The day before we were supposed to leave for his hometown, he came to my house with a large bouquet of flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They were sunflowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not roses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He always said roses were for apologizing, while sunflowers were for celebrating. He placed them in my arms as if I were a young bride, not a sixty-five-year-old woman with varicose veins, reading glasses, and a heart that had spent the last five years learning to beat slowly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTomorrow, my mom is going to absolutely adore you,\u201d Matthew told me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Twenty-five years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A clean smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soft hands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The voice of a good boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made him traditional spiced coffee with cinnamon, because at my home in Brooklyn, coffee is always made the way my mother used to make it, in an earthenware pot, even if one lives alone and even if no one asks if there\u2019s any sweet bread left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew walked around the living room, looking at my books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He always did that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said he loved the way my house smelled: like old paper, lavender, and calm. I believed him. A woman who has spent five years eating soup in front of the television becomes vulnerable when someone tells her that her loneliness smells beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sat across from me and took my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI need to ask you for something difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That was when the air began to shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just a little.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like when a cloud blocks the sun; the garden remains the same, but you already know it might rain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTell me,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew lowered his gaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy dad found a commercial space in Hudson. It\u2019s small, but it\u2019s absolutely perfect for the design studio. It\u2019s near the artisan market, where tourists pass by all weekend. We could sell prints, posters, pieces for hotels, local brands. It\u2019s the opportunity I\u2019ve been waiting for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounded beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounded like a future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounded like the things I used to teach in literature: the dream of a young man fighting against all odds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow much do you need?\u201d I asked, though a part of me already knew that this question was a door left dangerously ajar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew squeezed my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNot money. It\u2019s safer if you lend me gold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I froze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGold?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He swallowed hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know your husband left you gold bars. You told me about it once.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One foolish afternoon, after class, when he talked about his debts and how nobody believed in him. I told him that my late husband, Arthur, had been a jeweler in the Diamond District, and that when he closed his workshop on 47th Street, he saved a portion of his assets in ten small gold bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t the kind of wealth you read about in novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a widow\u2019s old age security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was hospital bills, a nurse, a roof over my head, a funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was my independence forged in metal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMatthew,\u201d I said slowly, \u201cthose bars are my security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He stood up and knelt in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At twenty-five, with those bright eyes, he looked so desperate that a part of me wanted to run my fingers through his hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m not taking them away from you. I\u2019m going to give them right back. I just need to show them as proof of financial backing to close the deal. My dad says that with that, we can get the business off the ground without getting tangled up with banks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHow many?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t want to hear the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I heard it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My hand slipped away from his.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Matthew cried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not a loud, dramatic sob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A beautiful, quiet cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf you doubt me, I understand. Everyone doubts me. That\u2019s why I wanted to take you to meet my parents. To show you this is serious. To show you I\u2019m not using you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Using.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The word hovered between us like a cockroach under a spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t sleep that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I put on my blue robe, paced the living room, looked at Arthur\u2019s photo, and felt ashamed. Not for loving, but for doubting my own doubt. At sixty-five, you already know too many stories of deceived women, but you always think it won\u2019t happen to you because you were a teacher, because you read Emily Dickinson, Toni Morrison, Joan Didion, because you can distinguish metaphors from lies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How arrogant of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At midnight, I opened the safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t take out the gold bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, I pulled out the business card of my former student, Natalie, who now worked as an attorney and had told me many times:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProfessor, whenever something smells off to you, don\u2019t ask your heart. Call me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I called her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She answered with a sleepy voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProfessor Emily?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is my name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily Vance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry for the hour,\u201d I said. \u201cI think I\u2019m falling in love with a thief.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natalie didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was what saved me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By eight o\u2019clock the next morning, she was at my house with a notary, an investigator who was her cousin, and a specialist from Adult Protective Services who handled financial elder abuse cases. I didn\u2019t know there was such a clean legal term for something so filthy: financial exploitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I showed them text messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Audio clips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew\u2019s full name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His number.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The invitation to Hudson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natalie reviewed everything in silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cProfessor,\u201d she said at last, \u201cdo you want to get your life back, or do you want justice?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked at my sunflowers, already drooping in the vase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI want to know the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth, as always, required a bit of theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I agreed to lend him the gold bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But not the real ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My husband Arthur hadn\u2019t just left me gold; he had also left me his trade craft. In the back of his old workshop, he kept practice pieces, brass bars with a cheap gold plating that he used to teach apprentices how to weigh, stamp, and detect counterfeits. Natalie had serial numbers and fake certificates printed to match them, all logged as evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The real gold bars stayed safely in the bank vault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fakes traveled with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew had no idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When he picked me up that morning, he was wearing a white shirt, linen pants, and a smile capable of convincing an entire congregation that sin was just tenderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReady?