Rosie Coloured Glasses. Brianna Wolfson

that the children of other divorced parents fantasized about what it might be like for their mother and father to be in love again. For their mother to tighten their father’s tie in the morning before work. For their father to zip up their mother’s dress in the evening before dinner. For their mother and father to share a casual kiss on the lips when they thought their children weren’t looking. For every picture frame around the house to display an image of a whole family: mother, father, and brother and sister tangled around one another.

      But Willow didn’t think about any of that.

      She thought about her tough and serious father in one world, and her warm and glimmering mother in the other. And the three times a week when one world grated up against the other.

      But that grating of worlds, all that friction and heat, was worth it for Willow whenever she could return to her mother’s world.

      Because in that world, her mother’s love was magical and it was fierce. Willow felt this kind of love could crystallize inside of her and fortify her. That it could fulfill her in the truest, realest sense. That it could keep her safe and happy forever.

      But Willow was wrong.

      In her life there would soon be confusion and sadness and pain and loss. And her mother’s manic love for her daughter could not protect Willow from any of these things. In fact, it might have even caused them.

       1

      Twelve Years Ago

      At twenty-four, Rosie Collins believed that love was both specific and all-consuming. She believed that true love accessed the back of the earlobe as much as it accessed the heart. She believed that there was one, special, nuanced way one human being could love another human being. And she thought of those nuanced, invisible, loving forces whenever she saw lovers together in the park or the subway or on a bench. She imagined the names they called each other before bed. His favorite place to put his hand. Her favorite shirt of his to wear to bed. The silly thing she said that made him laugh and laugh. The ugly painting he bought for their apartment that she loved seeing on the living room wall.

      Rosie took the job at Blooms Flower Shop on 22nd Street and 8th Avenue as soon as she moved to Manhattan in part for the money, in part because she liked the idea of someone named Rosie working in a flower shop. But mostly she took the job so she could gain access to those loving forces. Like all of her other petty jobs, she would have to perform certain mundane tasks—this time, arranging flowers, manning the register and transcribing messages onto cards. But Rosie thought she might be able to keep this job for longer than the usual six weeks because at Blooms Flower Shop, she saw the greater meaning in her work.

      She saw herself facilitating love. She fantasized about the thousands of love stories of which she would witness the tiniest glimpse, as patron after patron would call her up and share a little piece of themselves. They would tell her about their girlfriend’s favorite flower. Their fiancée’s favorite poem. How they wanted the perfect bouquet to show up at their wife’s desk for her birthday. How they wanted the perfect arrangement to say Happy Anniversary. Or to send something just because.

      She was so excited that she spent the entire Sunday before her first day of work practicing her calligraphy. Rosie wanted to ensure that each letter was original and ornate enough to reflect the beauty and originality of the love behind the note. She barely slept that first night with the anticipation of her access to the authentic, naked, unabashed voice of love. It was a voice she loved so much, even though it wasn’t a part of her own life yet.

      But Rosie’s heart broke the first week at Blooms when, day after day, men called in requesting a dozen red roses be sent to their girlfriend or wife or lover with a card that simply read “Love, Jim” or “From Tom,” or just “Harry.”

      Didn’t some women prefer hydrangeas or chrysanthemums or lilies? Wouldn’t some of these flowers go to women who preferred pink or white or a mix of colors? Didn’t men in love know these sorts of things about their lovers? Hadn’t they wanted to fill that tiny card accompanying the arrangement with the kindest, truest, most perfect words?

      When you sent flowers to your wife, didn’t you want it to mean “This is the way I still feel when I look into your eyes”? When you loved someone, didn’t you want to tell them in the most perfect, specific, unconcealed way? How did all of these men love women in the same twelve-red-roses-and-a–“Love, John” or “From Rob,” or just plain “Colin” way?

      It broke Rosie’s heart to think that love could ever, ever, ever be that banal.

      But Rosie was also not the type to sit around with a broken heart for long. Especially when it threatened her worldview. If the men of Manhattan could not express love properly, she would help them along. She would infuse their gestures with nuance and specificity whether it was authentic or not.

      So Rosie took it upon herself to ensure that no card left Blooms Flower Shop with a generically and heartbreakingly boring signature. She replaced all requests for dull notes with ones she deemed more appropriate for a gesture of love. “You looked beautiful last night. Love, Alex.” “I was just thinking about how charming you looked when you had that piece of food stuck in your teeth. Love, Ryan.” “I’m better with you around. Love, Charlie.” “I hope we hang out so many more times. Love, Ian.” And she would smile wholly as she tied each card around a stem and sent it out the door.

      These were the love stories Rosie wanted to be a part of. Even if they weren’t real, Rosie still believed them in some way to be true.

      For weeks and weeks no one ever mentioned her love nudges. No one until Rex Thorpe called and requested that a dozen red roses be sent to his girlfriend at 934 Columbus Avenue.

      “And what would you like the card to say?” Rosie asked dully.

      Rosie had talked on the phone to this type with the Upper West Side girlfriend before. Brash. Probably had a high-paying job. Probably handsome but also deeply jerky. Probably had a pretty girlfriend to whom he seldom said, “I love you.”

      “The card? What card?” Rex responded curtly.

      “The card that will accompany the dozen red roses.”

      A momentary pause.

      “Sir?” she added as she rolled her eyes and pressed her condescension through the phone.

      “I don’t fucking know.”

      Silence. And then the repulsive chomping sound of gum-chewing came through the phone.

      “To Anabel. Love, Rex. I guess.”

      Click.

      Rosie found Rex and the whole interaction to be entirely and maddeningly insulting to her and to the verb love. Again.

      And so Rosie filled out the card in the manner that she felt appropriate, with her favorite e. e. cummings poem:

      love is more thicker than forget

      more thinner than recall

      more seldom than a wave is wet

      more frequent than to fail

      it is most mad and moonly

      and less it shall unbe

      than all the sea which only

      is deeper than the sea

      love is less always than to win

      less never than alive

      less bigger than the least begin

      less littler than forgive

      it is most sane and sunly

      and more it cannot die

      than all the sky which only

      is higher than the sky

      And then she signed it on his behalf: “I love you, Rex.”

      This