Page 77 of Charlotte

Mrs. Beck’s eyes widened. “Oh, that is much better.”

Lottie escaped before anyone could say another word. The back corner of the meeting hall was mostly hidden by stacked chairs and a curtain once used as scenery for a Christmas program. Lottie slipped behind it, set the botany volume on a small table, and untied the cloth.

Her fingers were careful with the cover.

The book opened to the field pages.

The camas lay pressed between papers, faded but lovely. In the book’s margin, Peterson had written the name, where it grew, and one blunt warning about not confusing it with the poisonous kind. His handwriting filled only the space required, but each word had been placed with care.

Behind the next sheet lay the wild rose.

Lottie forgot the noise in the meeting hall.

The little rose had kept more color than she expected. Its petals were no longer bright, but a soft pink remained, fragile against the cream paper. The stem had dried cleanly. Two tiny leaves lay flat beside it. Beneath the flower, Peterson had written one line.

Proof of summer.

Lottie sat down.

Not quickly. Not dramatically. She simply needed the chair because her knees had become unreliable.

Proof of summer.

He had remembered.

She touched the edge of the page, nowhere near the flower. The rose was not a proposal. Not a promise. Perhaps not even a confession.

It was not nothing.

Peterson had taken a sentence from his mother, carried it into the woods with Lottie, pressed a wild rose in her book, and returned it with the words made smaller, simpler, his.

Proof of summer.

A man did not do that because he felt nothing.

Outside the curtain, Mrs. Hanford said, “Where is Charlotte?”

Cornelia answered, “Cataloging.”

“Behind the curtain?”

“Some books require privacy.”

Lottie pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Tears came instead, which was inconvenient and entirely unreasonable.

She wiped them quickly. Delly would have said tears near dried flowers were a preservation hazard, and for once, Delly would be right.

When Lottie returned to the main room, Cornelia took one look at her and said nothing, which was a mercy.

Mrs. Beck, however, had no such gift. “Was the flower satisfactory?”

Lottie set the botany volume on the table and smoothed the cloth around it. “Very.”

The rest of the afternoon moved in a blur of Independence Jubilee planning. Lottie copied Peterson’s field notes onto cleaner pages. Cornelia and the Busy Bees disappeared to the beach to continue their preparations for the festival.

Lottie remained at the meeting house, flipping through the Tennyson book and trying to imagine it in Peterson’s hands. It was turning dusk when Delly arrived, carrying a wrapped parcel and wearing the expression of a woman who had lost an argument with domesticity.

“What is that?” Lottie asked.