I don’t believe in signs, but then again maybe I do.

On Tuesday, my grandma passed away. I got the call while sitting cross-legged on a friend’s couch, entranced by The Bachelor. The news didn’t come out of nowhere: She’d been in hospice for months, she hadn’t left her bed in a long time, she was no longer talking. So I shouldn’t have been surprised, and I suppose I wasn’t, but you don’t have to be surprised to be sad. I cried a little, but tried to hold my head up.

On Wednesday, I wore a shirt with a vase of flowers on it, determined to do small things to remember her. She loved flower arranging, and she was good at it. You could say she had a green thumb, but we liked to joke that she had “one and a half green thumbs.” Her right thumb was a nub burned off in a fire, decades ago.

I bundled up for the cold, still wearing my flower shirt underneath. After driving to an event downtown, I pulled into the parking lot of the building and looked at the sky, rich with the sunset. It was bubblegum pink, sparkly from the rain. I couldn’t help but think my grandma Mimi would have loved to see it. She liked pretty things. I started crying and it felt nice, and then it felt weird that it felt so nice. My playlist pulled up the perfect song to dig into the emotion: “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish. I couldn’t have made a more perfect selection myself. A deep cry was warranted, and this song brought me to a cathartic edge, finally letting emotion seep out of me.

On Thursday, I started feeling sick. They say something about the immune system weakening from sadness. Maybe that’s an urban legend, but I sneezed once and the congestion just stayed.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: I laid in bed, thinking about my grandma and life and loss and sunsets and flowers. I made a list of all the things I wanted to remember about her: that she loved flowers, that she always scraped the bottom of the bowl because “there’s always another cookie,” that she had beaded curtains in the doorways of her homes and they sounded like the ocean. I wrote down that she loved to flirt with hot doctors and play with young kids. She always used to say, “it won’t show on your wedding day” when I got a bruise or a cut, and she loved to watch me and my brother play basketball back when we loved it too. I wrote down everything I could think of as if writing this list would keep her alive.

On Monday, I started feeling better. I managed to get to class and make it through my meetings, but I couldn’t help feeling like the universe was gearing up to throw me another curveball.

On Tuesday, I went to the mailroom to pick up my packages. I had nine—most of which were small pouches of Disney pins I’d bought for myself and my boyfriend. One in particular though, was rather large, book-shaped, and hard. I tried opening it in the classroom, but the crinkling of the packaging was too distracting, so I saved it for after class. The package was bright pink and had “ThriftBooks” written all over it. I had never ordered from them before, but I recognized the brand because my dad bought from them quite frequently.

But wouldn’t he have told me if he sent me a book?

When class ended, I ripped open the packaging, not sure what I expected to see. It caught me by surprise to see The Complete Guide to Flower Arranging emerge from the pink packaging.

First thought: This was sent to someone else and somehow ended up in my mailbox by accident. I flipped over the packaging to check, but it was addressed to me: Sarah Frank, 69 Brown St.

Second thought: Amazon sent me this instead of the Command Strips I ordered. A different kind of accident. My eyes wandered up to the return address though, and it was ThriftBooks. No trace of Amazon.

Third thought, this one said out loud: “Who on earth would send me this?” The only person in my life that would have ever given me a book about flower arranging was Mimi, someone who had never used the Internet and would not have been able to tell you which city I live in, never mind my address. I know she couldn’t have sent it, but it was the only thing that made sense. She was the only person that made sense.

After class, I texted a photo of the book and the packaging to my mom, who had no idea who sent it. Neither did my dad. 

Who even has my school address?

This question narrowed down the list, but the following question narrowed it down even more.

Who would send me something, but not text me to say they sent it?

No note, no information about the sender, no holiday or celebration to have sent something for.

Who knows me well enough to have my address, but not well enough to text me that they were sending me something? And maybe even more importantly, not well enough to know that I have no interest in flower arranging?

I carried the book back to my dorm and set it aside. Later, when recounting my day to my boyfriend, I flipped open the book for the first time, and like a camera lens zooming in on a subject, I noticed it: one single word, penned in blue ink on the front page.

Irene.

“Oh my God—” I flipped my phone around to show my boyfriend. “My middle name. Her middle name.” I flipped through the rest of the book to see if there were any other words or markings, but there were none. Just pages and pages about the art of flower arranging: bouquets, dried flowers, special occasions, color patterns. 

“I need to call my parents. I’ll call you back.” My mind was racing as I fumbled with my phone. Could this really just be a coincidence? A book I never ordered arrived in my mailbox just days after my grandma passed away, inscribed with the middle name we shared.

“Any idea who might have ordered this?” I asked both parents after sharing my update, but neither of them had any idea. We ran through a list of the people who have my address, a relatively short list. My other grandma, but she would have sent me a new copy if she was going to send me a book. My uncle, but he knows I have no interest in this and whenever he sends a gift, it’s a gift card. And both of them would have told me if they’d send something.

“Is it possible for, like, this to have been in the will?” I asked, running low on sensible explanations for this.

“It’s not,” my mom said. “I’ve seen it.”

“ThriftBooks takes a couple weeks to send book orders anyway,” my dad added, “So this was sent before Mimi passed away, not in response to it.”

“That makes it even weirder,” I murmured, flipping through the book again in case I missed something. Who sent me this?

We listed out every person it could be, coming up with no viable explanations. I tried calling ThriftBooks, but it was after business hours.

“I know it makes no sense,” I said, “and I know that she couldn’t have, but I can’t help but feel like Mimi sent this to me.”

Both parents nodded knowingly. I don’t believe in signs. We don’t believe in signs. But maybe I do. Because if there ever was a sign, this would be one. I’ve never had an interest in flower arranging. I’ve never had a green thumb. Yet, maybe this is one thing I can learn from Mimi—or rather, learn for Mimi. Something we can share, regardless of who sent the book. I think she would’ve liked it if I knew how to arrange flowers. I think she would have enjoyed teaching me.

The next morning, as I’m getting ready to call ThriftBooks to ask about the order, I hesitate. Maybe I want this to stay a mystery. I’m sure there’s a perfectly sensible answer as to who sent this and when and why, but maybe I don’t want to know. As long as I don’t know, it can be from her. It can be from a person who never could have sent it.

Maybe I’ll call another day. For now, this book was from her. And I will be learning the art of flower arranging.