The Scent of the Old Folks Home
“Do you know what you smell of? Like an old folks home. Camphor. Years gone by. I cant do it anymore.”
Caroline was standing by the window, watching outside as the neighbours cat, a scraggy ginger called Whiskers, picked its way around the puddles, dainty and proud. Her husband’s words had floated toward her as though through cotton wool, delayed in their sting. Only after a moment did she turn to look at him.
Richard was in the middle of the kitchen, a crisp, pale blue shirt on his backthe one shed bought him months before at the market near the square, because hed said he wanted ‘something light that doesnt crumple’. Shed spent ages choosing it, running the fabric through her fingers, asking the chatty stallholder about the weave. Hed sat in the car, the radio tuned to football.
“Are you listening to me?” he asked.
“Im listening,” said Caroline.
Her voice was even, steadyshe surprised herself with that.
Richard set a large sports bag on the chair. A big navy thing with a logo she never learned. Caroline recognised it at once: it had sat on the cupboard top under his old hiking boots, boots untouched for the best part of eight years.
“Im going,” he said. “We both know its time. It shouldve happened ages ago.”
She looked at the bag, then at his hands. They were calm, not fiddling with the shirt, not searching for pockets or sleeves. His decision was made. It had been made, really, for some time; all he was doing now was saying out loud what had already happened.
“Ages ago,” she echoed.
“Yes.” He shrugged. “Caroline, I dont want a row. Its just were not the same people. Youre here, all the time, with your mother, the endless care, the procedures, theI cant live like this. The smell…”
The smell. Caroline considered it. Five years shed woken at six every morning, because that was when Mrs BarrowVerawoke. Strange how an ailing body makes its own schedule, pays no mind to anyone else. Five years of camphor oil, absorbent pads, which had acquired their own polite euphemisms, five years of coughing from the next room and ambulance calls in the dark. Her own work gathering dust in folders on her drafting tableuseless; no time, no one else to do it, Richard had said as much himself: “Theres no one else, Caroline, you know that.”
Shed understood. Of course.
“Are you going now?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“All right,” she said quietly.
He seemed to wait for somethinga scene maybe, tears, accusations, the inevitable “is there someone else?” She didnt ask. Not because she didnt know, but because now, at this moment, the question seemed quite pointless.
Richard picked up his bag, hesitated by the door.
“Ill leave the keys on the hall table.”
“Right,” she nodded.
The lock clicked. The front door bangedshe knew the sound of those four flights of stairs by heart. Suddenly the house was silent. Not normal quiet, but the kind that comes after you turn off a telly youve had on so long you stopped hearing it, and only when its gone do you realise how much it hummed.
Caroline looked at the keys on the table, then at the empty chair where the bag had been. She returned to the kitchen and topped up the kettle.
Five years back, Vera Barrow had suffered a stroke, right at the dining table on Richards birthday. Caroline had baked a cherry tart, Vera had said “lovely”, and then dropped her fork and looked at Caroline with such a desperate, pleading expression that shed understood at once. Caroline called the ambulance, sat beside her all the way to the hospital, holding her handthe one that no longer squeezed in reply.
Richard had been at a work do that night, only answered his phone on the third attempt.
The doctors had said Veras left side was partly paralysed, it would be a long recovery, and shed need constant care. At home if someone was always present. Richard had said, “Youre not working full-time, love. Your projectstheyre not the main income anyway.” Caroline hadnt argued. She packed her drawings into a box and put it on the studio shelf.
The kettle boiled. She made tea, went back to the window. The cat was gone, but the puddle lingered.
Caroline barely left the house for three days. Not because she couldnt, but because she no longer knew where to go. Her body was still set to its old routine: six, up; half-seven, procedures; ten, breakfast; one oclock, lunch; four, the balcony in the wheelchair; seven, bedtime. With that gone, her limbs simply didnt know what to do.
She wandered from room to room, looking at things: Veras wheelchair by the sitting room wall, the packs of pads under the bed, the medicine box in the hallwayall labelled by her own careful hand: morning, evening, in case of blood pressure. Vera had passed quietly away three months before, but all these things remained, because Richard wouldnt touch them, and Caroline hadnt the heart.
On the fourth day she took out three large black rubbish sacks and began.
