It avoids your eyes, then comes back for a second look. It reaches into a leather wallet, presses a five-dollar bill into your hand, and tells you to keep the flower. It smells like perfume, cigars, expensive coffee, or sometimes hospital soap. Guilt never stays. It just passes by and leaves you standing in the rain, holding a little warmth until the wind steals that too.
That morning, you have sold only three daisies.
One to an old woman whose hands shook worse than yours. One to a man in a suit talking too loudly on his phone. One to a teenage girl crying in the passenger seat of a pickup truck while her boyfriend stared straight ahead and pretended not to notice. Nine dollars sit in your coat pocket, damp and wrinkled, and your stomach has been empty long enough to stop complaining.
You are already thinking about whether to buy bread or powdered milk when you see the basket.
It sits near the iron fence of Ashford Park, tucked beside a hedge glistening with rain. At first glance it looks too nice to belong there. The wicker is pale and polished. A cream-colored blanket drapes over the top, embroidered with tiny blue crowns that are far too fancy for anything abandoned in your part of town.
You stop walking.
