Rose

This day,I arrived at where I worked,a small florist shop,at 5 am,three hours earlier than usual.It was Valentine’s Day,one of the most profitable days for a florist shop.

Yesterday,before I knocked off,my shopkeeper,Annie,a pretty modern lady with short blonde curly hair and fox-like eyes,tapped me on my shoulders and said in a soft voice,“Russ honey,how about getting up early tomorrow?”I knew it,so I shrugged and replied with a joke-like smile,“Yeah,if you offer me extra pay.”She closed the shop door and wrapped my neck,giggling and bantering,“Why not ask your burly husband for it?It will be such a great time to enjoy a passionate night!”I blushed with embarrassment.Annie continued,“I have ran across Tom and his colleague for several times.He seems to be pretty busy currently,do you know it?”“Yeah.”Still feeling embarrassed,I overlooked her meaningful smile.

I returned home.And after dinner,Tom,my husband who were always occupied with working days and nights now,helped send our two kids to their grandparents’house.Although I emphasized that it was Valentine’s Day when I consulted with him,he was unresponsive,simply saying,“I will drive Peter and Amy their grandparents’house later.”Disappointed as I was,I accepted it as I had been accustomed to his more and more apparent indifference since our marriage.

The world was half hidden by the veil of mist,still dark,silent and cold.When I got out of bed,Tom slept beside me,seeming to have a sweet dream.I crept in the kitchen,preparing the bread and milk as quietly as possible.Then I left.From a long distance,I saw the shop,with two pea-like light dots,as same as a pair of weary eyes.

Annie stood in front of a van full of all kinds of flowers and commanded the porters.Seeing me,she breathed a sigh of relief,proclaiming,“Russ,let’s begin our battle!”We divided all of the flowers into three parts.Most of them were roses.Some were still with crystal dew,to be parked for single sale.Some were dry,to be gathered together.In the meantime,we had to prune,soak,decorate and lay out.When doing so,I found a piece of special rose.If roughly seeing,you couldn’t notice anything different,but it actually had various kinds of red.“Customers may dislike the odd rose.How about throwing it away?”I advised.But Annie beamed and shook her head,without an explanation.I put it in the corner of a shelf,engaged in the following work and forgetting it.

Luckily,we completed everything before 8 am,and what we were supposed to do next was welcome every customers.I erected myself behind the counter,while Annie sat outside the shop,doing some little things.Before long,a young man came in.

“Sir,may I help you?”I asked gallantly.

“Thanks,but let me wander first.”He said in a voice as melodious as wind chimes.

“Sure.I recommended these roses,which are pretty nice and fresh.Just call me if you need any help.”

“Thank you.”

He went in and selected carefully.

“How handsome he is!”Annie entered sometime and gasped lightly,gaining my joke-like sneer.I peeped at him,admitting that he,a cold and aloofman,with black and vertical hair,slanting sword eyebrows,slender and sharp black eyes,thin and light lips,sharp and angular outline,tall and slender but not rough figure,just like an eagle in the sky,was really brilliant.

Few minutes later,he came back,with the odd rose.I said immediately,“Yeah,sir.It looks common but really special.As you can see,each petal has different degree of the color red.”

Thinking for a while,he nodded and paid it.

“Discerning but a little strange,like a riddle.”Annie suddenly concluded after he left.I didn’t reply as I quickly buried myself in the bustle.

It was really a busy day.Thousands of flowers were almost sold out.At last,Annie picked a rose and gave it to me,saying playfully,“Thank you for your hard work,my honey!”I refused.Then she joked,“Ha,I am too silly to knowing that you have a good husband who has prepared a bunch of roses for you!”I smiled.She herself brought the rose home.

I hoped so.

It was fairly late,but there were a wealth of young couples on the street,hand in hand.They enjoyed the aroma of flowers,the sweetness of candies and the wonderful feelings of kisses,which were exaggeratedly amplified by the magic of love.The streetlights witnessed their treacly smiles and passion.I was the same as them many years ago,yet it was like a fantasy now when recalling back.On my way home,I watched an ambulance hurtling on the street,sympathizing with someone poor for meeting terrible accidents in such a nice day.However,at that time,some black clouds gathered.Few minutes later,I arrived.

