.Perfect Fantasy. |H.S.|

Chapter 23. Red Letters.

.Natalia.

Taking the different time zones was harder than I thought, I'd been going to sleep late and waking early each morning since the midnight conversation with Harry. For the last two days, he was barely seen around the house; and I hated to admit that I was truly disappointed. Evidently he had escaped to his music duties or trying to ensure the safety of the house, or at least, that's what I learned from his mother, who seemed nearly as used to never have him around.

On the third day, I was done with being indoors, the sun was shinning after the clouded with heavy rain hours, and now the air was so saturated with a mixture of water and heat, that the day was a little ideal for some lovely time outside. I enjoyed the short flight of stone steps to the garden landscape, where I found Anne fixing some flowers in a heavy iron set of garden table and chairs.
She didn't seemed surprised to see me roaming around the house, her busy hands making an arrangement, clipping stems with some scissors, and happy face shinning with the trace that she was enjoying herself.

"Would you like to join me?" Her voice was bursting with tranquility and after figuring out that she was on her own, I gladly took the chair beside her, resting my back happily against the seat and breathing in and out the wonderful flower scented humidity.

"Where is everyone?"

"Harry and Sean went for a walk, he wanted to go for a run but I told him to take it easy." She lighted up with each word that came out of her, not only her expression, but her eyes showed so much kindness and just bright love, and I wondered to myself, if Harry was the heir of that very unique trait of her. "And I sent my husband with a very complex list of things to buy... I actually want to see how much he manages to find."

There were half a dozen things I could have said at that moment, but all I could get out was, "So that leaves us girls to have some fun?"

"Exactly!"

"Is this a hobby of yours?" I asked her, signaling the varied sized vases and pebbles, and she stopped for a minute on her task, offering me another genuine smile.

"Yes, it is quite fun, if you want, I can show you what flowers to pair and how to do it." I studied the colorful fresh-cut blossoms she picked out for the vase, and decided that yeah, I wanted to try it out.

She taught me about those bright flowers she'd gathered and she was mentioning how to harvest them for the optimum length of time on display, what kind of water nutrition they needed and how to choose colors and sizes. It was definitely the type of bonding stuff I'd craved all of these years from my mother, but never happened, and I wasn't going to sulk in the idea, I really wanted to enjoy this.

I tried to keep up with my own tiny version of the flower arrangement and we were chatting excitedly about her charity work, and her friends, and I found myself enjoying her company, hanging on every story and anecdote she offered me, but secretly wanting to know more and more about Harry. I was actually craving information about him, but it was probably a bad idea to ask around, so I kindly took anything she was willing to share with me.

"Oh, I don't know about you but I'm definitely having a lot of fun." I told her after giving the last touches to the bouquet, sticking some greens between the petals.

"You know, we can kick it up a notch." She told me as I watched her walking around the pathway into her house.
I closed my eyes for a bit, filling my lungs with the purest air and actually admitting to myself that the fatigue of the past days was actually leaving my body, feeling strange that I no longer had to spend my weekdays scribbling piles of charts and release documents or catching up with the patients on my watch.
Anne took a few minutes but I was soon hearing her footsteps coming back, and my mouth literally fell open when I saw her approaching the table with two glass flutes filled with juice.