In Bloom

By Julia Ware 

Julia Ware (She/her) is a third-year English major and Art minor with a passion for all things reading and writing! She can often be found on campus working in the Athenaeum or contributing to the Marlin Chronicle as a copyeditor. 

Every morning as I walk across the street to Rose’s home I hope that I don’t find her dead. I always imagine it will be dramatic, like something out of a telenovela. I’ll find her lying splayed out on the kitchen floor with the oven door still open, spilling heat across the entire house. A tray of cookies will have been tossed haphazardly, leaving smears of chocolate across the tiles. Rose’s last contribution to the world left in ruined tatters. Her wheelchair will be in another room, broken into pieces and tossed to the side by some robber or vagrant. It will look like it was a murder. That will ease the pain of knowing that it was natural. It will make it easier to believe that I am older than her and somehow her health is failing first. 

I enter through the side door and find Rose sitting peacefully at the kitchen table. Rose’s kitchen is the perfect setting for such a gruesome and unwonted scene. Everything is kept neat and clean, from the mahogany cabinets to the black marble countertops. She keeps flowers in vases for a hint of perfume and a wide array of well-loved cookbooks stacked methodically on the counters. Everything has its place. Next to the door leading into the dining room rests a family photo of Rose when she was younger, maybe mid to late thirties, standing beside her late husband. Don is dressed in his Navy gear and their three young girls are adorned in their school uniforms. Rose gives me a warm smile as I enter, the kind of smile that pulls her wrinkled face in just the right ways. Rose has a Victorian beauty to her in her old age. Her frailty is delicate and her thinning hair is smoothed and kept modestly groomed. I look more like if the big bad wolf never changed out of Granny’s frumpy clothes. 

“Nancy dear, tell me what you think of the list so far.” Rose slides a pink slip of notepad paper across the table to me as I take my seat. I flip my reading glasses out of my hair and squint through them.

“You’re missing beans,” I say and nudge the list back to Rose.

“Oh, yes, you’re right. Georgiana will never let me hear the end of it if I try to go a Thanksgiving without the green bean casserole.” Rose scratches a few more words on the list, idly humming an old tune that she can never seem to get out of her head. “There, that should do it.” 

“Are you going to be able to handle all of that yourself?” I watch Rose’s hand tremble as she places her pen behind her ear, likely to be forgotten about.

“I’ll make the girls help.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes, I’m sure!” Rose chirps and clasps her hands together, eyeing me earnestly. “Aren’t you going to your boy’s for Thanksgiving anyway?” 

“Yes,” I say, rising from my seat and circling to take Rose’s wheelchair by the handles. “Yes, I am.” 

When I go back home late that evening, I sit carefully in my chair in the living room. My house is much emptier than Rose’s — much more devoid of earthly attachment. I allow my gaze to wander to the old landline phone that collects dust on my mantle, a muted beige that compliments the sheen of the ornate cross my mother got me when I was young. Completing the arrangement is my family photo. I stand behind Martin, who is aged only about ten, with my hand on his shoulder. He is smiling at the camera, prompted by the photographer who captured us. I must be about twenty six in the photo and my expression is lifeless and full of duty. I remember the day we took that photo, how the photographer had to keep ushering us closer. “Act like you like each other,” he’d said. Rose, in all of her goodness, doesn’t have the capability to understand the dust on my phone.

Thanksgiving day comes and the phone remains dust-covered. I saunter out of my home at nine in the morning and get into my car. Rose must hear the ignition, for as I’m pulling out I spot her sitting in her wheelchair in her front window waving me off. I pull the car around the block to the street just behind my home and park on the curb. My backyard neighbors have already left for their own Thanksgiving, so they don’t need the parking space nor will they notice when I walk through their backyard to get back to my house. I know it would be a pitiful sight, some old hag faking running off to her son’s for Thanksgiving. Yet, as I slip through my back door into my unlit home and find a spot in the living room, I can only think of myself as a woman driven by necessity. 

I hear the cars pulling up to Rose’s house and the dull hum of their engines. I hear loud chatter and the laughter of grandkids and great-grandkids scurrying about in the front yard. I hear the front door swinging open and closed as the family cycles in and out. I make sure to stay away from the front of my house and the windows where I can be seen. I make sure not to turn any lights on or make anything for myself in the kitchen. No one is looking at me, but I’d rather not rule out the possibility of being seen. At one point I hear footsteps on my front porch and the muffled sound of conversation. I shrink back in my chair and wait for it to stop. I ‘come home’ from Thanksgiving at around four and Rose’s house is still bustling with activity. My home is a ghost town by comparison, shadowed by the light cast by the midday sun. I shuffle through my purse for my keys as if they have gotten displaced during my busy day and slot them into the lock. When I take a step forward, my foot knocks against something hard and plastic, still faintly warm. There’s a small tupperware container left right in front of my door with a rosy pink note card attached on top. The note reads “Happy Thanksgiving.” 

