Blue Dahlia

hers, and Stella’s hand passed through. There was cold, and a kind of snapping shock. Then there was nothing at all.
    “You can speak,” Stella said to the empty room. “If you can sing, you can speak. Why won’t you?”
    Shaken, she dressed, fought her hair into a clip. Her heart was still thudding as she did her makeup, half expecting to see that other heartbroken face in the mirror.
    Then she slipped on her shoes and went downstairs. She would leave death behind, she thought, and go prepare for new life.

seventeen

    THE PACE MIGHT HAVE BEEN SLOW, BUT THE HOURS were the killer. As spring turned lushly green and temperatures rose toward what Stella thought of as high summer, garden-happy customers flocked to the nursery, as much, she thought, to browse for an hour or so and chat with the staff and other customers as for the stock.
    Still, every day flats of bedding plants, pots of perennials, forests of shrubs and ornamental trees strolled out the door.
    She watched the field stock bagged and burlapped, and scurried to plug holes on tables by adding greenhouse stock. As mixed planters, hanging baskets, and the concrete troughs were snapped up, she created more.
    She made countless calls to suppliers for more: more fertilizers, more grass seed, more root starter, more everything.
    With her clipboard and careful eye she checked inventory, adjusted, and begged Roz to release some of the younger stock.
    “It’s not ready. Next year.”
    “At this rate, we’re going to run out of columbine, astilbes, hostas—” She waved the board. “Roz, we’ve sold out a good thirty percent of our perennial stock already. We’ll be lucky to get through May with our current inventory.”
    “And things will slow down.” Roz babied cuttings from a stock dianthus. “If I start putting plants out before they’re ready, the customer’s not going to be happy.”
    “But—”
    “These dianthus won’t bloom till next year. Customers want bloom, Stella, you know that. They want to plug it in while it’s flowering or about to. They don’t want to wait until next year for the gratification.”
    “I do know. Still ...”
    “You’re caught up.” With her gloved hand, Roz scratched an itch under her nose. “So’s everyone else. Lord, Ruby’s beaming like she’s been made a grandmother again, and Steve wants to high-five me every time I see him.”
    “They love this place.”
    “So do I. The fact is, this is the best year we’ve ever had. Weather’s part of it. We’ve had a pretty spring. But we’ve also got ourselves an efficient and enthusiastic manager to help things along. But end of the day, quality’s still the byword here. Quantity’s second.”
    “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I just can’t stand the thought of running out of something and having to send a customer somewhere else.”
    “Probably won’t come to that, especially if we’re smart enough to lead them toward a nice substitution.”
    Stella sighed. “Right again.”
    “And if we do need to recommend another nursery ...”
    “The customers will be pleased and impressed with our efforts to satisfy them. And this is why you’re the owner of a place like this, and I’m the manager.”
    “It also comes down to being born and bred right here. In a few more weeks, the spring buying and planting season will be over. Anyone who comes in after mid-May’s going to be looking mostly for supplies, or sidelines, maybe a basket or planter already made up, or a few plants to replace something that’s died or bloomed off. And once that June heat hits, you’re going to want to be putting what we’ve got left of spring and summer bloomers on sale before you start pushing the fall stock.”
    “And in Michigan, you’d be taking a big risk to put anything in before mid-May.”
    Roz moved to the next tray of cuttings. “You miss it?”
    “I want to say yes, because it seems disloyal otherwise. But no, not really. I didn’t leave anything back there except memories.”
    It was the memories that worried her. She’d had a good life, with a man she’d loved. When she’d lost him that life had shattered—under the surface. It had left her shaky and unstable inside. She’d kept that life together, for her children, but in her heart had been more than grief. There’d been fear.
    She’d fought the fear, and embraced the memories.
    But she hadn’t just lost her husband. Her sons had lost their father. Gavin’s memory of him was