She worked methodically. Pads, incontinence supplies, rubber gloves, bed sheets. Then the medicines, box after box. Then the wheelchairit was the hardest. She remembered guiding it along the pavement beneath the sycamores with Vera, the way Vera had watched the trees like someone who knows its for the last time. Caroline broke it down into pieces and carried it to the bins in three trips.
Afterwards she stood under the hot shower for a very long time.
When she caught herself in the mirror, she barely recognised her own face: not a carer, not a wife, not a not-quite-daughter, but a woman of fifty-two with wet, grey-threaded hair, years since shed coloured itno time, no one to care.
The next morning she phoned the hairdressers.
The stylists name was Connie. She was brisk, a little younger than Caroline, with quick hands and sensible shoes. Caroline explained she wanted the length gone, and somethinganythingdone about the colour. Connie didnt fuss, just cocked her head and said, Youve a good natural shade; lets do highlights so the grey will blend in. And a cutnot too short, leave the neck open, youve a graceful line there.
“Go ahead,” said Caroline.
She sat for two hours and watched herself emerge in the mirrorfamiliar, but cleaner somehow, as though freed of the invisible residue of the past years.
She walked out into a cold October wind that caught at her new hair, and she realised it had been a long time since shed felt the wind on her head, let alone properly paused outdoors. She was always hurrying beforeto the chemist, back home, up the clinic, home again.
Now she didnt hurry.
She bought a take-away coffee and drank it walking, simply to walk.
The divorce took four months.
Richard showed up at court with a young solicitor in an absurdly tight suit who talked quickly and clearly didnt see either of them as real people. Caroline came alonenot as a statement, just because she saw no sense in fighting for her rights.
At the second hearing, Richard brought her.
Caroline saw her in the corridor: mid-thirties, blonde hair in a ponytail, check coat, heels. She stood off to one side, staring at her phone. Richard joined Caroline, and the other woman glanced at her, quickly and indifferently, as one does with strangers on a train.
Caroline noted it with mild interest. No superiority, just a stranger, that was all.
“Caroline,” Richard said quietly, “about the house…”
No need, she cut in.
“But”
Richard, she said steadily, I want my studio. The one I bought before the marriage. Just that. Flat, car, the resthave what you want.
He hesitated. “Are you sure?”
“Im sure.”
His solicitor scribbled something or other. Richard looked at her, expecting her to haggle, to bring up Veras care, the five years shed handed to his mother, the sacrifices. She didnt. Not because she couldnt, but because she didnt want it. She didnt want to hear his justifications or his guilt, nor air her own grievances that still lurked somewhere, heavy, but distant.
The studio was on Meadow Street, second floor in a creaky old building, twenty-two feet square, high ceiling, wide north window. Shed bought it at thirty-four, just after qualifying, with money saved over three lean years. Inside stood her old drawing tablebarely needed now, but comfortingshelves of folders, and pots of houseplants that had outlived everything else.
She spent her first night there after the papers were signed, lying awake, watching the shifting light. She had no answer to the question whats next?, but somehow the absence of an answer was not frightening.
Her first call was to ‘Green Line Gardens’, the design agency shed done work for years before. The receptionist remembered her, promised to put her through to Mr Parsonsthe director. He was courteous, recalled her public park project, spoke kindlybut then said, “Caroline, after five years its such a long time out. The fields moved ondifferent software, different clients. Were after people who can jump straight in”
“I know,” she said.
“If anything changes, well ring.”
She knew they wouldnt.
Her second call, to a private firm run by an old school friend, Lucy. Lucy was genuinely glad to speak, but soon enough began to mention different standards, you know, the young ones with new software, its so competitive now, you wouldnt believe…
By the third call, this time the councils Parks Department, she had few hopes left. Their answer was short: all positions filled.
Caroline put down her phone and gazed outside.
The world was going about its business. Novemberbare branches, commuters in upturned collars. She reflected how five years is, outwardly, a long time. Not in the way she felt them, but out there, things had shifted, her place at the table quietly taken by someone else.
She opened her laptop and began catching up with new landscape design softwarereading until two in the morning, making notes, drinking tea. Some things were genuinely new, others old skills in rebranded wrappers.
In December she found work. Not quite what she wantedan assistants role at a little nursery on the edge of the city. The owner, Aunt Veraa name that amused Caroline by its coincidencewas short, energetic, matter-of-fact. She judged people and plants alike by a single criterion: useful or not.
