Roses
She always loved roses...
He
learned this early on—she always liked everything that was naturally
feminine. Sure, she tried to act tough,
and she fit in well as 'one of the guys,' but the fact was that she was a girl,
and both she and he enjoyed that fact—most of the time. But the difference was painfully obvious
every time she stopped to gush at something he could care less about. Girls weren't picky—babies to pokémon to
perfume to hair ribbons elicited the same reaction. Absolute, unadulterated adoration. And roses got the highest esteem of all.
He
had known she liked flowers. She would
make daisy chains whenever they stopped to make camp, and she picked wildflower
bouquets to pass the time as they walked from town to town. But it wasn't until the first time he
visited her home that he realized how special roses were to her, though he
hadn't known why. Her sisters made her
give them a tour of the gym, and he insisted she show them her room—he needed
something to tease her about. And he got
it.
It
was funny; she was a practical girl, and he would have assumed the room would
have a personality to match. But it was
elaborate. There were roses on the
wall, there were roses on the bedspread—there were roses everywhere. When his other friend made a favorable
comment, she had the courage to show them her album full of pressed roses. But then he had made fun of her about
that—"only a girl would save dead flowers."
He regretted it soon after, though not because she yelled at him, that
was expected. But for a long time, she
refused to share anything that had to do with her passion with him on their
journeys. He wasn't at a loss for the
roses, that was for sure. But he felt
guilty that she didn't think she could share her life with him.
After
that he noticed that in every town they visited, she saw the roses first. She paused at displays in florist windows,
and she wasn't just admiring the flowers—she was looking for the roses. When they walked past a house that had a
rose bush beside it her eyes would linger on it, a slight smile of contentment
appearing, if not on her face, in her eyes.
And she loved the smell of roses.
Once she went into a perfume store, and she respectfully allowed the
sales ladies to show them their new Spring Floral line—then went straight to
her favorite rose perfume. She was in
heaven when they gave her free samples.
She didn't show them to him, but he overheard her as she showed them to
his other friend. He snuck in her
backpack after she was asleep that night just so he could smell the
perfume. He was lucky he didn't spill
it, but it was worth it. Because after
that he knew any time she wore it. Even
if he never told her that he knew.
He
finally made amends at the curtain call for one of her performances. Her sisters had forced her to participate,
and despite her unwillingness, she carried it off with ease and grace. At the end of the show he and his friend
each gave her a dozen roses. His friend
had gone first, and she began a bitter comment about "at least one of them was
considerate"—until she saw him with his arms full of roses, too. As she accepted them with a look of
disbelief on her face, he smiled and explained that it was tradition to give
roses after a good performance, and that he wasn't one to break tradition. And besides, he admitted with a pink tint to
his cheeks—he was glad she liked roses, because everyone should have something
that can always make them happy. Though
it was hard to tell which made her happier then...the roses, or his telling her
that.
One
day they arrived at a town during the Rose Festival. She was in her element; it was as if the entire town had been
turned into a rose garden. There were
roses on display everywhere, competing for Best in Show. But besides that were the other attractions:
the performances with roses as a centerpiece, the tea ceremonies with rose tea,
the beauty contest to name the Rosiest of the Rose. She wanted to enter the last, until they learned that only local
contestants competed. He tried to make
her feel better by making a crack about how it was just as well, she could
never be as pretty as a real rose. At
least that's what he meant to
say. But strangely enough he had
stumbled over the words...reversed the order...said roses could never be as
pretty as she was. She had a shocked
expression on her face—for that matter, so did he—but hers changed to delight
and before he could take it back, she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He was blushing too hard to say either thank you or you're welcome.
But
he remembered that when, two months later, after their journeys were complete,
he asked her out on their first date—he carried a rose to give her so that she
would say yes. And when she did say
yes, she took the rose, placed it above her ear, and beamed at him. Suddenly his comparison to a rose didn't
seem absurd at all.
He
brought a bouquet of roses on their first date, just to be safe. She wore rose
perfume. He knew this because he
smelled it at the end of the night, when, as they were standing near the rose
bushes by her door, he leaned down, she closed her eyes, and in the dim glow of
the porch light that they had stepped away from—they shared their first
kiss. As he walked home, he watched the
stars, occasionally taking a deep breath of crisp air as he remembered the
scent of her perfume. Roses would never
be the same again. He would never be the same again...
The
first ring he gave her had been simple and inexpensive, but neither of them
minded, her especially, as she said the fact that the design was a rose showed
he cared more than the gift itself did.
He gave her rose earrings on her sixteenth birthday, and she wore them
on every date after that, including her eighteenth birthday, when he saved
enough to replace the young, lesser promise ring he had first given her with
the stronger covenant of an engagement ring.
Following the tradition of their first date, he gave her a rose when he
proposed. She said yes, and he teased
her about real reason she agreed to marry him.
Was it because she loved him—or because he gave her roses? She laughed and called him silly. It was the second reason, of course.
