At first, I believed the Friday flowers were simply my husband Dan’s way of bringing a little romance back into our busy lives. After sixteen years of marriage, tenderness can fade into routines, and even a small gesture can feel like a spark. Every bouquet he brought home—tulips, lilies, bright mixtures of garden stems—made me smile longer than I meant to. It felt like we were rediscovering something we had quietly misplaced over the years. But as the weeks passed, tiny inconsistencies began to take root in my mind. The flowers came from different “shops” each time, some stems looked freshly pulled from the ground, and one day a small handwritten note slipped from the wrapping: “See you next Friday.” It wasn’t addressed to me. And my heart sank under the weight of questions I wasn’t ready to face. Continue reading…