“Can you handle plants?” Aunt Vera asked at the interview.
“I can.”
“Good. Wage is modest, but the works real.”
And it was. Caroline started every morning at eight, tending seedlings, repotting, advising customers. Not glamorous, but honest workhands in earth, the scent of damp leaves and compost, lines of pots full of things that grew.
It was at the nursery she first heard about the old greenhouse.
Aunt Vera mentioned it off-handsome neglected glasshouse attached to the citys botanic gardens, off River Lane. The director was trying to do something with it, but had no staff.
Caroline hesitated for weeks, then one Sunday, found her coat and went.
The greenhouse sat among overgrown parkland, shielded by trees. The first thing Caroline noticed was all the glassa patchwork of grime, through which the green inside seemed to press outward. The frame was rusting, some panes replaced with weathered boards, the footpath drifted with leaves.
But inside…
She pushed open a heavy door. Warm, damp air greeted her.
It was chaosalive and welcoming. The plants had abided as they pleased: some reaching hungrily for the sunlight, others trailing, clinging to neighbours, a vine enveloping the stanchions right up to the ceiling. Mandarins bore clusters of undersized fruit; palms overwhelmed their tubs; orchids lined wooden shelves, obviously planted with care years before and now left to themselves.
Caroline just stood, letting something inside her unfurl for the first time in years.
“Did you have an appointment?”
She started. A slight, elderly man was watching from a side doorway, glasses perched in his hair, hands with the look of a lifelong gardener.
“NoI just I saw it from outside and came in. Ill go if I shouldnt.”
“Dont see why not,” he said, surveying her, then the plants. “Im Tom Edwards. The directorif thats the right word here.”
“Caroline Barrow. Landscape architect.”
He paused. “An architect, are you?”
“A lapsed one. Five years out.”
Another thoughtful pauseno judgement, only consideration.
“Come. Ill show you around.”
They wandered for nearly two hours. Tom explained what was, what had been, what hed tried. The greenhouse had been shut up seven years for temporary repairswhich were never finished. Then management changed, leaving it strandednot open, not closed, not ruined, not restored.
Hed wangled permission to be there, but no staff. He came daily to water, feed and keep up appearances. Alone.
“I can help,” said Caroline.
“I cant pay you.”
“I understand.”
He studied her. “Thursday. Come, if you like.”
She came Thursday. Then again, and again. She left the nurseryAunt Vera nodded: “Quite right. Youve a brain for more than pots anyway.”
The greenhouse became Carolines first real project in five years.
She began by taking stock. Drew up lists: every plant, its condition, its place, its needsmeticulously, as once shed prepared technical drawings, only now they lived and breathed.
Then, the space: four hundred square metres, and a jumbleno paths, no order, just scattered pots. Caroline sketched maps each evening back in her studio, drafting layouts by hand as she once did at university.
Tom considered her plans, nodding. “Here, Id group the citrus,” shed say. “They like it drier, and we can clump mandarins, lemons, kumquats. Theyre beautiful and aromatic.”
“And there, palmskeep the height, draw attention up. Underneath, tropical shrubs. Maybe a meandering path.”
“A path,” he repeated, satisfied. “Thatll bring people through.”
“People will come,” she promisednot to console him, but because she believed it. People always came to places that welcomed them, thought of them.
The winter passed in work. She sourced plants, sometimes spending her own small savings from the divorce, enough to cover it. She found handymen, arranged repairs for the glass. Tom was always nearby, tending, watering, talking to plants in the way only those who understand them dono madness, just honesty.
In January, she rang Rita, an old university friend whod long since given up on invitationsCaroline had always declined, mother-in-law care dominating all.
Rita took the call on the third ring, then silence. “You alive?”
“Alive.”
“Thank God,” a sigh. “Whereve you been?”
“Long story. Eating dumplings? Want company?”
At Ritas they sat in the kitchen, tea at first then whisky, and Caroline told her everything. Rita asked no advice, only listened, murmured the occasional “I see”, or “Sounds about right.” It was just what Caroline needed.
“Does Richard know youre working in a greenhouse?” Rita asked at last.
“Why would he?”
“Doesnt matter. Just wondered.” Rita poured more tea. “So how are you, honestly?”
Caroline thought about it.
“All right,” she said. “For the first time in agesall right.”
They didnt revisit the topic.
February brought the unexpected.