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I walked out in my floral dress, a simple necklace, and the small suitcase where my trust\u2014supposedly turned into gold\u2014resided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReady.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We took the highway north toward the Hudson Valley. The landscape changed gradually. New York City was left behind with its traffic, its sidewalk vendors, its honking horns. Upstate welcomed us with green hills, gentle warmth, and that small-town air where everything seems to promise healing, even when you are walking straight into a trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When we arrived, the historic town loomed beautifully over the river.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The streets were packed with tourists, artisans, dogs dozing in the shade, and vendors selling local farm goods, cider, and ice cream. Matthew took my hand in front of the market, as if he wanted the whole town to see us together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before, that gesture would have melted me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That day, it left me cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy parents are waiting for us at the house,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We drove up a steep, cobblestone street, away from the noise of downtown. The house was white, with beautiful climbing vines at the entrance and a sleek gray SUV parked outside. Far too new for a family that, according to Matthew, lived strictly paycheck to paycheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A woman opened the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She looked to be about fifty, but she had dressed up like a picture-perfect rural mother: a long skirt, a knit shawl, a neat braid, and a humble smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, you must be Emily,\u201d she said, hugging me a bit too tightly. \u201cMatthew talks endlessly about you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man behind her didn\u2019t smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had a graying mustache, a plaid shirt, and the calculating eyes of a businessman. Not a father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cCome in,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re people of our word around here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n People of our word.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The favorite phrase of those who don\u2019t want to sign a contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They seated us in a living room with expensive furniture covered by artisan blankets. On the table sat coffee, pastries, and a black folder. Matthew sat by my side, but he didn\u2019t take my hand. He didn\u2019t need to romance me anymore. He needed to close the deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy dad\u2019s name is Ernest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man nodded. \u201cThe lease is practically locked in. We just need the backing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAnd where are the property documents for the commercial space?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fake mother let out a nervous laugh. \u201cOh, Miss Emily, don\u2019t you worry. Young people are always in a rush. We just have to support them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I pulled out the suitcase and placed it on my lap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All three of them watched the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the suitcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right there, whatever was left of my illusion died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBefore I hand anything over, I want to speak with Matthew alone,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man shook his head. \u201cThat\u2019s not necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew looked at me with rehearsed tenderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSweetheart, don\u2019t be nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sweetheart.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n He had never called me that in front of anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He did it the way someone puts sugar over poison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman stood up. \u201cI\u2019ll get some more coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The man didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Suddenly, the back patio door swung open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A young woman, about thirty years old, walked in, her face swollen from crying. She was carrying a toddler and holding a diaper bag. When she saw me, she froze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew stood up abruptly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat are you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman looked at the suitcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then she looked at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t tell me he\u2019s doing this again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The room turned ice-cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fake father slammed his hand on the table. \u201cMariela, get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But she didn\u2019t leave. The child in her arms began to cry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMa\u2019am,\u201d she said to me, \u201cdid he ask you for gold too? Or did he actually tell you it was for a design studio this time?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew turned pale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My heart didn\u2019t break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It hardened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWho are you?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mariela swallowed hard. \u201cHis wife.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fake mother closed her eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew took a step toward her. \u201cShut up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He didn\u2019t shout it. That made it worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I stared at the twenty-five-year-old man who had brought me vitamins, coffee, flowers, and midnight texts. The boy who told me he loved my wrinkles because they were \u201cmaps of life.\u201d The one who had made me buy red lipstick again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had a wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had a profession of deceit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEmily,\u201d he said quickly, \u201cshe\u2019s crazy. We\u2019re separated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mariela laughed without any joy. \u201cHe always separates whenever he needs a new old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Old woman.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The words came out of her mouth without malice toward me. Just pure rage toward him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, it pierced right through me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew raised his hand. He didn\u2019t get to touch her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The front door flew open, and Natalie walked in with two plainclothes detectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I let out a breath I didn\u2019t realize I was holding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fake father tried to run toward the kitchen, but one of the officers blocked his path. The fake mother collapsed into a chair as if her legs no longer worked. Matthew stared at me, his mouth open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFinally,\u201d I said, \u201ca proper reading.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natalie walked up to me. \u201cAre you alright, Professor?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t know. My illusions had been stolen, not my gold. Yet it ached as if someone had carefully sliced open my chest and extracted something young, bright, and foolish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes,\u201d I replied. \u201cJust tired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The officers demanded IDs. The \u201cfather\u201d wasn\u2019t named Ernest. He was Arturo Beltr\u00e1n, under investigation for financial fraud against elderly women across Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York. The \u201cmother\u201d was his accomplice. Matthew wasn\u2019t their son. He was just the pretty face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mariela, the real wife, was crying in the corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t know at first,\u201d she said. \u201cThen they threatened me. They took my money. They told me if I spoke up, they\u2019d take my son away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I believed her halfway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By that point, my trust was no longer given away freely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final blow came when they opened the black folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were photos of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Copies of my posts from the local book club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My home address.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notes on my daily routines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWidow, single, children live out of state, wealthy assets, late husband\u2019s jewelry.