The Argument That Never Ended

Cathy arrives on a Thursday afternoon in late September with two suitcases and the kind of restless energy that makes Hermann feel even smaller than it is. She works as a bartender in St. Louis, or she did last month; Lilia isn't entirely sure if she still has the job. Cathy's like that. She moves between jobs, apartments, relationships without saying when or why. She calls it freedom. Joy used to call it something else, quieter, with more worry in her voice.

"Jesus, it smells like bread and flowers threw up all over this town," Cathy says, dropping her bags in the doorway of Lilia's small apartment above Das Haus der Blumen. But she's smiling when she says it, and she pulls Lilia into a hug that smells like cigarettes and the perfume she's worn since Lilia was twelve. "How's my favorite niece?"

"Your only niece," Lilia says, but she's smiling too. It's been almost six months since Cathy visited.

They fall into the easy rhythm of it, Cathy unpacking while Lilia makes tea, talking over each other about nothing important. Cathy's latest almost-boyfriend. The new coffee shop in St. Louis that Lilia would love. The way Hermann hasn't changed in twenty years, which Cathy says like it's an insult and Lilia hears like comfort.

"You're still doing the flower thing?" Cathy gestures at the bouquets drying upside down from the ceiling beams, the pressed flowers in frames on the walls, the mason jars full of lavender on every surface.

"It's my business," Lilia says. "Das Haus der Blumen is doing really well, actually. We've got contracts with..."

"No, I mean this." Cathy waves her hand at everything. "The whole... aesthetic. You're twenty-four and you dress like you're in a Studio Ghibli film. I keep expecting a forest spirit to walk through that door."

Lilia looks down at her cream linen skirt, her bare feet. "I like it."

"I know you do." Cathy drops onto the couch, sprawls like she owns the place. "That's not a criticism. It's just very you. Very Hermann. Very..."

She doesn't finish the sentence, but Lilia hears it anyway: Very Joy and Thomas.

They spend Friday together, walking through town, stopping at the farmers market where Lilia knows everyone and everyone knows her. Mrs. Hoffmann waves from the hardware store. Mr. Schmidt asks about the mums for his wife's birthday, and Lilia already has them set aside, already remembered without being asked.

"You sent him a reminder text, didn't you?" Cathy asks when they're out of earshot.

"He's been married forty-six years. He shouldn't have to worry about forgetting."

"Lil, he's a grown man. He can set his own reminders."

"I was already thinking about it. It wasn't any trouble."

Cathy doesn't say anything else. Lilia hears it anyway: You do too much for people who don't ask for it. They walk back to the apartment in a silence that isn't entirely comfortable.

Saturday morning, Lilia wakes early to prep for the farmers market. When she comes back around noon, Cathy is on the couch with coffee, scrolling through her phone. She looks up when Lilia walks in.

"So I was talking to Becca yesterday."

Lilia sets down the leftover flowers, starts arranging them in vases even though they don't need arranging. "Oh?"

"She said you've been checking in with her a lot lately. Like, a lot a lot."

"She's my best friend. I'm allowed to check in."

"She said you texted her four times Thursday night to make sure she wasn't mad about something you said at lunch. Something about, what was it, the way you worded a comment about her new haircut?"

Lilia's hands still on the stems. "I wanted to make sure she knew I loved it. I didn't want her to think..."

"Lil." Cathy sets down her coffee. "She wasn't mad. She told you she wasn't mad. But you needed her to tell you again. And again. Until she finally just stopped responding because it was midnight and she had work in the morning."

"I just needed to be sure we were okay."

"You needed receipts." Cathy stands, crosses to where Lilia is standing by the counter. "That's what you're doing, right? Collecting proof that people know you care. That they're not mad. That everything's fine. You're building a paper trail of your own kindness."

The words land wrong. Sharp and too close to the truth.

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Cathy leans against the counter. She's not being mean, her voice is gentle, which somehow makes it worse. "Lil, I love you. You know that. But you're suffocating people."

"I'm being a good friend..."

