Grandma has roses in her garden that bloom each year. They grow in the bed beside the patio, all in a row. There are about ten shrubs and each of them flowers a different colour; two shades of yellow, orange, white, pink, and red. I used to pull the petals off and let them sit in a bowl of water, hoping that after ten minutes I’d have rose scented perfume to sweeten my neck. Ten minutes could’ve been forever back then and I’d sit before the bowl, with my nose to the water and my hair falling over my face, the blonde tips just touching the surface of the floral solution. I’d give up hope, only to return the next morning and take a different coloured petal, (maybe the red will work better) and sit in front of the bowl, waiting for something magical to happen, like a little smoke or a small explosion. Just water. It was always, just water.
Standing from the kitchen window a light breeze would blow the rose scent through the wind chimes right to my nose, teasing me away from the dishes that lay in the soap and water. I was older then.
I remember that garden so well. The patio with all its cracks and the little tufts of grass that would force their way through the broken pavement. The garden slopes downward and at the bottom of the hill there is a swing that Grandpa made before he died. It’s all rusty now and it creaks with every high and low. Grandpa died before I was ever born. I don’t know his middle name, the colour of his eyes, his voice, his hands, his smile. There are some who will never forget. Highs and lows.
When I was tiny, with new teeth and white hair, Auntie would sit me in the wheelbarrow and push me down the hill toward the swing. I would squeal, a mix of delight and fear, and at the last second, she’d turn away from the swing toward the apple tree and we’d go round and round the trunk. My fingers clamped to the sides of wheelbarrow, my eyes wide open. A swirl of green leaves and bright blue sky. She would collapse on the ground in giggles and I would wait, with a grin, for her to lift me from my ride and place me safely back on earth. She has children now and I am desperate to go back. Desperate to place her little boy into that wheelbarrow and to push him toward Grandpa’s swing in a swirl of green and blue.
It was truly innocence back then. Before broken hearts and tear stained cheeks. Before secrets and lies. I used to go to bed each night, top bunk, and I’d stare through the slice in the curtains, where they didn’t quite meet in the middle. Every five seconds a torch would shine and I believed it was a lonely friend sitting on their top bunk flashing a light between their slit in the curtains, hoping for someone else to talk back. The grown-ups tell me it’s a prison and the torch is just the search light, but I don’t believe them. Even if it is true, my lonely inmate with the secrets and lies, broken heart and tear stained cheeks, talks every five seconds and it’s a comfort. Somehow.
