Rosmarie

Written for https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/author/cyranny/

A landscape gardener and his pride and joy was always the rose bush at the back. He planted it when he first started, his first attempt at growing anything. Now, sixty years later, it still bloomed every spring.

Now it was sleeping, but when his daughter was sixteen, it would bloom again.

Her birthday, and something she could see outside the window.

Not that he could tell her, a life without him, was the only reason Alice kept her child. It was easier to say, it was an accident, someone of her own class. He watched as she grew from a baby, to a little girl.

He showed her the roses, picked them just for her, and she appreciated the effort. Even calling him Uncle Dave. As she got older, there was so much resemblance to his mother. It was difficult not to tell her.

Now, as she gazed out of her window, he smiled, his head moving towards her like seeing a new day.

‘Uncle Dave, merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas love,’ he said, waving back at her.

‘Are you going to dinner later? We’ve put on such a spread for you all!’

‘Yes, I might.’

‘Oh please, I’ve got a present for you.’

‘Thank you, I’ll see you and your mum at dinner,’ he said.