To my surprise,Tom was at home,facing a noisy TV program.

“Where are Peter and Amy?”I changed my shoes,asking wearily.

No response.

“Are you drinking again?”

He was drinking,of course.But he still made no response.

“So tired today.”I tried my best to calm down,“Anything to eat?”

He turned his head,darted a glance at me and kept silent.

Tears dropped suddenly.I ducked my head,opened the fridge and picked a packet of bread.I approached the sofa but stopped,noticing a bra in his briefcase.A bra.A bra which was yellow,a color I hated,and was not my size.How long had he said that he was busy?My blood ran cold.I was almost frozen to death.

“Tom,what day is today?”I struggled to make my voice soft.

“Valentine’s Day,you mentioned it yesterday.But I don’t think there is a necessity to send you a bunch.”He replied finally,and paused for a while,saying,“If you want,I can give you one tomorrow.”

“That doesn’t matter.You must have a great day,right?”My heart was cut off.

“Yeah.”

“With your colleagues?”

“Yeah.”He was a little crocked.

I clenched my fists.I was near to boil.I was eager to cry out.But I just glared at him,a man who promised that he would love me forever but was actually similar to my father,who broke his words and hurt everyone.I recalled my poor mom,who was abused to death physically and psychologically.I slammed the door violently and dashed out.

I went on the deserted street,as if I intruded into the mouth of a monster.It was midnight.Winds wandered like a crowd of ghosts.I crouched down in the corner of an old wall and sobbed,floating in an ocean of dense sadness and disappointment.A few minutes later,I heard airy footsteps behind me,and then a gentle and familiar voice of a man,“What the matter with you,madam?”

I breathed deeply,quick to erase my tears and clear my throat,“Everything’s fine.Sorry for disturbing you,sir.”

“Nothing.”He said.But to my surprise,he did not leave and he squatted down as well,just following me.The moment he hunkered down,I stood up and got butterflies in my stomach.

“We met in the morning,do you remember,madam?”He raised his head towards me.He looked like an innocent infant.

“Yes,I do.”I acknowledged that I had recognized him at first,and I just didn't try to validate it because of civilities,as we happened to meet only once after all. But that inertial decency made me sad.I didn't know when I gained the ability to keep polite to others even at the time whenI was near to collapse.I dare not release my long-accumulated anger, grievance or complaint openly.I lost myself.

“You said it was a special rose.You are right.”All of a sudden,he took the piece of rose and gazed at it in trance.

“Did she refuse you,sir?”I held my breath,asking carefully.

“Hard to say.”He smiled faintly,but tears clouding his eyes.“That was a mournful story.Would you like to hear?”

I nodded.

He began.When he immersed himself in those memories,he seemed to face a starry sky or a shining city, diamond-like eyes glittering.What he said were all fragments.I endeavored to sort and link them while he continued his random but affectionate and rhythmic telling.The story roughly went like this.

When he was fourteen,a woman moved to his community and became his family's new neighbor.She was near forty,but still charming for her special elegance. Seaweed-like hair draped over her frail shoulders,veiling her beautiful arched eyebrows.Her eyes were like a blue lake and and there was an ink-like nevus on the side of herplump lip.As she walked,it seemed that she wasthe source of gentle breezes.The first day,he watched her and porters weave in and out as he sat on the tree trunk whose shape is like a "X".So addicted was he that he fell down.His legs got a dislocationand his arms bled.He didn't cry becausehe knewthere was no one at home.In his parents' heart,money was the prioritywhile other emotional communication was secondary.He had no memory of hugs or intimate cares between him and his parents.However,she walked towards him with a medicine chest,crouched down and applied medicine.After that,finishing his classes,he often found her to play with,and slowly knew what happened on her.She used to be a nurse,living in a town surrounded with mountains five hundred kilometers away.She spent her nice childhood and adolescence there,and finally married a man who purported his eternal love to her,but she was exploited as a matter of fact.The man always suspected that she went off the rails because of her beauty and then hit her.When she divorced with the devil in the end,her loving parents left the world,and that was why she moved here.Since then,he spent most of his time staying at her house,taught reading and writing and enjoying valuable warmth.His parents knew it and regarded her as a tutor,but their money were all rejected by her.Four years flew quickly.Everything ended because of her new marriage with a local man who always leered at her,although he tried to arouse her awareness in lots of ways.On the eve before their wedding,he came to her room,accusing the cheat of that wicked person.He expressed his love and expectation that she could wait for him.The shining moon stared at them,songs of frogs from a five-hundred-meters-away pond echoing in the summer night.He held onto her slim waist and hoped to kiss her,yet she pushed him away and required him not to come anymore.

