Flower Girl

Being born into the rich family of the Stanton’s would’ve been a blessing to any person in the horrible time of the 1950’s, but for a curious mind, it was torcher. Raised to tend to everyone’s petty needs she was, called every minute by a name everyone loved but her. This was because the only thing, or should I say things, she cared for wilted. Her family, neighbors, everyone who she knew called her Rose, but the only person who called her a name she liked was her father. He called her his little flower girl.

Rose Stanton sits on her porch every day, admiring the many years of hard work that lay in front of her; orchids, apple trees, flowers of colors not even artists could name. Rose likes to think of her garden as children, little children that play outside all day, every day, giving her house the warmth of her childhood she could never get with the weeds that would lay in the front garden. Every Sunday after church she puts on her worn gardening gloves and tends to the needs of her children; playing with them, talking to them, feeding them, helping them grow to their full potential, the full potential she could never reach to with the care and attention she was getting from her gardeners, well, one of them.

Today she still nurtures the little lavender flowers she used to talk to, used to tell secrets to, thinking inside were little pixies that could beat the odds of life if she took care of them. The little nymphs hiding in the lilies that could make anger cower to the great size of hope, love and family Rose held gently in her heart like a fragile piece of glass. The tiny little fairies in the roses that oppressed the sadness her mother had had written on her face the day Rose’s favorite flower began to wilt.

After church, Rose once again gets to work on her garden, tending to each and every plant’s needs, giving her bluebells the special kind of soil they need, feeding the sick sunflowers water because of the heated days that have rolled by, and healing her past with the sweet scents of the floral goodness. But she saves the most tender plant for last- the elegant rose bush. Her favorite flower of all, not because of the beauty of it and not because of how it was her horrible name, not even because of the wise fairies that lived inside them, but because of the promise and symbol it leaks from its petals. It was, and still is, a symbol that remined Rose of her mother, the promise her mother made the day petals began to fall off Rose’s wilting flower.

Little old Rose wandered over to the wild bush that had almost grown to the height of her cozy home. She needn’t bother taming it, she’d always thought that it was created to be wild, so she only took care of it by being company. All the other flowers had a special zing to them, but not roses. They seemed cold, brutal and sinister, all while being soft and harmless. Rose gazed towards the bush of flowers that was once a single rose, listening to the hum of a nearby bee and re-experiencing her mother’s promise…

‘Darlin’? Are you in there? Rose?’

‘Don’t call me that!’ Rose screamed as she squeezed her pillow tighter. ‘Don’t you know I hate that name! Daddy calls me flower girl!’

‘Well daddy ain’t here no more, so you’re just gunna have to deal with me sayin it. Baby it’s gonna be ok, trust me.’

‘How can it be ok?’ Rose looks up from her growing patch of tears and realized her mother’s face is stained with tears too.

‘It may seem like it ain’t ok, but this happens to ever’one. Ever’one goes someday, you just gotta face it.’

Rose couldn’t believe how blind her mother was, how oblivious she was to the fact that the only person that listened to her was gone. Rose’s father provided tender care to her like a flower, not enough for child to stay happy forever but enough for her to love him more than anyone else.

Noticing her daughter’s resentment towards her, Mrs. Stanton shows Rose the gift her father left for her.

‘Darlin look here. Daddy left this for you. You know how he calls you flower girl? Well he said that this flower is our family. It’s a rose darlin.’

Rose’s mother took a small pot from behind her with a single drooping flower.

‘It’s wilting.’

‘That’s why he says it’s our family. The relationship between us while daddy is gone is gunna seem a little wilted, but as you take care of it we’ll grow closer, but as long as this lil’ flower is alive, so is daddy. He promised. I promise.’

Rose took the tiny pot in her hands and cradled it as she wept over it, pretending it’s her father’s hands in hers, pretending it was the last glance she never got.

Rose got up from where she sat next to the rose bush and sat herself on her porch, taking in the scenery that lay before her. ‘Daddy would be proud’ she though as she took her gloves off, glancing over at the rose bush that lay in the center of her garden. The lilies she had taken care of all those years suddenly seemed to have shot up, healing any wounds they still carried, and the lovely lavender flowers suddenly became potent as they swayed in the sudden calming breeze. ‘Another day of work done.’ She knew that even though her father didn’t care enough, he did, and even though he was gone, he was still in those flowers, living, breathing like he should’ve got the chance. ‘Now I can be with him.’ Rose let go of her last breath as the sun set into the horizon, hitting the flowers in just the right way that they seemed to glow when she held her father’s hand for the first time since her flower began wilting.

‘My little flower girl.’