The florist called while Marlene was standing at my sink rinsing off a tomato from her garden.

She’d stopped by after her shift at the utility office with a bag of Better Boys and a complaint about her left knee that had been bothering her since she’d knelt down to pull weeds Sunday. Normal sister visiting. The kind where you don’t really need a reason.

Her phone rang and the caller ID said Daisy Chain Florist.

Marlene almost didn’t answer because she figured it was some fundraiser thing for the high school band or the volunteer fire department.

But she picked up anyway with the phone wedged between her shoulder and her ear because her hands were still wet.

I was drying a mixing bowl when I saw her face start to change.

Not all at once like in movies. More like watching a tire go flat in slow motion.

“Apartment?” she said.

The kitchen smelled like tomato vines and Dawn dish soap. I set the bowl down and moved closer.

The woman on the phone was young. I could hear her because Marlene keeps her volume turned up too high and never remembers to adjust it. Her name was Kelsey.

Kelsey said she was calling to confirm the standing Friday delivery because the credit card on file had been declined for the first time.

“How long has this been going on?” Marlene asked.

“Let me check.” There was clicking in the background. “The order started February of last year. So about 18 months.”

Eighteen months of Fridays.

Marlene looked at me with her eyes wide and mouthed the name Ron.

I nodded toward one of the kitchen chairs because her hand holding the tomato had started shaking and I didn’t want her to drop it on my tile.

She sat down hard.

“What address?” Marlene asked.

There was a pause on the other end. Florists must learn to recognize certain tones in people’s voices.

“It’s 611 Porter Avenue,” Kelsey said carefully. “Apartment 4B.”

That was the building across from the county courthouse, above where the old barbershop used to be before it closed down.

“And who placed the order?” Marlene’s voice had gone flat.

“Ronald Tate.”

Marlene made a sound I had never heard come out of her before. Not crying. More like all the air leaving her body at once through a hole nobody could see.

“What does the card say?” she asked.

Paper rustled on Kelsey’s end.

“He usually changes it every week,” Kelsey said. “This Friday’s says, ‘Still choosing you.'”

I reached over and took the phone from Marlene’s hand before she dropped it.

“Kelsey,” I said, “this is Barbara. I’m Marlene’s sister. Do not cancel that order.”

Kelsey went quiet.

“Can you tell me what time the delivery is scheduled?” I asked.

“I’m not really supposed to give out customer information,” she said.

“You just called his wife,” I said. “Don’t make her beg.”

Kelsey’s voice dropped lower. “Four thirty.”

I thanked her and hung up.

Marlene was still sitting at my kitchen table holding that wet tomato in both hands like it was the only solid thing left in the world.

“He brought me flowers two weeks ago,” she said.

I remembered. She’d called me that night and mentioned it because Ron never bought flowers unless it was her birthday or their anniversary.

“Carnations from Kroger,” Marlene said. “He told me they were out of the nice ones.”

She’d put them in a Mason jar on the kitchen counter and thanked him.

I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.

“We have to go over there,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“You can and you will,” I said. “Because if you don’t, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering if maybe you misunderstood something.”

Marlene set the tomato down on my table.

“What if I didn’t misunderstand?” she asked.

“Then you’ll know that too.”

At three fifty-five I drove her to Porter Avenue in my Civic.

Not because I wanted to watch my sister’s heart break in real time. Because if she went alone she would talk herself into turning the car around before she got there.

We parked across the street where we could see the staircase that led up to the second-floor apartments.

Apartment 4B had a wreath on the door that said Welcome Friends in yellow wooden letters. There was a child’s scooter leaning against the railing.

Marlene stared at that scooter for a long time.

“Maybe it’s not what we think,” she said.

I didn’t answer because there was nothing useful I could say to that.

At four thirty-one a man in a Daisy Chain Florist polo shirt came up those stairs carrying a clear vase with white lilies and pink roses. The expensive kind Ron never brought home.

Marlene’s hands were gripping the door handle but she didn’t move.

The delivery man knocked.

The door to 4B opened.

A woman answered. Maybe thirty-five. Blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing an oversized sweatshirt.

Marlene made a noise.

“That’s Ron’s Titans sweatshirt,” she said. “The one he said he lost at the lake last summer.”

The woman took the flowers and smiled at the delivery man and said something we couldn’t hear from across the street. Then she turned and carried the vase inside and closed the door.

The wreath swayed a little.

Marlene’s phone rang.

She looked down at the screen.

Ron.

She just stared at it. Four rings. Five.

“Answer it,” I said.

She swiped to accept the call and put it on speaker without saying anything.

“Hey babe,” Ron said. His voice sounded normal. Easy. The same voice he’d used at Sunday dinner at their house last week when he’d asked me to pass the rolls. “I’m gonna be about thirty minutes late. Dale needs help finishing up a site inspection before we can lock the building.”

Dale was Ron’s supervisor at the county. They’d worked together for nine years.

“Where are you right now?” Marlene asked.

“I’m at the courthouse. Why?”

“What can you see from where you’re standing?”

There was a pause.

“What?” Ron said.

“Look out the window,” Marlene said. “Tell me what you see.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

“Marlene, what’s going on?”

“Porter Avenue,” she said. “Can you see it from there?”

The silence on the other end lasted about five seconds.

Then Ron said, “Let me call you back,” and the line went dead.

Marlene set her phone down in her lap.

