The Secret in the Roses
My heart pounded with rage every time I saw that grumpy old man next door. Mr. Sloan seemed to live just to make my life a living nightmare. But when I woke up that terrible morning and saw what he’d done to my precious roses, I had no clue he’d already set in motion a plan that would change everything forever.
I absolutely loved my mornings in the quiet suburbs. The fresh air filled my lungs as I stepped outside to my beautiful little garden. It was my sanctuary, my escape from all the chaos in the world.
Running my own flower business kept me busy and happy. Orders for wedding bouquets poured in through my website, and word spread quickly about my amazing roses. That summer had been incredible – bride after bride wanted my gorgeous flowers for their special day. My roses were becoming famous!
I poured myself a steaming cup of coffee and settled into my favorite spot on the porch. My notebook was ready for planning the day’s work. I took a long, satisfying sip and glanced toward my flower bed. The coffee went down the wrong way, and I nearly choked on it.
“What the hell is THAT?!” I gasped, jumping to my feet.
Instead of my beautiful, neat rows of prize-winning rose bushes, there was a massive mountain of dark, ugly soil dumped right in the middle of my flowers! My precious roses were completely buried!
“Oh, come on! Not again! Who else could it be if not that miserable old pest?” I shouted at the empty morning air.
I knew exactly who the culprit was. My neighbor from hell, Mr. Sloan. The man was like a dark cloud hanging over my perfect suburban life. Ever since he’d retired, he seemed to have made it his full-time job to drive me absolutely crazy.
“I’m gonna march right over there and give him a piece of my mind!” I muttered angrily. “This is my business, my livelihood, for heaven’s sake! He’s gone too far this time!”
I stomped furiously across the stones at the edge of my yard, ready for war. But when I got closer to Mr. Sloan’s old house, I stopped dead in my tracks. There were several unfamiliar cars parked outside, and people dressed in black were walking around with sad faces.
“What happened here?” I asked Mrs. Pearson, the gossip queen from the next street over. She was standing by the fence, dabbing her eyes with a tissue.
“Oh, Linda… Harold… he passed away last night. Heart attack, they say. Just dropped right there in his kitchen. Poor old soul.”
All the burning anger inside me suddenly drained away like water through a broken dam. I felt it pour straight into the soil, right onto my crushed roses. The man I’d been ready to scream at was gone. Forever.
“Miss M.?”
A deep voice made me spin around. A tall man in an expensive black suit was walking toward me. He had serious eyes and carried a leather briefcase.
“James H. I’m Mr. Sloan’s lawyer,” he said, extending his hand for a firm handshake. “After the funeral, we’ll be reading his last will and testament. You’re required to be present.”
“Me? Are you absolutely sure?” I stammered, completely confused. “Why would I need to be there?”
“That’s his express wish. You’ll find out everything after the farewell ceremony.”
I glanced back at the pile of dirt and spotted a dead rose bush peeking out from underneath like a cry for help. A cold chill ran through my entire body, making me shiver despite the warm morning sun.
What did you cook up this time, you sneaky old man?
The next day felt like I was living in a strange dream. I sat in the back row of the small, stuffy funeral hall, and I couldn’t take my eyes off the polished wooden coffin. I stared at where Mr. Sloan lay and my mind raced through every single fight we’d ever had.
What kind of twisted game did you plan for me this time, old man? What cruel joke did you leave behind to haunt me?
After the farewell ceremony, the lawyer led me into a tiny office inside the funeral home. The air smelled like old flowers and sadness. An elderly woman I’d never seen before was already sitting there. She wore a black hat with a small veil, and she was staring out the window with the most lost, helpless look I’d ever seen.
I sat down across from her and tried not to stare too much. She looked so fragile, like a bird with a broken wing. The lawyer opened his thick folder with important-looking papers.
“Alright. I’ve gathered you here to read Mr. Sloan’s last will and testament. Two points concern you directly, Miss M.”
I clenched my hands together under the table so tight my knuckles turned white. My heart was beating like a drum.
“Linda, you inherit Mr. Sloan’s house. The entire property, including all the land and everything on it.”
