After supper, Cordelia crossed the backyard to Lois’s house with Henry in tow.
She found her on the porch with her sleeves rolled, hands sunk deep in potting soil.
“Well, aren’t you a sight,” Lois said without looking up. “Don’t mind the mess—half my life I’ve been promising myself a porch fit for company, but here I am with dirt under my nails and a chair that lists to one side if you breathe too hard.” She brushed her hand along the nearest rocker and, without thinking, set it gently creaking.
Cordelia reached out and stilled it with two fingers. “Best not leave a rocker going with nobody in it,” she said. “Don’t want to invite spirit company you didn’t mean to.”
Lois nodded. “Oh my, I’ve never heard that… no telling who I’ve been inviting without knowing.” Wriggling her other hand out of the dirt and slinging soil everywhere, she pointed at a broken cane chair. “Don’t sit in that one. It bit Billy last week. Splinter right in the—”
Cordelia gave a distracted laugh but didn’t sit. “I need to tell you something. I don’t know who else’ll believe me.”
“Now that’s how you start a good conversation. Go on.”
Cordelia took a breath and rushed in. “It moves, Lois, I swear it does. Like it’s breathing and watching. And the color keeps changing, soft cream one day, deep coral the next. Then there’s this sound, low, like…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “It sounds foolish when I say it out loud,” she added, eyes fixed on her hands. “I’ve just been staring too long at something that isn’t really there. I know how it sounds, I do, but I swear—” Her voice wavered, the telling nearly undoing the belief.
Lois didn’t laugh. She didn’t even frown. She kept her hands in the soil, tending the planters.
She brushed her palms on her apron, leaving muddy green streaks down the front, and sat in the rocking chair. “Some folks say plants breathe in what we breathe out,” Lois said. “I think maybe some blossoms take in more than air. They take in mood, hopes, even secrets.”
Cordelia studied her. “You don’t think I’m imagining it?”
“I think the world’s full of things we can’t explain without making them sound foolish,” Lois said. “My Aunt Sadie swore her roses wouldn’t open unless she read the Psalms to them at sunrise. Said it wasn’t the words so much as the prayer in her voice.” She tilted her head in the vine’s direction. “That one there? It’s older than Nicholas’s stories. Make no mistake, it’s not yours to tame, might not be anyone’s, but maybe it chose you to notice. If it has you ought to pay attention. Things that old don’t waste their time.”
Cordelia hesitated. “Why me?”
Lois gave a half-shrug, eyes glinting. “Because you’re new. Haven’t learned to look away yet, or it likes the sound of your name.” She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. “You don’t have to do anything about it. Just watch. Waiting’s its own kind of language.”
Cordelia sat down and let her eyes drift past the porch to the side yard. A thin regiment of red blooms stood there on bare stems—no leaves, just starbursts of scarlet with filaments like fine wire, little firework bursts along the fence. Henry nosed toward them and sneezed.
“What are those?” Cordelia asked. “They look like they just exploded out of the ground.”
Lois smiled. “Spider lilies. Some folks call ’em hurricane lilies or surprise lilies. One time I heard Lottie call them naked ladies, that’s my favorite. They usually pop up after the first real soaking rain of fall. You’ll get a storm good and spent, air gone soft again, and then next morning there they are, standing proud waiting for applause.” She tipped her chin toward the flowers. “September of 1920, my mother’s yard in Wilmington was red as a cardinal’s wing. Couldn’t see the grass for the lilies.”
“They come back every year?”
“They do,” Lois said, “not always where you put ’em. They throw little daughter bulbs, small as marbles. Those hide down in the soil. You go digging, move a border, turn a bed over and next season they volunteer in some other corner like they heard there was better gossip over there.” She laughed under her breath. “Sometimes you carry them without meaning to. Either way, you wake up one morning and there they are.”
Cordelia watched the red fringe tremble. “They feel deliberate.”
“Oh, they are,” Lois said softly, eyes still on the flowers. “Southport’s no different. Some things are passed along in kindness—rooted, tended, welcomed wherever they land. Some drift and take hold on their own, no invitation needed. There are also people who try to force them, stick the bulbs in a glass, make them bloom on a timetable for show. I tried that myself when I first came here. Thought I could open the right doors if I dressed just so and said the right things—was certain I could earn my place by blooming on command. Got plenty of shutdowns, plenty of looks. No flowers.” She traced the rim of the pot with her thumb. “Now I let what’s meant to grow find its own way. I try not to force anything anymore.”
They stood for a moment, the night between their houses settling around them.
Cordelia smiled and shook her head. “So, you believe me.”
“Sure I do. And I believe you believe it,” Lois said. “Listen Delia, if I tell you I’ve got your back, you don’t ever need to turn around to see if I’m there. I’ll be where I said I’d be.”
She hugged Lois hard and Henry nudged in, insisting on his share of comfort. “Thank you,” Cordelia whispered. When she stepped from the Mercer porch, Henry followed close, brushing her skirt and leaning into her, the way dogs do when they know they’re needed. Together they crossed the yard beneath stars that felt too quiet, a hush that carried her back to places she thought she’d left behind.