The Gardenia That Never Belonged to Me

Synopsis

Edward Grant never sent me flowers. But every June, he'd personally order a bouquet of gardenias and place them in front of the photo in his study, the one I was forbidden to touch. It took two years of marriage for me to realize he married me because my profile just looked like hers in that photo. One night, eight weeks into my pregnancy, I carefully handed him the ultrasound report. He took it, glanced at it for three seconds, then set it aside. "Don't go into the study anymore. The gardenia scent isn't good for the baby," he said. He didn't smile or hug me. He got up and changed the password on the study door. Later, I found an old prescription tucked away in the back of his closet. It was for gardenia essential oil sleep spray, with a note: "She has trouble sleeping. Only this scent works for her." Standing there, wrapped in the gardenia fragrance, everything suddenly clicked for me. For the past two years, he wasn't keeping me by his side; he was holding onto an old dream he could never finish. The fragrance I'd breathed in for over seven hundred days and nights was someone else's sleeping pill. No matter how lush the gardenias bloomed, they were never for me. That night, I threw open every window. The north wind rushed in, bit by bit sweeping away the sweet scent that had seeped out from under the study door. The last gardenia in the vase was blown to the floor, its petals scattering across the ground like shattered snow. I watched them, and for the first time, I felt that scent that never belonged to me finally disappear.