The Broken Rose

‘Just put them over there’ Lesley told the postman, pointing to a large flat stone. She was ‘tidying’ - giving most of the flowering plants a light trim at this time of the summer, encouraging the roses to bloom again and cutting out any audacious weeds.

The large garden was really her first love, several places higher than Terry, her husband, who was round the back, wrestling the lawnmower. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him. Of course she did, though perhaps not quite in the same league as Snoopy, their elderly beagle-cocker cross.

A definite crash-bang and some cursing from Terry interrupted her as she tied back the bending limb of a rose and she went round the side to see what was amiss. Terry, red-faced and rubbing his shin, showed all the signs of having lost the first round to the lawnmower.

“Let’s break for a cup of tea”, she said, pre-empting the inevitable sob story, and she put down her trug and went through the side door into the kitchen. Terry followed limping slightly. Earl Grey and an almond thin for her, a Typhoo pyramid and a ginger nut for him.

They had rubbed together well enough for more than 40 years now. Overall he was a kind man, she reflected, undemanding and loyal. He had several annoying quirks and had never really been what she could call ‘the love of her life’, but he was making a decent companion for their silver years… She would have loved to have had children, but it just didn’t happen. In fact the only family she had known was her late father, Sidney. Her mother had died giving birth and he had brought her up without much outside help. Later he was the one who had ‘chosen’ Terry for her, his young foreman. Their slightly tentative courtship had been positively encouraged by Sidney and his generous offer of the house and financial support had made their marriage inevitable.

Later Terry took over running the firm, with Sidney’s approval and only slight interference.  And Sidney moved back in with them until a stroke killed him. That was almost ten years ago now.

Now part of the front garden had become something of a shrine where his ashes had been scattered and where Lesley tended her favourite roses.

Tea break over she went back out to tidy some more. In most ways her life had been easy enough but she felt a gaping hole that never went away. No children, no siblings, not even distant relatives she could trace. She and Terry were both only children. Terry’s mother had had a brother who’d ended up in Australia, but an attempt to the trace his descendants had drawn a blank… Her few friends all talked about their families, their children, grandchildren. It was what one did at her age.

She made do with the battle against blackspot and the bamboo coming though from next door.

Then when it clouded over she went back inside and picked up her book, Katie Fforde’s latest. It was compensation for the all-embracing romance she’d missed. Nothing too raunchy. That would never do, but her range went from demure to a good (but decent) bodice ripper.

It was three days later when the sun finally showed again and she went out to do more tidying. All those rose petals needed sweeping up and some more dead-heading was overdue. A broken rose stem on ‘Peace’ was flopping to the ground near that large flat stone. That is when she came across the small pile of junk mail she’d told the postman to leave. A sodden catalogue from Parkers – there was almost one of those a week - and a David Austin rose catalogue. The rain had made them almost one item. Both went into the bin.

So she never saw the neat handwritten letter sandwiched between them from the unknown relative who thought she might have traced her through Ancestry.com.