Caroline brought in new plantspots of geraniums, a large rosemary bush. Tom was busy at the far end; Caroline measured, placing pots. After a while, the door opened.
A man entered.
Late fifties, broad-shouldered, hi-vis jacket, tablet under one arm. The way he moved suggested years working in awkward spacesengineers poise.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Is Tom about?”
“Through there past the palms,” she said.
“Thank you.” He took in the scene. “Looks goodtransformed a bit since I saw it last summer.”
“Its different,” Caroline agreed.
“Your work?”
“Mine and Toms.”
“But your plan,” he said. It wasnt a question.
She looked at him. He wasnt just appreciatinghe saw the logic, the structure.
“And you are?”
“Alec Wright. Structural engineerwere patching up the roof; there were several leaks.”
“The third and seventh sections,” she replied.
He looked at her, more respect in his gaze. “You know about the leaks?”
“Im here every day.”
He disappeared to find Tom, back twenty minutes later, then left, but paused at the exit.
“If you dont mindwill those mandarins bloom by spring?”
“If we keep the temperature steady, yes.”
“How will I know?”
Caroline smiled, surprised. “The buds start to swell, turn dark greenthree weeks after that, youll have flowers.”
“Thank you,” he said.
After Alec left, Tom emerged, satisfied. “Good man. Alecs kept us together these past yearsa real engineer, knows his stuff.”
“Interested in the place?”
“The greenhouse is a curiosity for himprofessional interest.”
Caroline nodded, returned to the rosemary.
Alec came again a week laterchecking the roof again, he said, but lingered. He prowled round, scanning the beams and glass, making notes.
Caroline worked without comment, until they met by the lemons.
“Sorry,” he said, moving aside.
“No bother.”
A silence.
“What did you do before this?” He asked, not idly, more like joining a train of thought.
“Landscape design for public spaces.”
“I can see that.”
“In the greenhouse?”
“The way you lay things outits not just nice to look at. Youve thought how people will walk through, not only how it will look.”
She looked at him.
“You know about these things?”
“A little. Im mostly about builds, but old buildings teach you to consider place.”
Tom called him; Alec left, and Caroline caught herself pondering: it had been so long since someone spoke of her work with honest understandingand not just as pretty flowers.
March brought the first visitors. Tom and Caroline advertised their unofficial openinga notice on the gate, a post in the local online group. Seven came the first week, thirty the next. People wandered the new paths, sniffed at citrus, snapped photos by the palms. An old lady lingered by the rosemary bush”My gran had one just like this,” she said, eyes wet.
“Its working,” Tom granted.
“It is,” said Caroline.
“Ive spoken to the Counciltheyll make a little post for you. Not much money, but official.”
“What post?”
“Chief horticultural specialist. Sounds formal, but its what youre doing anyway.”
“Good,” said Caroline.
Good. That word now carried more weightnot sufficient or fine, but truly good.
April. One day Alec invited her for coffee. “Theres a decent spot round the corneryou havent stopped for hours,” he said. She accompanied him, and over tall mugs Alec told her about his grown-up daughter, long-divorced, work all over the country, each building a fresh puzzle.
“Why work on old properties?” she asked.
“History,” he replied. “Step into a place, and you see all the hands that shaped it. One dreamed, one built, one restored. It isnt one person. Its a conversation through time.”
Caroline gazed out the coffee shop window.
“And greenhouses?”
“Those are special. The conversation goes on, alive.”
“Alive,” she echoed quietly.
He looked at her openlywith only honest attention.
They talked another hour. When Alec walked her back to the greenhouse, he said: “Ill be in tomorrow, checking that third section. The roof still needs a look.”
“All right,” Caroline replied.
She watched him leave and thought: when did it become lighter to breathe because someone nearby simply existed?
That May, Caroline told Rita.
“Is it serious?” Rita pried.
“Rita”
“What? Tell me!”
“I dont know yet.”
“And his side?”
“Didnt ask.”
“Caroline Barrow! At fifty-two”
“Fifty-three,” corrected Caroline.
“Even more so!”
Caroline laughedreally laughed, the first time, she realised, for its own sake.
She heard of Richard in bitsmostly through mutual friends, phone calls loaded with a careful, fretful tone.
First, Janet from the old street: “I shouldnt meddle, butdid you know? That new woman of hisAnastasiapacked up and left. May, I think. Some talk of children, disagreementscan’t say which way.”
