Paper Flowers

Evelyn Fischer visits her son every day; shows up each morning with a basket of fresh flowers and her best trowel. As she tends his tiny garden, Evelyn updates Nathan with family news.

Prattling on about his daughter’s new tooth and his son’s school recital, she yanks out stubborn weeds that seem to spring up overnight. She digs shallow craters in the moist earth, selects new buds from her basket and replaces every fragile bloom.

I asked her once why she wastes her time planting paper flowers.

Her milky, grey eyes shifted to mine.

“Because,” she said “they can’t die.”