We sat there in my car not talking while the sun dropped lower and the shadows from the courthouse stretched long across the street.

At four forty-eight the door to Apartment 4B opened again.

The blonde woman stepped out onto the landing. She wasn’t wearing the Titans sweatshirt anymore. She had on a different shirt and she was holding her phone up to her ear.

Even from across the street I could see her face had gone pale.

She was talking fast. Shaking her head. Then she stopped moving entirely and just stood there with the phone pressed against her ear and her other hand braced against the railing.

“Someone’s telling her something,” I said.

Marlene didn’t answer.

The woman lowered her phone. She looked at it for a second and then she turned and went back inside and shut the door hard enough that we heard it click from across the street.

Marlene’s phone rang again.

This time the caller ID said a number we didn’t recognize.

She looked at me.

“Answer it,” I said.

She did.

“Is this Marlene Tate?” a man’s voice asked.

“Yes.”

“This is Greg Holloway. I think we need to talk about my wife Elise and your husband Ron.”

Marlene closed her eyes.

“The florist called me an hour ago,” Greg said. “They couldn’t get ahold of Ron so they called the secondary contact number on the account. That’s me. I’m listed as the person to call if there’s a problem with delivery to my own damn apartment.”

His voice was shaking.

“I’ve been working overnight shifts at the plastics plant for 18 months,” he said. “Friday through Monday. Ron knew my schedule. Elise told him everything.”

Marlene opened her eyes and stared at the apartment door across the street.

“The florist said the card was declined so they called the primary number,” Greg continued. “That turned out to be your number. Which I guess Ron was stupid enough to put down because he never thought the card would decline. It’s a joint account, right?”

“Yes,” Marlene said quietly.

“I pulled up our credit card statement online when the florist called me,” Greg said. “Ron’s been using your joint card to pay for flowers to my wife every single Friday for a year and a half. Seventy-two deliveries at forty-five dollars each. You do that math?”

Marlene didn’t answer.

“That’s three thousand two hundred and forty dollars,” Greg said. “He spent over three thousand dollars on flowers for another man’s wife using money that belonged to both of you.”

I could hear him breathing hard on the other end.

“I just called Elise,” he said. “I told her I know. I told her I’m filing for divorce and she can figure out her own rent because I’m not paying for that apartment anymore.”

“I’m sorry,” Marlene said.

“Don’t be sorry to me,” Greg said. “I didn’t do this. They did.”

Then he hung up.

We sat in the car until the streetlights came on.

Marlene’s phone buzzed four more times. All from Ron. She didn’t look at any of them.

Finally she said, “I want to go home.”

“Your home or mine?” I asked.

She looked at me.

“Mine,” she said. “I need to pack some of his things before he gets there.”

I drove her back to the house she’d lived in for 19 years. The one with the tomato plants in the back and the mailbox Ron had installed himself with her last name still on it.

She got out of the car and stood in the driveway for a minute looking at the front door.

“You want me to come in?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I need to do this part by myself.”

She went inside and I waited in the driveway with the engine running until I saw the lights come on in the living room.

Then I drove home.

Marlene called me at eight thirty that night.

“I put all his clothes in garbage bags on the front porch,” she said. “I changed the locks. I called a lawyer.”

Her voice sounded steadier than it had all afternoon.

“Good,” I said.

“The lawyer asked me if I had proof,” Marlene said. “I told her I had the florist’s records, the credit card statements, and a witness who watched the delivery.”

“That should be enough,” I said.

“She said it was more than enough.”

There was a long pause.

“He sent her flowers every single Friday for 18 months,” Marlene said. “And I got grocery store carnations twice.”

“I know.”

“The cards said ‘Still choosing you,'” she said. “Like it was some kind of romantic thing. Like he was proud of it.”

I didn’t say anything because there was nothing I could say that would make any of it better.

“I keep thinking about that sweatshirt,” Marlene said. “He told me he lost it at the lake. He looked me right in the face and lied about a sweatshirt.”

“He lied about more than the sweatshirt,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “But that’s the part I can’t stop thinking about. It was his favorite. He wore it every Sunday during football season. And he just gave it to her like it didn’t mean anything.”

She was quiet for a second.

“I should’ve known,” she said. “There were probably signs.”

“Don’t do that to yourself,” I said.

“The lawyer said the joint account is going to work in my favor,” Marlene said. “He used marital funds to pay for an affair. That’s not going to look good for him.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not.”

“I’m keeping the house,” she said. “And half his pension. And he can figure out his own damn flowers from now on.”

She hung up before I could say anything else.

Ron tried calling me six times over the next two days. I never answered.

Marlene filed for divorce that Wednesday.

The lawyer subpoenaed the florist’s records and the credit card statements and got a notarized statement from Greg Holloway confirming the delivery address and the timeline.

Ron tried to say it wasn’t what it looked like.

His lawyer tried to argue that flowers weren’t proof of a physical affair.

Marlene’s lawyer pointed out that $3,240 in flowers delivered to another woman’s apartment every Friday for 18 months while Ron’s wife got gas station carnations twice was proof enough of intent and deception, and that was all the court needed to see.

The divorce was final in four months.

Marlene got the house, half his pension, and a lump sum settlement that Ron had to take out a loan to pay.

She still lives in that house.

She ripped out the tomato plants the first summer after the divorce and put in a flower bed instead.

She plants lilies every spring.

Not because she likes them.