The Rose

Mrs. Fulton’s hands combed over the aisles of candy bars, her sweet tooth finally getting the best of her. She wasn’t just at the store just for a Hershey’s bar, of course, but after fifteen minutes of wandering back and forth in front of the sugary snacks, she finally broke into her craving.  

The only problem now was her indecisiveness; should she get the one with almonds or with regular milk chocolate? Rose would have wanted almonds, she thought to herself. Without another thought, she threw an almond chocolate bar in her reusable grocery bag.

Mr. Fulton had shaken his head when he saw that she had brought half a dozen of those bags home one day, saying she wanted to use less plastic bags. “You’re just as bad as those millennials,” he frowned, scratching his gray, stubbly beard. Mrs. Fulton smiled at the thought. “Old-fashioned bastard,” she mumbled aloud.

Continuing down the aisles, she finally stumbled upon what she was looking for: a rack of flower and vegetable seeds. In a town as small as hers, not many stores carried seeds, and, though it was not the largest selection, she was grateful for it. Despite her making fun of Mr. Fulton, she was also a little old-fashioned and hated having to get her gardening tools and seeds from catalogues.

Turning the wire rack around to search for marigolds and tulip bulbs, her eye caught on the other wire rack adjacent to the seeds. This one carried cards. Little black and white photos of babies, children, husbands and wives, dogs and cats with silly cartoon captions. A stack of a little girl’s frosting covered face stuck out to Mrs. Fulton, and she picked one of them up, the banner written across the top saying, “Hope Today is Filled with All Your Favorite Guilty Pleasures!”

The toddler’s face, pure joy unmistakable despite the heavy amount of frosting, brought Mrs. Fulton back to a memory long ago with another smiling little girl and another birthday cake.

Seven candles marked the middle of the chocolate cake, beautifully frosted over with yellow buttercream icing. As her husband switched off the lights, Mrs. Fulton slowly and carefully carried the cake into the dining room where her little girl was sitting impatiently, bright eyes wide as the candlelight danced within them. Mrs. Fulton began to sing, and Mr. Fulton followed behind her with a wide smile. “Happy birthday dear Rosie! Happy birthday to you!” Mrs. Fulton crooned. She set the birthday cake in front of her daughter, the girl literally bouncing up and down with excitement. “Make a wish, Rose,” Mrs. Fulton whispered in her ear. Rose squeezed her eyes shut, thinking hard about what she should wish for. When she opened her eyes, she took a deep breath and blew out every one of the candles… 

With a jolt, Mrs. Fulton came out of her trance as she found herself still staring at the birthday card. She blinked, realizing that the photograph was not her Rosie but merely a stranger as she wiped away the warm tears that began to form in her eyes. Why am I thinking about this? I thought I was past this, she thought to herself. 

Shaking her head, she returned the card to the rack, but, before she could force herself to turn back to the flower seeds, a second card caught her eye. In this one, a young girl appeared running across a beach, kicking up sand as she went, and the writing across the top said, “Life is Better At the Beach.” Mrs. Fulton’s face softened as she recalled another distant memory yet again.

The drive had been long and arduous, lasting several days to make it through the mountains, but they had finally made it. Not that Rose ever complained; no, she never cared about how long and tiring the journey made her. For her, the excitement of seeing the ocean for the first time was worth every second spent in the hot, cramped car with the broken air conditioner.

The moment Rose laid eyes on the sandy beach and the sparkling blue waters of the sea, she had taken off into a dead sprint from the parking lot. Mr. Fulton had called after her to slow down as he struggled to get the giant beach umbrella from the back of the car. Mrs. Fulton, however, chased down the girl, sunscreen in hand, and urged her to put on sunscreen. Rose had grumbled about it as Mrs. Fulton slathered some on her face, arms, legs, and neck, but, as soon as her mother finished, she ran like lightning to the water, her bright yellow swimsuit a blur of color as she ran. Mrs. Fulton laughed at her daughter’s expression as she jumped into the frigid morning water and shivered with cold. She set off down the sand dune, shaking her head with amusement, as she pulled out a towel for a now freezing Rose. The girl welcomed the towel gladly and curled up against her mother as she wrapped it around her.

“Mom,” her daughter’s voice spoke quietly.  

Mrs. Fulton looked down at her child. “Yes?”

“You’ll be here forever, right?” the girl asked with a furrowed brow.

Mrs. Fulton laughed and knelt down next to her. She pulled a stray piece of hair from her daughter’s face and said, “Of course, darling.”

“Promise?”

Mrs. Fulton nodded. “I promise.”

Out of her trance again, Mrs. Fulton’s eyes welled up with tears. She sniffed, trying to keep it bottled up, embarrassed that a bunch of cheap corner store cards could make her such an emotional mess. She shook her head, trying to clear all of the thoughts out of her head, though all of her thoughts just circled straight back to her like a boomerang.

Rose, her Rose. Gone in an instant, leaving only simple memories behind. It was over ten years ago when it happened, why she was so focused on it now, Mrs. Fulton had no idea.

That perfect little girl from the past had grown up in a cruel world. Constantly pushing on her, criticizing her for her weight, her looks, her interests. Bullies became a never ending routine, and all the bad news of the world weighed down heavily on Rose’s soft, kind heart.

Mrs. Fulton hadn’t realized how heavily until she had knocked on her daughter’s door that one night, asking her to come down for dinner. When she hadn’t heard an answer, she pushed open the door and screamed when she beheld her daughter. Her beautiful, sweet daughter. Those eyes that had once danced with the candlelight of her birthday cake had closed forever.  

Mrs. Fulton had gone silent for days on end, still in utter shock of why her child had taken her own life. Her heart felt as though it had shattered into millions of pieces, but she didn’t want anyone to pick them up for her. She wanted to leave her heart fractured, knowing it was no use anyway. No use when nothing could be said or done to fix her crippled heart.

It had taken her months to heal. Months to finally make herself get out of bed without Mr. Fulton begging her. She had hardly eaten, hardly slept. Fighting with the demons inside of her that constantly reminded her that missing piece of her heart that she had slowly pieced back together.

Mrs. Fulton was shaking now, tears falling freely from her eyes as she ripped her eyes away from the cards altogether. She spun the rack of flower seeds around, not even reading the names of the plants. All she was thinking about was Rose, Rose, Rose… 

The rack stopped spinning, and a breath caught in Mrs. Fulton’s throat. “What’s this?” she said aloud in wonder.

There, on the middle shelf of the wire rack, sat a packet of seeds she had never seen before in this corner store. And in golden calligraphy across the bottom, it said, “Yellow Roses.”

The color of joy, of delight, of innocence. The color of her daughter’s birthday cake, her favorite swimsuit. The color that reminded her to live her life, just as Rose would have wanted it.

Unlike her decision for candy bars, this one took half a second before she snatched the seeds from the rack and paid for them at the cash register.

Never mind that Mrs. Fulton had never grown roses before, but she would try. She would try again, over and over and over until she got them to flourish. Because she was going to continue living her life. Just as her lovely Rose would have wanted her to.