He did so sorrowfully.It was of thorough difficulty for him to endure those days.She didn’t live well,for she was abused for her artistic inclinations and sterility.Flowers blooming and fading,he depended on the glimpse from a far distance to nourish his love-lacked life,and for an instant,ten years passed.

This day,he gathered his all courage to present her with a specialbut  inconspicuous rose to express his secretive love.He dressed up and hid the rose behind his back,knocking at her door lightly.She opened.She had been fifty-five years old,and wrinkles and frost-like hairlines emerged.Astonished at his coming,she widened her mouth happily,but couldn’t utter a word.Then she took the rose with shaking hands,mumbling excitedly,“Oh,my god.How to convey my thanks,my dear...”Then she looked at him with maiden-like smiles of appreciation,but hesitated whether to let him in.He knew her inconvenience and dilemmas,and he had been satisfied as he saw her happiness,so he nodded,saying gently,“Hope you have a good day”,and left,at the same time,he met her husband on the stairs,and he pretended not to encounter him but it was hard to ignore his icy gaze.He lingered downstairs and abruptly,a yelp burst out.As soon as he threw back his head,a woman dropped like a wings-hurt bird,with a rose in her tight fist...

He let out a sigh,tears streaming down his haggard face.But he wiped them fast.

I wanted to force some words to comfort him,yet I just opened my mouth and said nothing.

He handed the piece of rose to me,watery eyes fixed on my face.I hesitated,but accepted it finally.“Hope you have a good time.”He forced a weak smile,then turned back.He believed that he could believe what he believed.How pitiful,how ridiculous and how respectable.The drizzle started.I watched his receding figure until there left nothing.

When I was a maiden,I enjoyed flame-like roses,fervent loving words and well-prepared surprises.However,when I got married,especially when I became a mother,I was deprived the right to experience them anymore and any thirst for romance and freedom represented crimes that should be concealed.I should keep dignified,plain or understanding,willing to go to supermarket for daily supplies and food,stay in the kitchen preparing for endless meals and look after naughty children and overconfident husband.Otherwise,I would shoulder a sea of criticisms as if I had murdered someone cruelly.Yeah,if I really kill someone,I must have killed the pure and free girl who was a part of my life and the time of being an adult is the time of her death.In the past,I could bear all of those,or exactly speaking,pretend to bear.But now I missed her so much.

I went home.I saw what I should have seen.A man who slept soundly.The wait-for-tidy chaos,dozens of empty wine bottles,run-off cigarettes cases,chips and fried chicken included.A room that buried all of us.

I inserted the rose into a vase,adding clean water.Rains stopping,the moon rose lightly, and the moonlights poured in,lightening up the little withered but still fragrant petals.Then I sat in the darkness as solemnly as a statue of Buddha,without any sleepiness,watching my honey husband sleep deeply and sweetly.I recalled lots of things.My father’s infernal face in the lights of candles and the hopelessness in my mother’s eyes.My mother-in-law’s unkind words towards my rare relaxation.My kids’ignorance to my labour.And my husband’s betray.

As time slipped away,the dawn along with the particular kind of quietness was coming,mixed with the color of blue,violet and orange.I gazed at the clearer and clearer painting-like sky,lost in messy thought.Subsequently,I heard slight noises,and I saw that my husband stretched himself from the sofa and yawned contentedly,his eyes misting.

“Sleep well? ”He asked casually,seeming to notice nothing wrong.

Silence for a long time.

“Fine.”I stared at him and smiled,making up my mind,“Fine,of course.”

April 15, 2023