Page 18 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Chloe

Chloe decided that the Mall was her favorite place to sit in Central Park while she folded paper roses.

It was a long, wide path shaded by arches of elm trees, with plenty of benches, great for people-watching.

In the past week of being here, she’d already gotten to know some of the regulars, too—the runners, the power walkers, and moms pushing strollers.

Zac had been right that the park was good for her.

Chloe was reminded of what she’d loved about her job as a guidance counselor—making a connection, however brief.

She could do it here in Central Park, too, in a different way.

Even if she only made eye contact and smiled, that was a kindness, a shared moment of humanity.

And in that moment, both giver and receiver remembered that they both worried, hoped, and loved in this big, uncontrollable world.

In that moment, they were the same—human.

One morning, the pair of white-haired sisters, Bonnie and Mary, showed up again, this time with a wagon hauling a card table. They were both also sporting brand-new, bright red fanny packs.

“We want to help,” Bonnie said.

“If you’ll have us,” Mary said.

“Help?” Chloe asked. “How?”

“If you teach us how to make the flowers,” Bonnie said, “we can fold more and give out more, and thereby increase the good in the universe.”

“Please say yes,” Mary said. “Because Bonnie got so excited, she already made you a sign.”

Shushing her sister, Bonnie unrolled a piece of posterboard that had been in their wagon.

START YOUR DAY WITH A SMILE!

It was decorated with bright yellow smiley faces.

Chloe clapped, then got up to hug them. “You made that for me?” How incredible that her paper roses had touched these two enough that they wanted to contribute.

“You like it?” Bonnie asked.

“It’s perfect. And yes, I would love your help folding more flowers.”

Chloe hadn’t actually thought about anyone else making origami flowers.

But why not? More people putting more hope and joy and inspiration out there could only be a positive thing.

Life was a heavy burden, but if they could make it a little bit lighter for someone—even for a moment—it would make the world a better place.

For the next hour, Chloe taught Mary and Bonnie how to make origami roses, just as Chloe’s grandma had taught her during that summer after sophomore year of college, because she’d taken a Japanese art history course and craved more of her own heritage.

Bonnie was all thumbs, but Mary was especially good at it; she seemed able to tune out all distractions and really get into the flow, folding flowers almost as fast as Chloe. The sisters decided on a division of labor—Bonnie wrote the messages, and Mary made the roses.

Warmth blossomed inside Chloe. She realized it had been quite a while since she’d actively done something together with other people. Sure, she had loved counseling the kids at school, but a teacher-student relationship was different from one with peers.

How long had Chloe lived with her loneliness without recognizing it? Months? Years?

If she was being honest, she’d been carrying around a hollowness in her life for the past sixteen years.

Once upon a time, there had been someone who understood her completely, someone with whom she’d been so entwined, they were never alone even when they were physically apart, because they always knew the other one was there in thought and spirit and love.

Not that Chloe needed a man to define her or make her whole. She had enjoyed college. She was proud of herself for the (short-lived) counseling career she’d built here in New York. And now, maybe she was finding a new way to grow roots here in the city.

Once Bonnie and Mary had a big pile of origami flowers, Bonnie asked, “Now what? Do we hand them out to passersby?”

That wasn’t Chloe’s way—she only made the paper roses here but preferred to leave them in random places for the right people to find them.

She had a particular affinity for leaving the flowers tucked into the shelves at bookstores—just yesterday, she’d gone on a paper rose circuit from her cute neighborhood indie, the Astoria Bookshop, to Desert Island in Williamsburg (where she’d danced among the books while a vinyl record played in the background), to the huge, cheerful mural at Books Are Magic in Cobble Hill, to Bookmarc in the West Village (she grabbed a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery on the way), and then finally, Books of Wonder (where she happily lost herself in memories of childhood among the rows and rows of picture books).

Chloe also loved dropping her origami in tip jars at ice cream shops, or in the ice cream freezer cases at bodegas and mom-and-pop corner stores.

After all, she had practically been born in the Ice Creamery, and no one in her family would’ve been surprised if they discovered that it was milkshakes, rather than blood, that flowed in Chloe’s veins.

