threw his hands in the air. ‘Exactly! You’ve done nothing. All you do is watch other people living their lives, like it’s the only way you’ll ever get to experience things. You spend your whole time at Kowalski’s trying to understand what our customers’ stories are. But what’s your story?’
‘Stop this…I—’
‘Let me ask you one question, Rosie: what would Mr K think if he were here, huh? All he ever talked about was the importance of living life to the full. He wanted you to move on from whatever you were running away from when you came here. He never stopped worrying about you. Hell, even the last phone conversation I had with him he was asking me to keep an eye on you. Would he be impressed that, six years on, you’re no further forward than you were when he met you? I don’t think so. He had great faith in your ability to live, Rosie—was that justified? Or should his hope for your future just have died with him in that Polish flower meadow?’
His words dropped like red-hot rivets in my stomach. Mentioning Mr K like that—when I missed him so much and really needed his advice right now—was almost too much to bear. I was burned, but unwilling to launch into another row.
My voice was scarily cool and calm when it came out. ‘Well, thanks for that. So have you heard from Marnie at all? She should have been here by now.’
Ed struggled to pack his anger away as he answered. ‘Uh—I’m sorry, yes, I did. She left a message on my voicemail—I only got it when I was in the cab on my way here. She’s got flu. Doctor reckons she’ll be out of action for a week. Forgive me, I should have said—’
‘Yes, you should. Right. More work for us, then. Let’s get on.’
‘Yeah…’ He let out a sigh and sent his thawing blue gaze my way again. ‘Look, Rosie, I—’
I headed to the back of the store. ‘If you could mind things here, that would be good. I’m going to make a start on Brent Jacobs’ order now. I need it ready to deliver by ten-fifteen.’
‘Yeah, cool, whatever. I’ll check the orders for next week while I’m in here.’ He sounded hurt. The door opened to reveal a new customer, who nodded in our direction and began to browse the flowers. I walked quickly into the workroom, shut the door sharply and started working quickly, tears falling freely onto the stems of the bright yellow roses I was stripping. I needed the distraction, desperate to remove the image now firmly ensconced at the forefront of my mind: Mr Kowalski, alone and dying amidst the wildflowers, his last earthly emotion an intense sadness at my inability to learn how to live.
I didn’t like to think about how Mr K died. He suffered a heart attack whilst walking in the flower meadows near his home. The doctors said it took him so quickly that he wouldn’t have known anything about it, but still the thought of him dying alone has haunted me ever since.
As I worked on the bouquet for Brent’s wife, I was aware of the tension in my body-slowly ebbing at last. Flowers are the best therapy, Mum says. You can never be angry for too long when you’re with them. And I guess she’s right. There’s something about being surrounded with their scent and colour that soothes you. It sounds very New Age to say that, but it’s not what I mean. It’s just impossible not to be moved by the simple beauty of natural things. When I’m stressed or overworked, I make myself remember Mr K in the middle of all the rush and somehow I always find myself slowing down.
Every now and again in life you meet someone who can truly be described as inspirational. I don’t mean rich, or famous, or even out of the ordinary. I mean someone who makes you feel a better person, just by standing alongside you.
Mr K was inspirational. He seemed to be constantly surrounded by peace. He knew who he was supposed to be. I don’t know many people like that. I know an awful lot of people who are searching for that, though, and I’m one of them. Mr K had the ability to find tranquillity in the middle of the busiest times. One time we had a huge order to complete for a bridal show and I became so stressed that everything I attempted failed. Mr K didn’t shout, didn’t judge. He just walked up alongside me and put his arm round my shoulders.
‘Rosie, take some time. Find some peace now. Listen to Papa.’
I didn’t understand. I asked him how I could listen. A broad smile lit up his wrinkled features.
‘Ukochana, listen to the flowers. They don’t say “Hurry”, they don’t fret or complain. Their colour says “Peace”.’
I didn’t really understand; I still don’t. But I did start to take time out in the middle of my work—to enjoy what I was doing for its own sake. And it works.
Sometimes I miss Mr Kowalski so much it makes my soul ache.
There are people you know all your life who never really make a difference to who you are; others arrive for a short time and change everything. Mr K was definitely one of the latter. He influenced so many people in his own, unassuming way. I actually saw it happen: from the customers that he talked with, to the hours he spent listening to Marnie when she first started at the store—most of which consisted of her pouring her heart out to him while Mr K took it all in—and the way he still encouraged the best out of his former apprentice Ed, always urging him to push his creativity, whilst remaining fiercely proud of everything he did. Not to mention the way he helped me, of course.
Right from the very first day I walked into the store that I would one day call my own, Mr K saw something in me that everyone else had missed. My confidence was at rock bottom; in many ways I’d lost sight of what I was capable of, but Mr K saw it as plain as day. Unlike Ed, or Marnie, or even Celia to begin with, Mr Kowalski never asked why I had come to New York. I suspect he had his theories, but he just accepted me for the person I was.
Mr K was so much more than a father figure to us all. He was confidant, teacher, friend, even devil’s advocate at times. And I needed all of that. My own father had never been around enough to bother about how my life was going and, when he eventually abandoned his family, he stopped bothering about me at all. In fact, the last contact we had was when he wrote to inform me that he was emigrating and didn’t want to stay in touch. Meanwhile, Mum always had a million and one things to worry about, what with a business to run single-handedly, and my brother’s seemingly genetic capability for causing trouble to contend with—not to mention the pressure of keeping it all together when Dad left.
I think Mr K’s faith influenced a lot of what he did, although I would always contend with him that it was also because of the type of person he was. I remember him smiling at me, his sharp old eyes seeing more than he’d ever let on.
‘Ah, Rosie. Always questioning, always sure of your own belief. It’s good to be an enquirer, but sometimes you have to accept things that are greater than your comprehension. I am what I am because of who Papa is; that I try to make the world a better place is due to my love for Him. You cannot separate the two.’
After all his years of hard work and sacrifice for his family, Mr K had only a year in Warsaw to enjoy his retirement before he died. To me it seemed like such a meagre recompense for a lifetime of work, but his daughter, Lenka, wrote to me after his death to say that he’d never been happier than she saw him during that short time spent in his beloved homeland. Lenka sent me a small leather-bound journal that Mr K had filled with pressed wildflowers—something he did every day during his retirement. I have it on my bedside table and look at it often, reading Mr K’s notes in his elaborate handwriting around the beautifully preserved blooms makes me feel close to him again somehow.
I bound the bouquet now and stepped back.
