He crouched and brushed the dirt away.
NATHAN’S ROSES.
He stared.
“Mom?”
Eleanor approached.
Her expression softened.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“Why does it say my name?”
She sat on the garden bench.
“Because those were yours.”
Nathan looked at the roses.
“I don’t understand.”
Eleanor folded her hands.
“Do you remember the summer you were seven? Your father gave you a little blue watering can.”
A memory stirred.
Hot sunshine.
Wet soil.
His father laughing because Nathan had accidentally watered his own shoes.
“You planted three rosebushes together,” Eleanor continued. “Your father told you they would take years to become strong.”
Nathan looked at the scarlet flowers.
“He said I could give them to somebody special one day.”
Eleanor nodded.
“You told him you wanted to give them to the person you married.”
Nathan’s breath caught.
Suddenly, he remembered.
He had been a small boy kneeling in the dirt beside his father, holding a crooked wooden marker while his father pressed it into the ground.
He had asked how he would know whom to marry.
His father had laughed.
Then he had given him an answer Nathan hadn’t understood.
“Choose somebody who’s kind when nobody is watching.”