“What? Is this some kind of sick joke?” I practically shouted. “He left ME his house? Me? The person he spent years tormenting?”
“Under one condition,” the lawyer continued calmly.
Of course. There it was. The trap. The catch I should have seen coming.
“You must take in Mrs. Rose D., here she is,” he nodded to the woman in the hat, “into your new home. And look after her. She will live with you for as long as she wishes.”
“Excuse me… Look after her? Why me? I don’t understand any of this!”
Rose lifted her gaze and smiled so gently, so sweetly, that I felt a stab of guilt for even doubting her. Her eyes were kind and watery blue.
“Don’t worry, dear. I won’t be a burden to you. I promise,” she said in a soft, trembling voice.
I turned back to the lawyer, my head spinning with confusion.
“Is this… mandatory? Do I have to accept this?”
“If you decline this condition, you automatically forfeit the house and everything in it.”
Perfect. Just absolutely perfect. My rental apartment was draining every penny I had each month. And now I’d lost all my wedding orders along with my destroyed roses. Obviously, Mr. Sloan had made sure of that before he died – one final act of revenge.
But his yard was full of his own magnificent rose bushes, the same beautiful varieties that could save my ruined wedding contracts if I played my cards right. That garden was a florist’s dream, whether I liked the situation or not. A chance to finally work in peace and build my business back up.
Rose smiled at me gently. “We’ll be good company for each other, won’t we, dear?”
I nodded slowly. After all, that’s who I was: the kind of person who helped others, even when it was complicated.
What harm could one sweet old lady possibly do?
The first few days in the house, I tried desperately to convince myself that everything would work out fine. I kept repeating it like a prayer.
I had the land for my roses. All I had to do was take care of sweet old Rose. Nothing too difficult, right? Right.
Until she asked for steamed broccoli.
I was standing in the kitchen, completely covered in flower petals and dirt after spending hours planting new rose bushes in the back yard. My back ached, my hands were scratched up, and I was exhausted.
“Sweetheart, I know you’re terribly busy with your beautiful flowers… But would it be too much trouble to make me some broccoli? Please don’t overcook it, my poor stomach can’t handle it when it’s too soft…”
I sighed deeply and dragged myself to the stove. Steam rose from the pot like my frustration rising to the ceiling.
The next morning, Rose wanted a tomato salad. But not just any ordinary salad. The tomatoes had to be peeled perfectly, with no skin left on them, and sliced into thin, precise matchsticks.
“I know you’re the kindest girl in the whole world,” she said sweetly as I stood there peeling those endless tomatoes. “No one’s ever done something so nice for me. You’re an angel.”
That night, I was finally drifting off to sleep when I heard her little silver bell ringing frantically. Rose wanted warm milk with honey.
Then she needed me to check all the radiators because of the wind howling through them like ghosts.
An hour later, she needed her pills – a whole handful of different medications.
“Sweetheart, could you look at these bottles? I think they might be expired… Would you be so kind as to drive to the pharmacy for me?”
I squinted at the clock. “But it’s five in the morning, Rose…”
“I just need my migraine pills urgently. I don’t know if I can bear this terrible pain until sunrise… Please, dear, I’m in agony.”
The city was forty long minutes away. I grabbed Mr. Sloan’s old, rusty bicycle and rode through the cold darkness anyway. My legs burned as I pedaled up the hills. I got back around seven in the morning, completely exhausted. Rose was sleeping soundly in her bed, snoring softly.
“Rose, wake up… I brought the pills…” I whispered.
“Oh, sweetheart. Sleep is the best medicine for everything…” she murmured without opening her eyes.
“But you said you were in terrible pain…”
“Shhh. You’ll scare away my healing energy.”
I tried desperately to hold it together. But that day, I didn’t even go back to sleep. My mind was racing with frustration and confusion.
Minutes later, I was searching in the dusty garage for the old watering can, but instead I found an old cardboard box hidden behind some paint cans. The lid was left slightly open, like someone had been looking through it recently.
I knelt down on the concrete floor and carefully lifted the lid. Inside were old photographs – black-and-white, faded with age. On one of them, I saw something that made my blood run cold.