But just because she liked to leave the paper roses behind anonymously didn’t mean it was the only way.

“These flowers are your gifts to others,” she said to Bonnie and Mary. “So you should do what feels right for you .”

“I would like to talk to the people who get our roses,” Mary said. “I think, for me, that’s important. With my hearing these days, I don’t get as much chance for conversation. So this feels like an opportunity.”

“It sounds like you have your answer then.” Chloe smiled.

So Chloe continued folding, collecting her paper roses in her basket to sprinkle around the city later, while Bonnie and Mary personally delivered origami flowers to people passing by on the Mall.

When a family of tourists speaking German walked by, Bonnie shouted, “Guten Tag!”

Mary held out a handful of yellow paper roses. “These are presents for you.”

The family blinked, caught unaware by the unexpected gifts. But then the small brother and sister looked at Mary, and when they saw her smile, reciprocal smiles bloomed across their faces. Their parents’ smiles followed a split second later.

“Thank you,” the father said, and he and his wife stayed and chatted for a while.

They found out that Mary and Bonnie—both former flight attendants—had flown the JFK-to-Frankfurt nonstop route for a decade.

Mary asked if her favorite bookstore was still on Borsenstra?e and was delighted to find out it was.

She even spoke a little in German to the kids.

When the family took their leave, they hadn’t even opened up their paper roses. But it didn’t matter what the messages were inside. What mattered was what had already happened—the laughter, the joy of discovering their similarities, the beauty of living in a shared moment.

Later in the afternoon, though, a volunteer from the Central Park Conservancy approached the card table. The embroidered name on his jacket said Felix Bautista.

“Do you have a permit for this setup, miss?” Felix asked.

Chloe frowned. “It didn’t occur to me.”

“Then I’m sorry, but I’m going to need you to fold this up.”

“But we’re spreading kindness!” Bonnie said.

Felix crossed his arms. “You could be giving out pots of gold and it wouldn’t change things. No permit, no table.”

“What’s going on?” Mary asked.

“We’re not allowed to have a table without a permit.”

“Oh.” Mary looked down at her hands. Then she gave her best smile to Felix, all well-worn laugh lines so that her eyes disappeared into her wrinkles. “Well then, can we at least offer you a paper rose? It has a message of joy inside.”

But Felix just shook his head. “Pack it up, ladies.”

Later, at the end of his shift, Felix was about to head out of Central Park when he noticed a yellow paper rose perched on the base of a nearby lamppost. Sighing at the litter, he bent to grab it.

But the petal he held had already started to come undone, and once he picked it up, the whole flower unfolded.

Inside, there was a message:

All the small things you do every day make a difference. Thank you.

It was signed with a tiny heart-shaped rosebud.

Felix had to choke down a sob. Because it wasn’t easy being a volunteer at the park, even though he was trying to make it a nice place for everyone.

Some days, he wondered why he had signed up for this job.

No one noticed when he made sure the horse-drawn carriages around the edges of the park didn’t block traffic or when he quietly swept up fallen leaves or pruned trees to make the park beautiful.

Even when he showed up first to help someone in distress, they quickly forgot him as soon as the fire department or ambulance arrived.

But everyone noticed when he put up “Do Not Walk on Grass” signs or yelled at kids to walk their skateboards.

So this note… this unassuming paper rose…

“Damn. It’s like a metaphor for me, isn’t it?

” Felix said, half laughing, half still a little choked up.

Because that’s what those women on the Mall were trying to tell him, right?

That they were folding these little origami flowers to try to make New York a better place, one small gesture at a time, even if it didn’t look like much on an individual level.

Just like his job every day.

All the small things you do every day make a difference. Thank you.

Felix smiled, shook his head, and slipped the paper rose into his Conservancy jacket pocket. Maybe it was silly, but he was going to keep it with him every day now, as a reminder that he was important, even when no one noticed.

Or perhaps, even more so when no one did.

And he made a mental note to himself that first thing tomorrow morning, he was going back to those women on the Mall to tell them they could absolutely set up their card table, permit or not, and if any other park volunteers had a problem with it, they should send them to Felix Bautista, paper rose convert.