“Its fine, Janet.”
“Are you all right?”
“I am.”
Then a call from Richards old mate, Simon. “Hes left the company, a few months back. I wasnt sure whether to tell you.”
“Why are you telling me?”
A pause. “Hes rung a few times. Hes struggling.”
“Im glad he has friends,” Caroline said levelly. “But its not really my place, is it?”
“Sorry.”
Caroline ended the call and went out into the greenhouse. Junescent of lilacs on the breeze outside, inside the new AC units hummed soft and sure. The mandarins had finished their blossom; baby fruit were swelling. The palms stood calm as ever.
She filled her watering can and began her rounds.
Did she think of Richard? Sometimes. Not often, but she rememberedthe good as well as the bad. The early years had been happy, before everything slowly slipped away in little increments: less attention, more irritation, the ‘how are you?’s growing further apart. She was not blameless; shed vanished into caregiving, become someone scarcely seen at home.
But that remarksmelling of the old folks home.
It had been cruel, she realised now. Not what someone says when theyre leaving, but what they say to justify leaving.
She put the watermelon down, touched the lemon leavesso glossy, firm, thoroughly alive.
Then picked up her jug and moved on.
Alec came to the greenhouse a few times a monthsometimes for work, sometimes just to chat. With Tom, with her. Their conversations wanderedwork, books (not always the same ones), memories of towns they both knew. Once he brought a fig tree, “Thought you might want it for the display.” Tom beamed; Caroline explained carefully how to plant it, realising mid-way that Alec was genuinely listening. Not waiting for a gaplistening.
In July they went to an architecture exhibition in town. Alec knew half the contributors, introducing each exhibit, telling her who built what, the challenges, the compromises. It was concrete, professional and somehow exhilarating.
“And how did you move into conservation?” she asked.
“Turned forty; building new things lost its charm. Old buildings have flawsreal, human ones. When you find them, you get a feel for the person behind the drawing. Hundred years ago, maybe, but suddenly very close.”
Caroline thought about it long aftermaybe that was the way to look at the past. Not as a failure, but as a string of mistakes that you could now understand, not just judge.
August was blistering. The greenhouse was now a known spot; tours booked, children brought in by teachers. A biology teacher from the school next door arranged a series of lessons here. Tom was delighted.
“All you,” he insisted.
“No, us.”
“Your idea, your plan, I just carried the watering can.”
Caroline laughed, then set back to her desknow with her laptop and folders spread out, drafting plans to expand into the disused building next door for an education centre and workshops. It would need money; shed found a couple of grants and Tom scrutinised the guidelines with a scholars focus.
September. One Friday evening her phone vibrated with a number she hadnt deleted (she simply hadnt thought to)Richard.
She waited a few seconds before picking up.
“Yes?”
“Caroline.” A pause. “Are you busy?”
“I am. Whats up?”
“Nothingjust… I need to speak to you.”
“About what?”
“Lots of things. Caroline, its not easy for me. I justit would help to talk.”
“Im listening.”
“No, face to face. Can I come round? Where do you work?”
She thought.
“Greenhouse on River Lane. During working hours.”
And hung up.
He turned up in October. A normal Tuesday, half twelve. She was setting up orchid stands when she heard unfamiliar footsteps.
Richard walked in holding a bunch of chrysanthemums, plastic wrap and allthe sort you get at Tesco for a fiver.
She looked at him: hed filled out, older, something different in his eyes. When hed left, thered been an upward buoyancy; now, none.
“Hello,” he managed.
“Hello.”
He glanced about. “Its lovely here.”
“I know.”
Pause. He thrust out the flowers, awkward.
“These for you.”
She took them. “Thank you. We can sit by the table here.”
They sat by the little visitation area shed set uptwo wicker chairs, a side table, a stack of gardening magazines. Tom quietly melted away.
“You look well,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“No, really. I havent seen you, well, like this, for ages.”
“Like this?”
“Alive.” He seemed startled by the word. “Beforeyou were always so tied up. With Mum. With all of it. Now youre different.”
“Im the same.”
“No,” he shook his head, “not quite.”
Caroline said nothing. She gazed beyond him to the mandarin trees. She waited for him to say whatever it was hed come to say.
“Caroline,” he started, “I know what I did. What I saidback then. It was it was wrong.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“I was I didnt know what I wanted. I thought I needed something new, wanted to escape. Turns out I was”
“Afraid,” she supplied.
