Another story of emotional and psychological captivity, albeit in this case from beyond the grave. In small town Appalachian America, Pauly has been the town’s flamboyantly gay florist for decades and beloved by the townswomen. Especially Moira, his platonic life partner: carefully using the language of its setting, the story never quite says ‘fag-hag’, but its is clearly implied. Like Adan Haslett’s siblings, both have had fleeting affairs with other men, but these have not blossomed (pun intended).
After Pauly’s death, and a funeral where Moira’s reads out his carefully chosen words (he is an impeccably controlling character, even after death), she ‘unexpectedly’ inherits his entire estate: a beautiful family home, a lot of money – and the florist’s shop. (There is a tacit suggestion throughout the story that Moira might be a little slow on the uptake.)
Whether his legacy is a gift or a burden becomes a moot point. Has her (platonic) life with him been a joy, or a distraction from making a life of her own? The story underlines this with a beautifully deployed use of the sense of scent: an overwhelmingly sweet sickliness of gifted flowers by his hospice bedside, and the stench of dying blooms in a florist shop left closed for days after his passing.
A visit from the dead man’s former lover and a garden conversation hints at a turning point, although the resolution remains beyond the story’s final page. The dead man has – perhaps deliberately, perhaps unknowingly, perhaps unintentionally – set Moria free, but she must take the next step herself. To borrow a phrase that may be Mark Zuckerberg’s finest legacy, it’s complicated, but the ending is not without hope.
Published in The Rope Swing, Vandalia Press, 2016
A Personal Anthology 