On a windowsill inside the emergency room, next to the incubator, sat a decorative flower arrangement wrapped in lavender silk. A pale plant with glossy leaves and white bell-shaped blossoms drooped over the ribbon. It looked innocent in the way a predator looks asleep. Jermaine knew that plant.
He knew it because his grandmother, Miss Inez Claremont, had spent her life tending community gardens in Atlanta. She taught children to read nature like scripture. She taught which plants could heal burns, which could calm nerves, and which ones you should never touch without gloves and prayer. She called that white flower Ghost Lily, a backyard nickname, and she spoke about it in a stern voice.
“Digitalis,” she would say. “Pretty enough to marry the wind. Deadly enough to steal a heartbeat. You see it, you walk away. You smell it, you warn others.”
Jermaine saw the same oily sheen clinging to the leaves now. He saw the gardener earlier, Mr. Briggs, a thick-armed man who laughed too loudly, watering the plant and then wiping his hands on a towel before touching the incubator rails. He remembered Briggs saying the plant had been a gift delivered from an anonymous sender.