Dr. Iris Voss, 79, preferred the company of plants over people.
In the solitude of her greenhouse, she tended to her life’s greatest mystery—a velvet-petaled flower, whispered about in folklore, rumored to cure heartbreak.
She never tested its power. Some wounds were meant to linger.
Then, one winter afternoon, the past arrived unannounced.
Rose.
Her sister, radiant even in old age, wrapped in a coat too thin for the frost. A former actress, still dramatic as ever.
Iris stiffened. “You’ve got no role here.”
Rose smiled, but her hands trembled. A hesitation. A shadow beneath her skin.
“I have a tumor,” she said. “And I don’t want to waste time. Let me help it bloom.”
Iris wanted to refuse. To protect her garden. To protect her heart.
But Rose was already reaching for a trowel.
So they worked.
Side by side, they fought off hungry aphids, shielded the fragile stem from the creeping frost. In the quiet, they unearthed more than roots—old letters buried in dust.
Letters where Iris had scrawled accusations in sharp, unforgiving ink.
You stole my research.
Rose’s voice wavered. “I never wanted your work, Iris. I wanted… your spotlight.”
Silence hung between them, thick as the scent of damp earth.
Then, at dawn, the flower bloomed.
Deep crimson, unfurling like an apology neither had spoken.
Its perfume curled through the greenhouse, dissolving years of silence.
Without a word, they gathered its seeds into envelopes, addressing them to grieving strangers—people who had lost lovers, friends, siblings.
Not a cure. A kindness.
The first letter came back weeks later, handwritten and trembling:
“For the first time, I don’t feel alone.”
And as Iris and Rose sat in the greenhouse, sharing a laugh that felt like childhood, they realized—
Some things grow stronger than grudges.
Some roots refuse to die.