Roses

There were roses in the bouquet he bought her for their first evening walking out. He called for her in his serge suit and her father, an enormous man whose shirt gaped between the buttons exposing dark hairs on white flesh, grunted an acknowledgment before she squeezed past him to meet him in the evening air. She was flushed and lovely just like the promise of spring. He was coy and awkward but he could see in her eyes that his love was returned and that made him a little bolder, enough to reach for her hand when her house was out of sight. She dutifully put the pink, tightly curled buds to her nose and breathed in their musky scent and the tiny burst of gypsophila danced around her cheeks.

There were roses in her bouquet, as her enormous smiling father, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye, passed her arm to his as he waited at the end of the aisle. He wasn't nervous like they warned him he'd be, just filled with calmness and peace and love.

There were roses around the door of the house they shared that sent their heavy perfume through the door as they reclined, loosely embraced, watching their children crawl and stumble, then walk, skip and run out of the door.

It was only right that he lay a single rose on her coffin when he said his last goodbye. The scent was gone or he was no longer aware of it. He did not see the blush of colour that could only match her cheeks but saw too clearly the browning edge of the petal and the thorn on the stem.

Time up.

Inspiration: I've got a box of Roses left from Christmas. You get the connection...