They
waited until his eighteenth birthday before they married. Her bridesmaids' dresses were pink—rose
pink, to be exact. Roses mingled with
candles on the walls of the chapel. The
flower girl dropped rose petals on the carpet and the bride tread upon them
with a bouquet of roses in her arms. At
the reception, iced roses surrounded the bride and groom figurine standing on
the wedding cake. His friends decorated
the car they would drive to the airport for their honeymoon with toilet paper
in the shape of the letters "Just Married"—and in honor of her, it was quilted
toilet paper, with the design of roses.
She laughed. Their honeymoon was
everything he had dreamed of, and he carried her over the threshold two weeks
later. That was the first and last time
he saw anything in the house that wasn't covered in roses. But if sleeping on a pink pillowcase made
her happy, he supposed it was the least he could do.
Their
married life was idyllic—after all, they had gotten most of their disagreements
out of the way and accepted their differences before they were even a
couple. But there were still a few
spirited discussions. One in particular
stood out because it was over the gender of their future child. He wanted a boy, she wanted a girl, but it
was all in good fun, as they knew that whenever they did have children they
would just be thankful to have a son or a daughter.
Three
years after they were married she won the argument once and for all. She approached him one day with a sparkle in
her eyes and a rose from her rose garden in her hand. Teasingly reversing their roles, she handed him the rose and told
him she thought that's what they should name their daughter—Rose. He retorted with his standard argument that
they were having a boy first, and she said—"not according to the
ultrasound." And that's when it finally hit him.
He was so surprised, he dropped the rose.
Nine
months later he stood in the hospital room, gazing in rapture at the miracle of
life he held in his arms, and praying that he didn't drop this Rose. His wife lay in
bed, exhausted but content, as she smiled at father and daughter. For all their banter, it was easy for them
to decide upon this name. She was named
after the two most important women in his life. But like her mother wanted, they called her Rose.
It
was obvious that they were mother and daughter. His little girl's first word had been mommy, and her second—roses. He'd had to wait until the third word before
she finally called him daddy. But when it happened he'd been so happy that
he'd given both mother and daughter a thornless rose. His wife gave him a thank
you kiss. His daughter ate the rose
petals.
There
was a picture of his two girls from Mother's Day of Rose's third year. It was his favorite picture, the one he
carried around in his wallet at all times.
It wasn't the same as the one they had given his mother. That was the one with mother and daughter
standing in front of the rose bushes, which were in fact a gift from his mother
herself as they had been shoots from the rose bushes at his childhood
home. In that picture both of his girls
were wearing white dresses and carried roses in their arms. Their hair was down, his tall redheaded
beauty and his little brown-haired girl. Rose had taken after him in that
department, but when she stood in the sun, like she was that day, brilliant red
highlights she had inherited from her mother shone through. She looked like an angel. His mother framed the picture and it was
hanging on her wall at home.
But
he liked the one taken later that day; the simple snapshot that he wasn't sure
his wife even knew existed. She had
brought their daughter to play outside while she pruned her rose bushes, but in
the middle of the chore mother had been distracted by daughter and they both
became engaged in a tickling match. As
for him, he snapped a picture through the open window just at the moment that
his wife, flat on her back beside the rose bushes, lifted their daughter up in
the air as their daughter reached down to her mom, her tiny fingers entangled
in her mother's long hair. Love was
written all over the laughter on their faces.
He
set the camera down and was watching from the window when his wife looked up
and saw him standing there, a blissful smile on his face as he watched the two
people he loved most sharing their own moment of happiness. She waved and motioned for him to join. He didn't even have to look at the piles of
papers behind him—he ran outside and tumbled on the grass with them, pinning
them to the ground and planting a great big slobbery kiss on both their
faces. Rose squealed at the affection
and ran off to chase a butterfly, but his wife was quite content to be "taken
advantage of" under the drooping branches of the rosebushes. As much as she could be taken advantage of,
that is, with their three year old daughter five yards away and watching them.
He
remembered that day as he looked around the field he stood in now. Flowers dotted the hills and landscape
surrounding him, flowers of all kinds, but the spot where he was contained
nothing but roses. He looked down at
the bouquet he had gathered in his arms, and felt a choke in his throat. She would love them.
She
always loved roses...
At
times he would bring her roses when it wasn't a birthday, or an anniversary, or
any other special occasion. He just
knew she loved them and he loved her.
He brought roses home with him the day she took Rose to a doctor's
appointment. But he never got to give
them to her. Because they never
returned.
A
policewoman met him at the door instead of his wife. When she told him of the car accident, the roses fell out of his
hand, forgotten. They would lie by the
side of the step until he would clean the rose bed next spring. Tears would spill down his face as he picked
them up and allowed memories of the day to flood back.
He
had been in shock. The policewoman
stayed with him until his friends and family arrived, but he didn't need
her. For he didn't cry when his mom
came over to comfort him, in tears and in need of comfort herself. He didn't cry when his friends came over and
offered their condolences, their faces a mask of grief and disbelief. He didn't cry when they told him to cry,
because it would help him grieve.