"You're being compulsive." Cathy says it plain, like it's a fact. "You can't let conversations end without confirmation that everyone's okay. You track people's moods like you're responsible for them. Mrs. Schmidt told me you sent her three follow-up texts about whether she liked the hydrangeas for her grandson's graduation. Three. About flowers."

"She seemed uncertain when she bought them—"

"She was fine! They were flowers! But you needed her to tell you they were perfect. You needed the validation." Cathy's voice gets firmer. "You think this is love? It's control. You're doing it for you, not for them."

Lilia feels something crack open in her chest. "That's not true."

"It is true. And you know it is. That's why you're upset right now." Cathy reaches out, tries to touch Lilia's arm, but Lilia pulls back. "Look, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you see—"

"See what? That I care too much? That I'm too kind?"

"That you're terrified." Cathy's voice drops. "You're terrified that if you don't constantly prove you care, people won't know. That if you let a conversation end naturally, someone will walk away thinking you don't love them. So you chase every interaction down until you get your receipt. Until someone says the magic words that make you feel safe."

"You don't understand..."

"I do understand. I understand that this isn't sustainable. I understand that eventually someone's going to push back. And when they do, you're going to spiral, because your entire sense of self is wrapped up in being the kind person. The caretaker. The one who never lets anyone down."

"Why are you doing this?" Lilia's voice cracks. "Why are you here if you think I'm so—"

"Because I love you." Cathy's voice cracks. "Because you're my niece and you're choosing to suffocate yourself with this compulsion and I'm the only one who's apparently willing to say it out loud."

"Joy and Thomas don't think..."

"Joy and Thomas taught you this." Cathy's been waiting to say it for years, Lilia can hear it in her voice. "They taught you that care is a duty. That taking care of the community is how you prove you're good. That warmth and order aren't just nice, they're obligations. And you took that lesson and you twisted it into something that's eating you alive."

"Don't talk about them like that—"

"I'm not criticizing them! I'm criticizing what you're doing with what they taught you. There's a difference." Cathy runs her hand through her hair, frustrated. "Lil, I'm saying this because one day someone's going to tell you this and it's going to hurt worse than hearing it from me. One day you're going to smother someone who doesn't want to be smothered, and they're going to leave, and you're going to spend the rest of your life wondering what you did wrong. And the answer is this. This right here. The compulsion."

"Get out."

Cathy blinks. "What?"

"Get out." Lilia's voice is cold in a way it's never been before. "If you think I'm so broken, if you think I'm suffocating everyone, then leave. Go back to St. Louis and your bartending job you probably don't have anymore and your almost-boyfriend who probably won't last another month. Go back to your life where nothing sticks and nothing matters and you don't have to care about anyone but yourself."

"Lil—"

"No. You don't get to come here and tell me I'm doing love wrong. You don't get to criticize the way I take care of people when you can't even take care of yourself. At least I'm here. At least I show up. At least people know I love them."

"And that's the problem." Cathy says it quietly. "You need them to know. You need the confirmation. You need the receipt. Because without it, you don't know who you are."

"Get out." Lilia's voice drops to a whisper. Not shaking anymore. Flat. "Get out now."

"Fine." Cathy grabs her purse from the couch. "Fine. You're right. I'm a mess. I'm the family disappointment. But at least I know it."

"We'll talk about this later," Lilia says, but her voice is shaking.

"Will we?" Cathy stops at the door. "Or will you just text me seventeen times tonight asking if I'm mad until I confirm that we're okay? Because that's what you do, Lil. That's what you always do. You don't actually resolve things, you just force people to tell you it's resolved."

She leaves.

The door closes.

Lilia stands in her apartment surrounded by flowers and the smell of lavender and the terrible silence of being alone.

She'll call tomorrow. They'll fix it tomorrow. Cathy always comes around.

Tomorrow is Sunday. They'll talk. They'll apologize. It'll be fine.

Tomorrow.

The call comes Monday morning.

