The Hundred Roses
Three of the flowers were marked with blood-red ink, and I had seen that same drawing twenty-two years earlier.
The bouquet arrived shortly after noon. One hundred yellow roses, no card, no return address: just my name on the label.
I'd barely stepped away from the kitchen sink when the doorbell rang, sharp and sudden. Daniel, my husband of eighteen years, was away on a business trip. That part was normal. His suitcase by the door, his last-minute calls from airports: I'd built an entire stable life around that rhythm.
There were no icy silences between us. No hidden phone calls. No reason to suspect.
So when I opened the door and saw the delivery man hiding behind a huge bouquet of flowers, my first instinct was to smile.
“Amber?” he asked.
"It's me."
He placed the flowers in my arms: they were so heavy I almost laughed. Dozens and dozens of bright golden petals reflected the light from the porch.
“Wow,” I said. “Someone really put in the effort.”
I looked for a note hidden among the flowers.
There was nothing.
“No paper?” I asked.
He checked the card. “No paper. No signature. Just his name.”
Just my name.
Something was wrong
At first, it didn't bother me. Daniel wasn't a poetic man: once, for our anniversary, he'd sent me a necklace without a card and then said, "I thought the gift said it all." I brought the roses inside and placed them on the dining table, and for a brief, intense moment, I felt moved. They lit up the entire room.
Then the sensation changed. A little tingling behind my ribs.
My husband knew I loved white roses. White for our wedding. White for the day my mother died. White for our fifteenth anniversary. The yellow roses were beautiful, but they weren't mine.
Then I saw the number on the florist's label.
Exactly one hundred.
Not ninety-nine. Not one hundred and one.
Daniel was thoughtful, even generous, but he certainly wasn't the "a hundred roses for no reason" type. And yellow roses, I remembered with some uneasiness, didn't just symbolize friendship or jealousy in every culture.