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There were also names of other women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Women just like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A seventy-two-year-old from Manhattan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A sixty-eight-year-old from Queens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A sixty-one-year-old from Greenwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All with small annotations written next to them: \u201clonely,\u201d \u201cneeds affection,\u201d \u201cconfrontational,\u201d \u201cclose to signing,\u201d \u201chanded over gold coins.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I sat down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not out of weakness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of pure disgust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I thought Matthew had looked at me as a woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He had read me as prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natalie put a hand on my shoulder. \u201cBreathe, Professor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Matthew dropped to his knees in front of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exact same theater.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But now, I could see the strings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEmily, please. I do care about you. I got into this out of necessity. You made me feel different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked at him. How strange the heart is. Even in that moment, a tiny part of me searched for the boy who used to laugh in painting class, smudged with blue paint, telling me my hands were elegant. That part wanted to ask which Matthew had been real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because the question itself was a trap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t love me,\u201d I said. \u201cYou studied me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe fake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t matter anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo it far away from me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The officers took him away, along with Arturo and the fake mother. Mariela agreed to testify. The little boy stopped crying when a female officer gave him a cracker. The white house with the climbing vines stood wide open, exposing its cheap theater to the town.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside, life went on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tourists bought local crafts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone was selling artisanal ice cream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Young people were hiking up the trails with water bottles and new sneakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nothing in the world stopped because a widow\u2019s heart had been broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps that was a good thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Natalie took me to a local diner before we headed back. She said I needed to eat. I said I wasn\u2019t hungry, but she sat me down in front of a plate of warm food, fresh tortillas, and avocado. The aroma brought me back to my own body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo you feel foolish?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I looked up at her, surprised. \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou aren\u2019t. Loving isn\u2019t foolish. Giving everything without verifying, sometimes that is. But you verified.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I took a bite of my food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I cried while I chewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wasn\u2019t elegant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was human.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I returned to the city at dusk. Brooklyn smelled of rain and wet pavement. On the corner, a street musician was playing an old tune. My house was exactly as it had been the morning before: books, the armchair, a forgotten coffee cup, the withered sunflowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I threw them away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not with anger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With grief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I opened the safe and looked at the real gold bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All ten were there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heavy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Faithful in a way Matthew never could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that night, I understood something: the gold wasn\u2019t my greatest treasure. My greatest treasure was that, even through the fear, I had listened to that quiet inner voice that said, \u201csomething isn\u2019t right.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The following week, I went back to the painting class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone went quiet when I walked in. The news had already spread, the way gossip always does in community spaces: with fake discretion and wide eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My friend Teresa approached me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEmily, you don\u2019t have to come if you don\u2019t want to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I tied my apron. \u201cOf course I do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I sat in front of the easel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For an hour, I painted the hills of Hudson, but not the way I had seen them that day. I painted them red, violet, furious. Then, at the bottom, I painted a white-haired woman holding a suitcase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She wasn\u2019t crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was walking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Months later, I testified at the trial. Other women did too. One recovered her stolen gold coins. Another didn\u2019t get her money back, but she reclaimed her name. Mariela entered a support program with her son. Matthew tried to send me letters from prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t read them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My children found out about everything. At first they were panicked, then angry, and then they wanted to make decisions for me as if my heart were a broken appliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom, don\u2019t go out alone anymore,\u201d my oldest son said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMom, how could you believe him?\u201d my daughter asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I listened to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I poured them some tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI am allowed to make mistakes without losing my right to live,\u201d I told them. \u201cYou are not going to lock me in a glass display case just because I loved unwisely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They didn\u2019t know what to answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I went out again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wore my floral dresses again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I put on my red lipstick again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not for Matthew.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At sixty-five, I discovered that feeling alive doesn\u2019t always require falling in love with someone else. Sometimes it just means surviving the shame, sitting in a park with a hot cup of coffee, and letting the sun hit your face without asking permission from your age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One afternoon, at a park in Brooklyn, a woman my age sat next to me and asked if the rumors were true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAbout the young man?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She looked at me with pity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I smiled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was a bad love story, but an excellent lesson in reading comprehension.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cReading comprehension?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes. In the end, I learned to read the fine print of affection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The woman burst out laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I did too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that laughter\u2014clean, entirely mine, without any young man holding it up\u2014made me feel more alive than all of Matthew\u2019s messages combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because love can arrive at any age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But dignity, when it finally returns, doesn\u2019t ask to borrow gold bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It sits down with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It stays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And it weighs far more than gold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The day before we were supposed to leave for his hometown, he came to my house with a large bouquet of flowers. They were sunflowers. Not roses…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phap.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}