Lilia is at Das Haus der Blumen, arranging dahlias for the Zimmerman wedding, when her phone rings. Unknown number. She almost doesn't answer, she's busy, she has seventeen centerpieces to finish, but something makes her pick up.

"Is this Lilia Weber?"

"Yes?"

"This is Mercy Hospital in St. Louis. We have you listed as the emergency contact for Catherine Weber. I'm very sorry to tell you there's been an accident."

The dahlias fall from Lilia's hands. Petals scatter across the floor.

"What kind of accident?"

"A car accident. Saturday night. I'm so sorry. She didn't make it."

Saturday night. Two days ago. While Lilia was sleeping. While Lilia was working. While Lilia was assuming tomorrow would come.

"That's not possible."

"I'm very sorry. If you could come to the hospital, we'll need you to identify..."

Lilia hangs up.

She stands in her flower shop, surrounded by blooms for a wedding that will happen next week. Everything is the wrong color. Everything is the wrong shape. The world has tilted sideways.

Her phone rings again. She doesn't answer.

She remembers: They argued. Cathy left. What did Lilia say last? What were the exact words?

We'll talk about this later.

No. That's not right. There was more. Wasn't there? Cathy said something at the door. About texting. About receipts. About...

What did Lilia say?

Think. Think.

She said, she must have said...

"We'll talk about this later."

But did she? Is that exact? Or is that just what she meant to say? Did she actually say "later" or did she say "tomorrow"? Did she say anything else? Did Cathy say anything else?

Lilia presses her hands to her face. She's been replaying conversations for days, collecting receipts, making sure she knows exactly what was said. But this one. This conversation. The one that matters most.

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know.

The not-knowing is a living thing. It crawls up her throat and chokes her. She should remember this. She should know these words. They were two days ago. Forty-eight hours. How can she not remember?

She tries again. Cathy said: Or will you just text me seventeen times tonight asking if I'm mad until I confirm that we're okay? And Lilia said: We'll talk about this later. And then, what? Did Cathy say anything? Did she just leave? People don't just leave in silence, so she must have said something, but what was it?

Lilia sinks down onto the floor of her shop, surrounded by dahlias and baby's breath. She has receipts from a hundred conversations, text threads, thank-you notes, proof she was here. But not this one.

But the one conversation that matters, the last words with Cathy, she has nothing.

And worse. Worse than the not-knowing.

Cathy was right.

She saw it. She named it. She called the compulsion exactly what it was: control dressed up as love, desperation masquerading as care. She told Lilia the truth, and Lilia dismissed her. Told her to get out. Said "we'll talk later" like later was guaranteed.

And now Cathy is gone.

And Lilia will never get to say: you were right. I see it now. I'm sorry. I should have listened.

The last conversation they had was Cathy trying to save her, and Lilia rejecting the help.

The last words Lilia said, whatever they were, were defensive and cruel.

And she doesn't even know what they were.

She doesn't know if Cathy left angry or hurt or resigned. She doesn't know if Cathy spent Saturday night thinking about calling to apologize. She doesn't know if Cathy died thinking Lilia would never understand.

She doesn't know.

And that not-knowing, the gap where certainty should be, that's what breaks her.

Not the grief. Not the loss. But the uncertainty. The gap where knowledge should be. The question that will never have an answer.

Later, much later, Lilia will get up from this floor. She will drive to St. Louis, identify the body, plan a funeral. She will press flowers from the arrangements and save them because that's what she does, that's what she's always done.

But something inside her has cracked open and what pours out is desperate and sharp. A new rule, written in the space where Cathy used to be:

Never again.

Never again will she let a conversation end without knowing. Never again will she let 'tomorrow' be an answer. Never again will she let someone leave without confirmation, without proof, without absolute certainty that they know she loves them.

Because "we'll talk later" is a promise the world doesn't have to keep.

The dahlias are still scattered on the floor. Lilia picks them up one by one, her hands shaking. She arranges them carefully. She takes her time. She makes sure they're perfect.

Because taking care of things is what she does.

Even when it's not enough. Even when it never was.