They were yellow tulip buds.
Happy. Bright. Full of the promise of a warm spring after a brutal winter.
I opened the door as she awkwardly handed the bundle to me.
"I didn't know what to do, but I saw these and thought of you."
The sky was blue behind her, the air warm, sweetened by the lemon blossoms.
I felt the dam crack behind my eyes as I stood there at the door watching her shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
I tried not to let it break all the way open.
I was afraid it would wash away the numbness that was keeping me upright.
"You see, my oldest son..."
That's all she had to say, and I knew. I knew she knew.
I learned the sound of the bathroom door as I lay awake each night listening for it to open and then close. Then I would start counting. One minute. Two. Three. Five. When it felt too long, I would get out of bed, open my door, and knock on hers to make sure she was still alive.
Some nights I knocked. Some nights I listened. Some nights, I opened the door before I had time to talk myself out of it.
I don't know how many nights I lived like that. I only know that, eventually, exhaustion became easier to carry than fear...and numbness overtook them both.
When those tulips arrived, I was already flat on my back, screaming into the sky, what else you got? What else you got?
And for the first time in what felt like a really long time...someone climbed down onto the ground with me.
"I see how dark it is here. I'm with you."
I watched those yellow tulips slowly open in their vase that week.
Then I watched them wilt.
Everything else is a blur.
The flowers aren't.