I return to Rose two days after Thanksgiving to give her time to rest. She sits in her recliner idly stitching away at a pillow in her lap while The Princess Bride plays on the television — the television her eldest insisted on getting her for last year’s Christmas. She’s quieter today, perhaps on account of the exhaustion of the holidays. Perhaps on account of her impish scheming. I can tell today is going to be one of those days.

“You never did get to telling me much about Martin’s father.” Rose asks me in a moment of prolonged silence, her hands struggling with the same stitch she’s been attempting for the past five minutes. I would have offered to help, but she says I don’t do it right. 

“Not much to tell.” I glance warily at Rose and I can see a familiar seedy twinkle in her eyes that she tries in vain to hide from me. I’m being probed. Yet Rose doesn’t comprehend how skilled I have gotten at deflecting her wily temptation. 

“Well, I’m sure there’s something to tell. How’d you two meet?” 

“The circus.” 

“Really? Which one?” 

“The one on Who’s It Street in Nowhereville.” This earns a defeated groan from Rose and I can’t help but chuckle. She finally gives up on the stitch, unthreading her needle and setting it aside. I take a glance at the pillow in her lap and notice that many of the stitches are uneven or awkwardly spaced apart. Certainly not up to Rose’s standards.

“How about this? You tell me something about Don that you haven’t told me before and I’ll tell you where we met.” I propose, perhaps more sympathetic than I should be. Rose has very few secrets when it comes to Don. Sometimes I feel as though I know him better based on what she’s told me than if I ever got the chance to meet him. A fatal heart attack, long before I moved in across the street from Rose, though she certainly never makes it sound like an event that brings her any pain to retell. Simply the way of things. 

“What are we, teenagers?” Rose laughs a laugh that sounds like wind chimes. 

“With just a few extra years on top of that.” 

“Alright, well…” Rose hums in contemplation, thumbing the stitches on her pillow. “Did I ever tell you that I almost didn’t go through with our wedding? I talked to my mama about it the day of, how I wasn’t sure. While I was getting my curls and makeup done, I nearly went running out into the street to catch a bus out of town. ”

I smile at this because I know how the story of Don and Rose ends, with their brilliant tapestry of a life. Their three beautiful daughters and their undeniably lovely home. The perfect American family. “You got over that real quick, I’m sure.” 

“Oh, no,” Rose chuckles, waving her shaky hand in dismissal. “Not at all. I still wasn’t quite sure when I made it to the altar, I was sweating bullets. But my mama told me that even if I wasn’t sure then, she knew that the love between us would grow stronger eventually. When I had kids, maybe. I had Georgiana and I figured my mama was right. When she was born I felt no greater love in the world than the love I had for her.” 

The earnest confession freezes me in place, only allowing my eyes to travel to look out the window. I feel myself muttering something in agreement of the sentiment, maybe something about how I’m glad everything worked out, but the words may as well have been spoken by a stranger. When I look back at Rose, she’s staring at me with a soft glint to her eyes, the beginnings of sympathy. It all comes into focus: the container of food, the questioning, the shared secret that leaves a hole in her tapestry. The hopeful thought crosses my mind that she might be lying, but Rose is better than that.

“We met at church.” I fulfill my end of the deal and Rose smiles.

It can be a surprisingly peaceful thing when you think you are about to die. When the hospital ceiling panels blend together above you and you feel as though you could begin to float away at any moment, your spirit separated from your blood and broken pelvic bone. You could experience that gentle ascent to heaven, with your mind so far scattered that it’s not even a possibility that scares you. But then the reality of the situation begins to seep in through the euphoria, dragging you back into your body, back into the fear and the franticness of it all. It was the vibration of nurses rushing around me, the grating voice of my mother at my side as she barked orders at people who knew better than her, the doctor perched between my legs attempting to get the bleeding to stop. When the world gradually faded in more and more around me the only feeling at my core was anger. Bitterness for the fact that I had listened to my mother’s advice that an epidural would have been a detriment to the baby. 

