She sits and looks, dry-eyed, at an iris, at its purple and yellow stillness held in place by a crystal vase.
The iris holds within its petals age-yellowed memories — memories of evening dances, of shared laughter, and of deepening love. She smiles as she sees gentle Ned with his pool-bleached hair and laugh lined brown eyes, handing her an iris, as he did every week for a year. She hears his bass and smoky voice, as he swears to marry her once graduation arrives on tasseled feet.
The iris mirrors the flower she dropped onto spade-turned earth, years ago, the result of Ned's signing with the Marines to pay for his last year of college. She watched him, handsome and awkward in his new dress uniform, leave for sand-blasted combat a few months later, and she stood in black-clothed and tearful silence when he returned wrapped in a flag with too much red in it, so much red.
Although years have passed and her life has continued, she buys one iris a week. Every Monday she sets her purchase in a crystal vase and sits beside it. As she looks at the iris, she remembers Ned, dancing, and earth.