles of carnations in full bloom—about a half inch. “Are you?”

I shrugged. “Not with such off-centered centerpieces, I can tell you that.” She glared for a moment, then re-furrowed her brow at the place settings. I paused, hands in my pockets. Nudged in a chair just a bit. I opened my mouth, started to ask, and stopped.

She looked up, gave me a small smile, set me off kilter. “What?”

“I—no—” I sighed. “Do you ever wonder where we’d be if you never came?” There was a brief but gravid pause. “To the show, I mean?”

She met my eyes. “No, I don't.”

“Oh,” I said, almost disappointed, put out. “Why?”

“Because I try not to,” she said, and she was smiling, but for some reason, there seemed something sadder behind it. “I guess because if I did, then, you know, all the small insecurities, the worries about your fans, about my dancing, and the flops, all of that—if I start to wonder too much, they threaten to overwhelm the good of what I have.”

I smiled, once, said something sweet. She laughed; I turned back to the table. But inwardly, I reeled. I was realizing how little I’d had to think about the sacrifices that prop up the perfect love.

But before that (Spring 1998):

Opening night, and before the curtain even opened I could sense her in the audience. There was a crowd of a thousand, and I knew she was there as clearly as if the theater was empty of everyone else. All of a sudden, the reviewers, the audience, the producers, all mattered exactly not at all.

Curtain, bows, hand-shaking and congratulations and back-thumpings, but I rushed through them all, eager for the stage door. Because, of course, there she was, front of the line, and there, of course, in her hands, was a bouquet of carnations.

“Hey,” I said, my stomach leaden, my legs weak.

“Hey,” Anya said, and she smiled. “I brought flowers.”

“No roses for the Broadway star?”

“They were a little expensive,” she said. “New York prices and all.”

I laughed, took the bouquet. The carnations were dazzling in the neon lighting, the garishness of our man-made glamour somehow only emphasizing the beauty of the natural.

“You never should’ve left,” she said. “I missed you.”

But before that (Spring 1996):

The City made me miss Anya. I’d moved there to chase my dreams, as actors tend to, and found them fleeing even further from reach, as actors tend to. In many ways, I missed what I left behind much more than I appreciated what I had found. But worst of all was Anya.

When, come spring, the carnations bloomed in my neighbor’s window boxes, I thought of her and wished I’d never come at all.

But before that (Winter 1995):

The vase shattered so near my head that I felt little shards of it stinging against my scalp, droplets of water spattering my clothes. “How DARE YOU!” Anya screamed. “Selling me out, selling US out, all for some f———play producer who won’t even know your name in a year.”

“Anya—”

“And what’s really wrong,” she screamed, “is that you didn’t trust me enough to come with you!” She went quiet then, deathly quiet. “I guess, you don’t think I have what it takes to come with you, to make it there, right? Not Anya, not the poor little dancer girl—so what? So instead you lie, you withdraw, you dodge me, you mutter—but what was your endgame?”

“I didn’t think—”

“D———right you didn’t! If you did, you’d have just asked, and if you’d just asked—if you’d just have f———trusted me!” She threw herself down onto my kitchen chair, her head in her hands. I moved to embrace her. She flinched back. I turned.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I could feel myself losing my balance on the tightrope I’d walked for so long—tip forward toward work, and go, tip backwards into love, and stay. My arms were wheeling, my legs shaking, but her words were what shoved me:

“You should be,” she said.

I wanted to respond, but couldn’t think of how. For a second longer, I wheeled for balance, and then, giving up, stepped forward.

I put on my coat, grabbed my suitcases, and left, walking over sodden carpet, crushing vase shards and drowned carnations under my heels.

But before that (Christmas 1992):

It was her first time to New York, and it couldn’t have been better. Snowflakes white and thick, lights twinkling on the Rockefeller Center Tree, sun shimmering on the ice rink and our skates. Warm apple cider in the park, wet boots squeaking on the polished floor of the MET, holding hands in front of Shouping’s "Carnations and Amaranthus."

And then, the show. Enthralled from the first notes of the overture. Giggling, crying, holding each other. Shocked. Awed. Then, when the lights came up for intermission, grimly serious. “I’m going to be up there someday,” I said, no nerves stirring in my chest, no waver in my voice.

“I know,” she responded. “And I’ll be with you—beside, behind, whatever—I’ll be with you.”

“I know,” I responded. And then: “Thank you.”

But before that (Spring 1989):

I didn’t expect much from the dance show. How well can an underprivileged school bordering on cutting its arts programs really teach girls to dance? And yet—well, it’s hard to explain. All the girls were good, but, once she was onstage, they didn’t even seem to be up there at all. I don’t know if that was how it seemed to the rest of the audience, to the parents and friends all watching their own stars, but to me, that was the only truth there was regardless.

I felt so self-conscious waiting in the lobby afterward, dressed in my fancy school uniform. The tie seemed tighter than a noose, my face red as the still-unfurling carnations I clutched. When she came out, she was first swarmed by friends, then by family. I tucked myself into a corner, shy, waiting, half-hoping she’d never see me and I could escape home in embarrassed but very comfortable, well-trodden self-loathing.

So I was almost surprised when she ran over, waving, mouth quirked, eyes twinkling at the bouquet, and asked: “No roses?”

I shrugged, and tried to answer. Failed—the lump had risen from my stomach to my throat. Tried again, croaked out: “They were sold out.”

She smiled. “That’s alright.” She paused, and, for a second, it almost seemed she might be nervous as well. “No thorns on a carnation, you know.”

I nodded again.

“They’re not so delicate, either. Carnations are hardy.”

Matthias Pridgeon is a student at Columbia University studying English and Creative Writing. He loves to build sets in the theater, hike anywhere with trees, and be around his wonderful friends and family, without whom he would have nothing. He has previously been published in Surgam Magazine.