He looked at her.
“Of what?”
“Getting old. Being reminded every day. Living with illness. That life wasnt like on TV. I understand, Richard. Were just people.”
“I never guessed you thought like that.”
“I didnt. Not always. But I do now.”
They sat in silence a long while, just the wind flicking at the greenhouse.
“Caroline,” he used the name he hadnt in years. “I want to come back. I know how it sounds but please, at least consider it.”
She looked at him, and realised the answer was steady and clear.
“Richard,” she answered, “Im not angry anymorethe angers gone. Whats left is understanding. You werent a villain; you made your choice.”
“So theres a chance?”
“No.”
He was silent.
“Why not?”
“Because I chose something else.”
“What did you choose?”
“This,” she gestured at the greenhouse. “This work. This place. The plants. Myself.”
Richard took that in, and she saw he understoodit wasnt to wound him or make a point; it was the truth.
“And him,” he said, “Tom said theres an engineer around sometimes?”
“Tom tells people all sorts,” said Caroline, untroubled.
“Are you?”
“Richard.” She met his gaze levelly. “Thats not your concern anymore.”
He accepted it, nodded.
“Understood.”
“Im glad you came,” she said. “Not for this talk, but so its done. Now its settled.”
“You were the best wife I couldve hoped for,” he said quietly.
“I know,” she said. She stood. “Ive got work to do. If you want a tour of the greenhouse, youre welcome.”
He stood too. Looked at her properly for the first time in years. She stood in dappled autumn light, among orange fruit, untroubled.
“Nothank you all the same. Id best be off.”
“All right.”
He walked to the door, paused.
“Caroline. You Never mind. Good luck.”
“You too.”
The door closed.
Caroline lingered by the table, then found a long vase, filled it with water, and set the chrysanthemums in. With water, chrysanthemums would last an age.
Tom reappeared, pretending to have heard nothing. The greenhouse, for all its glass, carried sound well.
“Tea?” he offered.
“Please,” said Caroline.
They drank at the work table, Tom telling her about the citrus butterflies hed read up on recentlyapparently you could keep them in greenhouses and the schoolchildren would love them. Caroline listened and thought, butterflies were a splendid idea.
October gave way quietly to November. Caroline was deep in her plans for the expansion, application sent off for a grant, and when a provisional offer returned, Tom was so pleased he bought a cake and they ate it right there, at her desk, giggling over crumbs on the blueprints.
Alec began coming more oftennot just for repairs.
One cold afternoon he brought mulled wine in a flask.
“November, after all,” he explained.
“How do you know Id be up for that?”
“You dont object, do you?”
She laughed.
They sat in the old wicker chairs, watching the stark winter park through the glass, the air inside orange-scented and sharp with pine from Tom’s clippings scattered for winter atmosphere.
“Tell me about the expansion plan,” Alec prompted.
She showed him, for an hourtalking through her designs, and occasionally Alec would stop her, flick open his tablet, suggest a structural fix. It became a conversation of equalsthe sort shed missed.
“We could fit double glazing here,” he suggested. “Theres a similar system in Finland; solves condensation.”
“And will the frame take an extension?”
“Ill run the figures, but I think so. Want me to check?”
“Please do.”
He looked up at her rather than the page.
“I like talking to you, Caroline.”
She paused.
“I like it too.”
Something outside was changing. She gazed out; it took a moment before she realised
Snow.
Fine flakes, nearly transparent, falling uncertainly, melting as they brushed the paths. The air went pale, and soft, the city muted beyond.
“Snow,” Alec said.
“Yes.”
They sat and watched.
Caroline warmed her hands around her mugthe heat seeping in, mingling the scent of wine, citrus peel and pineand thought, behind this glass, November might be cruel, but inside, it was warm. Living things grew in here; this, perhaps, was what shed builta place where warmth survived, no matter what lay outside.
“Are you thinking about something?” Alec asked quietly.
“I am.”
“Good things?”
Caroline looked at the snowy park, at the mandarin trees heavy with fruit, the row of orchids, the tall palms reaching up into the glass roof where snowflakes melted and ran away.
“Yes,” she replied. “Very good things.”
Alec said nothing further. He only poured more mulled wine, and together, in the greenhouses quiet warmth, they watched the first snow fall.