I didn’t realize that the baby wasn’t crying until my mother stormed off to see what the issue was, like for a blissful moment the baby was her responsibility rather than mine. I shifted around on the damp sheets of my delivery bed to get a better look but was immediately ordered to stay still by the doctor. Then I heard it — a weak cry at first that quickly broke into a strangled screech. It was followed quickly by the spirited witch’s cackle of my mother. I faded out for a while, the muffled conversation and screaming in the room barely enough to reach my ears. I don’t remember when I came back again or when they handed me someone’s baby, but it cried at me indignantly, its little face beet red and its toothless mouth pink and slimy. A boy. One of the nurses, or maybe it was the doctor, asked me if I had a name. I must have said something unintelligible before my mother piped in with the name Martin after one of my great grandfathers. I figure now that children who have children don’t think to protest when their mothers name their babies for them. 

I never tell Rose any of this, nor do I plan to. There’s always been something about her that makes me believe she knows it without me saying it, even if she couldn’t understand it. Rose has fallen asleep in her chair, the pillow still resting comfortably in her lap. I stand up and press my feet as lightly as I can along the floor to retrieve a quilt to cover her in. Sleep is a lucky thing for Rose to get nowadays, so I try my best not to wake her as I switch off the television and lights and head home. When I settle into my chair at home it’s not yet seven in the evening. My gaze naturally falls to my phone, my cross, and my family photo. Abruptly, I stand and retrieve the photo, turning over the wooden frame in my hands to unclip the back. I slip the photograph out and hold it between my fingers, the cool smoothness a comfort against my shriveled hands. Maybe Martin has the same photo in his home, locked away in a photo album that has never seen a day of use. Maybe it’s even stuffed into a drawer where no one will find it until the house is combed through after his death, long after I’ve already been gone. I glance toward the phone again but the consideration is gone in an instant. I slide the photo back into its frame and lay it flat on the mantel. 

Rose hasn’t moved from her recliner when I cross the street to check on her, but despite her weakness she smiles like it’s Christmas day when she sees me. She’s paler than usual with a wide shadow to her eyes and a stiffness to her unmoving joints. I ask if she’s called anyone to come help her, one of her daughters or grandchildren. Rose scoffs at me. 

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m just feeling lazy. Won’t you help an old lady into her chair, Nancy dear?” 

I oblige and it takes about twenty minutes of sliding, tugging, and eventually dragging to get Rose into her wheelchair. We both let out a sigh when the task is complete and I take a few seconds to lean on the wall and catch my breath before pushing her out into the hallway, her wheels rumbling against the hardwood floor. Rose swats me away with only enough strength to barely graze my sleeve, claiming she can handle herself for a moment. She wheels off to the bathroom to freshen up while I get her breakfast started. On days like these I wonder where Rose gets her strength from. It would have been easy for her to check into a home where she would have more reliable care, but I always imagine it’s a sense of pride she retains in staying in her family home until her final moments. I shuffle through the fridge and retrieve some eggs and bacon, though I doubt Rose will be able to eat that much today. I wait ten minutes before starting the bacon, figuring Rose will take her time. Regardless, breakfast has been ready for fifteen minutes when Rose finally wheels herself in.

“Look at you, so punctual.” Rose comments, reaching for her fork as I slide a plate over to her. “You could teach my girls a thing or two about it. It took them just about two hours just to get the turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving day.” 

I shovel cold eggs into my mouth just as Rose finishes speaking. She pauses to hold a piece of bacon between her fingers with an apprehensive look on her features. I chew slowly. Rose doesn’t seem to notice.

“I told them, I said, ‘you girls better get that turkey in or we’re going to have dinner at midnight.’ All the side dishes had already been prepped before they got it in. The potatoes, the gravy, the casserole,” Rose continues, taking a moment to nibble on her bacon before going on.

“Of course, it was still a lovely day despite that.” 

“I didn’t go to Martin’s for Thanksgiving.” The confession which I suspect is not much of a confession comes out of me unbidden and I set my fork down across my plate. Rose remains quiet for a moment, then I can feel her trembling fingers resting gingerly atop my hand. 

“I know.” She says and I feel as though she has seen into my soul, finding the smallest tangled knot of thoughts and untangling it with such an intimate ease. 

“I haven’t for years.” I continue at her reassurance, not recognizing the sound of my own voice. “At this point there’s no turning back. I’m old, Rose. It’s too late to fix things when I haven’t been doing anything to fix them all along. It’s too late for me to pretend I’m a good mother.”

Rose looks down at the table, tracing the lines in the wood with her eyes. When she doesn’t answer I’m convinced I’m right. There’s no correcting all of his ignored pleas for attention, the lack of interest in his interests, the missed moments that he learned to find somewhere else. Even now I’m not sure if I could properly describe what he does for a living, what my grandkids are studying at their prestigious universities, what my daughter-in-law is even like. Tears are threatening to break free of their disciplined hold, a form of vulnerability I’m not sure I can manage, even for Rose.