But
when he went back to their bedroom, the smell of rose perfume lingered in the
air, still fresh from when she applied it that morning. And when he knew she would never wear that
scent again, he sat down on the bed, hugged that damn pink pillow to his chest,
and cried like a baby. One of his best
friends, his other traveling buddy from years past, found him. The other man took him in his arms and they
cried together for the girl they had lost.
His
mom stayed the night. She slept on the
sofa, but he couldn't sleep. He lay in
bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering how roses could bloom when the woman
he had loved and who had loved them was gone.
He got up in the middle of the night, got a drink of water, and then
went to his daughter's bedroom. He
fingered the pattern of roses on the bedspread and wept again. His mother found him there the next morning,
curled up on the twin size bed, hugging his daughter's teddy bear to his
chest. It had a rose ribbon.
He
didn't have to make any of the funeral arrangements. His mom and her older friend took care of that, and it was okay,
because they knew her almost as well as he did. He saw the casket for the first time at the viewing. The lining was white—with embroidered roses
around the border. He stared at her
face and wondered how the only thing missing from it could be life. The little girl's casket was shut. A spray of pink rosebuds covered the
lid. He stood by this casket, gazing
upon the shut lid, for at least as long as he stood beside the open one.
The
ceremony was held at the cemetery, and it did not rain. He was not a pallbearer—he could not carry
the weight of the death of his wife and daughter at the same time. He didn't hear the priest comparing the
frailty of life to the fragility of a rose, but he remembered thinking it. Afterwards her sisters cried into his shirt
and kissed him on the cheek, making him promise that he would still visit. Then everyone except him and his mom
left. Against the advice of his friends
and family he had stayed to watch them lower the caskets into the ground. He had his own ritual he must perform. With tears running down his cheeks, he
placed a rose inside each of the open graves before they were covered in
earth. When it was done, he needed his
mother to help him up and lead him away.
His
mom stayed with him for at least a week.
Partly to be with him, and partly to help him with the heart-wrenching
task of going through her belongings.
He let her sisters and his mother keep what they wanted, and then he
gave away most of the furniture belonging to her and their daughter, all the
clothing and the rose trinkets. He
couldn't live with the constant reminders, but he did keep a basket of the most
cherished items to look through when he needed a memory. His daughter's teddy bear, and a pink hair
ribbon. The baby album that contained a
lock of her hair. All the pictures he
could find.
There
were also the rose earrings his wife had kept for ten years. A bottle of the perfume she always
wore. Her wedding ring. The locket that had a rose engraved on the
front and a picture of him and her daughter inside of it. And the pressed flower album.
He
discovered it as he was going through her dresser. Memories from when she was twelve years old and showing it to him
for the first time came back to him. He
hadn't known she still had it. He
wondered for a moment if that day he had truly scared her from ever showing it
to him again. But as he turned the
pages he realized that it had been transformed into something more personal, a
diary. A rose diary—a diary of their
life together.
His
chest constricted to see the crinkled roses and delicately labeled
captions. Some were arrangements he had
given her. Some were from roses she had
grown. Underneath each rose was a description of the occasion from which it had
come. My first bouquet, from the water ballet. Our first date. The bushes we were near for our first kiss. Our engagement ring...our marriage. Our first child, our dearest Rose. Mother's day, Roses' third year.
The book ended there.
He turned to back to the beginning and saw the dedication. To the
one I love.
He
closed the pages, weeping. Had she
known he would find it? Wiping his
eyes, he walked away and found the rose petals he had saved from the
funeral. He carefully placed them on a
blank page, and in shaky handwriting, wrote: The funeral of the one I love.
He closed the book again.
Now it was really their album.
He
thought about the album now as he stood, staring at the flowers in his
hand. It only took a moment of
hesitation before he reached down and pulled a single rose from the arrangement
and placed it in his pocket. She would
have understood. When he went home he
would press it, and later on it would be added to the collection under the
caption: The first year anniversary.
He
bent down, staring at the single long-stemmed rose carved into the double
headstone. He carefully placed the roses
he carried against the stone so that the flowers rested between both of their
names, and then he ran his fingers over the marble, tracing the names and
dates. He stood and closed his eyes as
he remembered, breathing in the memory of the day. The rest of his life would be tinged with the scent of roses, and
for this he was grateful. As long as there were roses, he would remember her.
She
had always loved roses...
~~~~~
Misty
Rose Ketchum, 1989 - 2015
Delia
Rose Ketchum, 2012 - 2015
~~~~~
And
so had he.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Author's notes: Okay...back to happy
endings now...I don't usually write angst, don't ask me where this
came from. Btw, I know that there are a
couple things in here that need a little tweaking (Ash would probably be with
Misty at the first ultrasound, for example, and it probably wouldn't show the
gender yet) but for the most part, it works.
Disclaimer: This is a pokémon fic? Oh
look, I did use the word pokémon...once...
*^-^*
