Dead flowers

Dead Flowers Lori gave thanks every single day for the blessings bestowed upon her. She had two kids sent from the angels themselves, well once in a blue moon on an extremely good day she thought that, the rest of the time she just thought that they'd been sent to try her. She could never quite believe how lucky she'd been. She had a husband who worshipped the ground she walked on, he was a fantastic provider and endlessly creative with the kids. But the quality she really admired in him was his endless patience with her, his knack of perceiving her mood before she had analysed it herself and his big, strong, gentle heart. Sometimes he'd reach out a hand to gently stroke the side of her face and she'd recoil so violently that it was as if his fingers were glowing with white-hot fire. At these times his eyes would drop and a look of rejection would mould into the contours of his lowered face. She'd move into the enchanted circle of love within his arms, and nuzzle into his neck making small mewling sounds of apology, while kissing the cologne fresh creases of his sensitive neck. Oh she knew this would either make him laugh and forgive her instantly or distract him in a different direction. She marvelled that after ten years of marriage he still called out her name as they gave of each other, to their love. Her life was truly charmed. Every so often they made the trip back north, twice a year usually to see the dregs of family she had left. This amounted to a few cousins here and there and an older brother, who professed that "Family" was THE only thing that mattered in life, and yet hadn't he stood by all those years, like a spectator in the gallery, The money man in the balcony with the opera glasses. In spring they would pick up and drop off the tattered Christmas presents gaudily wrapped in their out of place paper, exchange gifts that nobody liked nor wanted. None of them had any idea if these were last year's presents late, or next year's presents early. Then they'd sit stiffly, looking guiltily at the ravaged paper and ribbons lying like a picked over carcass on the opulent green Chesterfield sofa, before hastily following the lady of the house's eyes and shuffling the paper tidily into a proffered Marks and Spencer's bin bag "Twice as thick as the average bin bag you know?" The sister-in-law would say nodding her head sagely. "Really! Well I'll remember that for future reference, lovely scones Maude" Maude would shudder, visibly at Lorries use of the flattened vowel in the word scone. While Lorrie would swallow three of four times to get rid of the clotted gunge lying like cement in the uncomfortable nether regions of her throat. Her brother Trevor and Maude had been married forever. They didn't seem unduly unhappy, Oh they had everything they could want, huge house far too big for the two of them on the "Heights", twice-yearly holidays, "Oooh the hotel was lovely, it was too hot to go out much though. Oh and the food, it did upset our tummy's. I say dear didn't it upset our tummies?" How old WERE these people? Physically Trev, was only eighteen years older than Lorrie, but mentally they'd stagnated into their dotage years ago. "Ooh it did upset my tummy" ... Lori mimicked in her sister-in-laws upper class South London accent as the drove away laughing. The kids tucked into the sweets having been bribed to be extra well behaved for the duration of the visit. And thank-God the ordeal was over for another six months. Last duty of the trip ... Lori grasped the single red rose tightly in her hand unaware of the thorns cutting into her palm. The tension had been building inside her since leaving the florist. There were no jokes passing between them now. All the frivolity had been bleached out of the car, by her dark and melancholy thoughts. The kids didn't even ask to go with her anymore they knew the routine. Bill smiled his strong smile of encouragement. Many times over the years he'd told her she didn't need to do this, didn't have to put herself through this torture every six months. "Let it go Lori love. Let it go" his words were always torn away by her moral sense of duty. He'd clutch her hand letting his strength and love flow from his heart to hers, giving her the fortitude and courage she needed. She got out of the car. The door banged into it's frame, a temporary, but never-the-less total seal on her real life as she once again moved into the black existence of her past. The cemetery gate creaked loudly as she closed it behind her, and she began the walk down the "grid" of footpaths to her fathers grave. She thought again, about the *other* flowers. She knew none of the other family members ever came here, Trevor never felt the need to endlessly torture himself with visiting the past. So who laid the flowers? Every time she came to her fathers grave there was a bunch of dead flowers to be removed. Nine, brown desiccated roses, withered with age and ready to crumble at the slightest touch. This put her in mind of her father's roses. How that man had loved his roses. He had every colour and hybrid on the market, he talked to them like children, coaxed and chided them to grow strong and bloom proudly. Lori always loved the red roses. She thought back to the day she had taken her First Holy Communion. She stood in her white dress. Daddy had presented her with a fresh red rose bud, sprayed with chilled water to keep it fresh throughout the service. Bi-annually she made this pilgrimage to present him with a similar red rose. Only ever the one, a symbol of one pleasant memory in a childhood of horror. She was almost at the cross path that would take her to the grave now. She raised her hand to her right cheek and felt again the lizard who sat on her face. The rippled, dry skin, bubbled and callused, raised and pitted. Twenty-seven years the Lizard had slept on her cheek, his tail disappearing down her blouse to entwine round her breast. This the most feminine of womanly attributes, the epitome of womanhood, the succulent gift she could never offer to her husbands lips. She was nine years old again, sitting at the red Formica table in the old kitchen. "Don't make me eat the soup Daddy, I don't like the soup, it's full of vegetables" Couldn't she just have eaten the damned soup? Why had she made such a fuss? She knew. She knew from other times that it did no good to argue. She hadn't at first felt the boiling hot pan of soup as he'd thrown it over her. There were three seconds of complete and utter peace and silence; before that child that she later realised was her, had started screaming and shattered her peace. Trevor was there, sitting at the table, opera glasses poised to watch the show. He never intervened, but then he had NEVER intervened. Never once commented on the bruises, never noticed the blood. And he was an adult then too. Trevor left when the ambulance arrived. This was so very distasteful, a terrible accident. Dad's grave came into view. She stopped short. Someone was already there. A child squatting by the grave. "Hey" she called out, quickening her step. She approached the grave and saw the beautiful red roses tied with the same yellow ribbon they were always tied with. The roses the child had placed on the grave had been sprayed to keep them fresh. She spoke softly to the child who hadn't turned, not wanting to alarm her "Hello". The child never answered. She rose and began to walk slowly away with her back turned to Lori. She couldn't just leave like this. In frustration Lori reached out to the retreating child "Wait. Please. Who are you?" The child stopped, and began to turn. That was the moment the world stopped revolving for Lori. Everything moved in slow motion as the child's face began to come into view. Lori felt a stabbing feeling of recognition, she knew this child from somewhere. The child was smiling. She continued to smile and then the child in the long white Communion dress clutching the red rose was facing her. And Lori knew. The right side of the little girl's face was hideously disfigured. The eye long ago removed from it's melted socket, the skin puckered, and drawn into frozen sand picture folds. The right side of her smile was a skeletal leer, the upper lip eaten away by the thick boiling liquid, teeth exposed in a frozen grin, and no eye to convey any warmth to the smile. Lori could not bear to look at the child she had been. She tore her horrified gaze away from the small lonely child and looked to the grave and the nine withered and dead roses. And when she lifted her solitary eye, she stood alone.