“Oh, honey…” Rose says, looking me directly in the eye. “It’s only too late when one of you is dead.” 

I pinch my eyebrows together and look more directly at Rose, whose paleness is all the more apparent to me. I’ve seen pictures of Rose in her youth, with her shining auburn hair and her eyes filled with the gentlest determination. I’ve considered the difference before, but it seems so clear to me now. How she’s shrunken by at least an inch since then, how her hair has thinned, how the veins in her arms pop from her skin due to years of use, as though her skin has shriveled like the remains of a flower in autumn. I turn my hand over in hers and give her palm a squeeze. 

I go home late that night and settle into my chair, contemplating heading to bed but not yet committed to the action. All I can think of is Rose. Beautiful, timeless Rose. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t known her for long, yet her words often echo in my mind and her smiles appear when my eyelids close. My gaze settles on the dust-covered phone on my mantle and I feel my body rising from the chair before I have the chance to question it. I’m old — older than Rose and older than anyone I know nowadays. But I’m not yet dead. I think for a moment to recall the number before dialing. It rings and rings, then goes unanswered. The flickering of hope in my chest begins to vanish, but I dial again. It rings and rings…

“Mother?” The voice on the other end rings out. “Is everything okay? Did something happen?” 

I adjust the phone to my ear, recognizing the trembling in my hands as something that might happen to Rose, but for entirely different reasons. “No, Martin. I just…wanted to call to catch up, if you have time.” 

There’s a deafening silence that lasts for several, long heartbeats. I wonder if I’ve made the right decision, if Rose was really right. My worries are eased when Martin returns with “Sure, I’ve got the time.” 

We talk about nothing extraordinary, but the monotony of it all is extraordinary in its own right. It brings on the realization that my son has a life of his own, a unique life that is as beautiful as Rose’s. He tells me about his job as a medical researcher, about some of the rowdy clients he sees for trials. He tells me about the books he’s been reading lately, some of them gifted to him from his work friends. He tells me about his wife’s painting of their basement walls, about the mural-like pictures her expert hands cultivate. He tells me about how smart my grandchildren are. Two are out of school already and onto jobs they’re all proud of, but the youngest is on his way to law school. When I finally stop asking questions and follow up questions, Martin asks me how I’ve been. I tell him about Rose. When we hang up it’s late in the evening and I slump into my chair with a sigh of relief that eases the tension in my achy body. 

I find Rose dead two weeks later. It’s not as dramatic as I had hoped. If anything it’s peaceful, comfortable, and perfectly suited to Rose. She’s sitting upright in her chair, leaning against the soft cushions pressed to her back. In her hands is a small handkerchief with messy stitches, the needle still halfway through the fabric in a stitch that will never be completed. Her mouth is slightly agape, but when I go to retrieve the handkerchief from her hands her fingers are still slightly warm, like a statue in the sun on a hot summer day. Embroidered in green lettering on the handkerchief is a name, forever misspelled “Georgi.” Rose’s eyes are already closed and her limbs are as relaxed as they will ever be, so I don’t bother to adjust her before making the necessary calls. When Rose’s family comes weeks later to clean out the house of any family heirlooms or valuables, I make sure to stop by to pass on the handkerchief to Georgiana. 

It’s months before I pay Rose a visit in the graveyard. Maybe a part of me didn’t want to accept this reality, even though the reality of not crossing the street to see her every day had already sunk in. I carry a bouquet of flowers under my arm that Martin keeps trying to steal from me – insisting that he can carry them if my arms grow tired. When I find her, she has a humble little headstone, but her grave is already covered in flowers. Don’s grave to her left is just the same, though these aren’t the type of flowers that have been placed by anyone, at least not most of them. They’re dandelions, growing up in little clumps around the edges of the stones and adding a pop of color to something that is usually so bland and solemn. I think of Rose – her bright eyes, gentle touch, and knowing smile. Perhaps things may have been different had we met sooner, her with her shining optimism and me with my strict duty. Perhaps things would have been just the same. It’s never a one and done sort of thing — I believe Rose would have agreed with me on that. It’s a consistent practice, continuing to again and again pick up the phone for as long as I have the strength to do so. There’s never enough time to fully embrace these things. But maybe if I pick up the phone enough, Martin will still feel inclined to visit the graveyard when I join Rose.

I eventually give in to Martin holding the flowers and soon he sets them down between Don and Rose. They seem like a meager contribution. The graves are already well in bloom without them.