"That's not—" she started.
"I know," Maggie said. "I know it doesn't change what he was. I know it doesn't undo three years." She paused. "I'm not telling you to go back. I'm not telling you anything. I just thought you should know."
"Why?"
Maggie looked at her steadily. "Because you deserve to make decisions with accurate information. You always have. It's just that no one ever gave it to you."
Lina was quiet for a long moment.
Then: "Thank you for telling me."
"It doesn't mean anything," Maggie said. "Flowers don't mean anything."
"No," Lina agreed. "They don't."
They ate the braised chicken and talked about other things — about Maggie's nephew who had just started university, about the cat downstairs that Lina had started leaving scraps for, about the radiator and whether there was a way to adjust the frequency of the clicking. They did not talk about Lucien again.
When Maggie left, Lina sat at the desk for a long time.
