The Wreath Shop at Night

Xiao Zhao works nights at the wreath shop next to the funeral home, making white flowers.

The shop is run by the owner alone; she keeps it by day and lets Xiao Zhao watch it by night. The trade sounds unlucky but is in fact busy — the hospital and funeral home are close, and people come to order wreaths in the small hours, red-eyed, barely able to speak. Xiao Zhao learned not to ask much, only to note the name and the inscription, and by early morning to make the wreath and deliver it.

The strange one was the woman who always came at three.

She wore a navy wool coat and did not turn on the light when she entered; she just stood at the counter and softly gave a name, saying she wanted a wreath, inscribed "For my daughter." Xiao Zhao would write the order and take the money — old notes, their corners worn soft. He asked where to deliver; she said no need, she would take it herself. The wreath was taller than she was, yet she lifted it and drifted out the door.

She came seven nights running, the same name, the same "For my daughter."

Suspicious, on the eighth night Xiao Zhao followed her out and watched her carry the wreath down the little path behind the funeral home's rear wall — at the end of that path was the columbarium. He dared not follow in and turned back to ask the owner.

Hearing the name, the owner went pale. That name, she said, belonged to a little girl lost in a school-bus accident more than ten years ago. Back then the girl's mother came every day to order wreaths, saying her daughter loved flowers and must have fresh ones daily. Not long after, the mother passed too, of a sudden illness.

"After that no one came to order," the owner said. "Not until you started the night shift."

Xiao Zhao said nothing more. From then, come three o'clock, he first made a wreath inscribed "For my daughter" and set it on the counter. The woman came, lifted it, and left, no longer needing to give a name. Xiao Zhao says he does not know for whom he made it — for the daughter, or for the mother who need never speak again and could at last bring flowers every day.

Midnight Record note: A school-bus accident made the papers for two days and then was turned past; yet one mother kept "my daughter loves flowers" all her life, kept it past her own death and could not stop. Xiao Zhao's wreath, made ahead of time, was worth little, but it caught, for a city rushing ahead, a small thing no one else remembered: someone was still bringing her daughter flowers every day. We always say look forward; but someone must be willing, at three in the morning, to make the flowers ready for those who can no longer turn back.