What? It was me! But how could that be? No, it couldn’t be. No, no, definitely not me.
A woman who looked so incredibly much like me that I actually flinched and dropped the photo. She was holding a small baby in her arms. Next to her stood a young Mr. Sloan – but he looked completely different. Handsome, smiling, happy. I flipped the photo over with shaking hands – there was a note scribbled on the back in faded ink:
“Rose and my girl, August 1985.”
I sank onto the cold floor, feeling a chill run down my spine like ice water. My hands were trembling as I stared at the photo.
My girl? Mr. Sloan had a daughter? But where was she? Why had I never seen her?
Suddenly, I heard Rose’s soft voice behind me. “Oh, you found the old photos, dear? That was back when everything was… different. So very different.”
I spun around. She was standing in the garage doorway, leaning on her wooden cane. Her eyes looked sad and distant.
“The woman in this photo… Her name’s Rose… That’s you, isn’t it?”
“Some things never go away, even when you try so hard not to remember them… You look so much like me at that age. It’s almost frightening.”
“Like you, Rose? What do you mean?”
“Not now, sweetheart. I need to take my medicine. We’ll talk later.”
She turned and walked away slowly, leaving me alone with that box of mysterious photos and a thousand questions racing through my mind.
What was she hiding from me? And who was she really to Mr. Sloan?
I’d grown up in foster care, moving from house to house like a lost package. All I knew was that my mother had abandoned me when I was just a baby. That was it. No other information, no clues, no family history.
My head was spinning with possibilities I was afraid to think about.
If Mr. Sloan had a daughter, why didn’t she come to his funeral? Where was she now? Why had no one ever mentioned her?
Why Rose? Why me? Why did I inherit everything?
Why did her eyes look at me like that, as if she knew something incredibly important that I didn’t?
I had to find out the truth. Because maybe… just maybe… it was my truth, too.
The following rainy evening, I couldn’t stand the mystery any longer. I knocked on Rose’s bedroom door with determination.
“Rose, we need to talk. Right now. That photo… the baby. Who was she?”
Rose patted the chair across from her with her thin hand. “Sit, sweetheart. I suppose you’re ready for some of it now.”
I could hear the rain drumming on the old roof like a thousand tiny fingers. Rose stared into her lap, gathering the words like broken beads from a scattered necklace.
“We were just kids ourselves, Harold and I. Wild, stupid kids who thought we knew everything. We thought we could make it work against all odds. But life… doesn’t care about love when there’s nothing else to hold you together.”
“So the baby… she was yours? Yours and Sloan’s?”
Rose looked up, and for a heartbeat, I saw her young – that same softness in the eyes as the woman in the photo.
“She was born in August. 1985. It was such a hot, unbearable summer. We were living out of his mother’s tiny house back then. No money. No steady work. Just big dreams and empty pockets. We really thought we could raise our daughter right, give her everything she deserved.”
“And you gave her up for adoption?”
“We thought a better family could give her what we never could. A real home, stability, a future.”
The room seemed smaller now, the air thick with old secrets and regret.
“Mr. Sloan looked for her, didn’t he? He tried to find his daughter?”
“It took him years and years. He said it was the one thing he had to get right before he died. That’s why he moved to this neighborhood. He used to stand by the window for hours, watching you work in the garden. He wanted to tell you the truth so many times. But he was stubborn and proud. He thought you’d spit in his face for what he did all those years ago.”
“And you? Why did he leave YOU to me?”
Rose gave a sad little laugh that broke my heart. “My body’s failing me, dear. Harold thought… maybe… You and I could still have something together. A family. He wrote you a letter. I was supposed to wait until you were ready to hear the truth.”
She pulled a small, worn envelope from her knitting basket. My name was written on it in Mr. Sloan’s shaky handwriting. I held it in my lap like it was made of fire. A truth was buzzing in my bones, begging to be said aloud, but my mouth couldn’t form the words.
“So that baby… the girl in the photo… Was that me?”
Rose reached for my hand with both of hers, curling her paper-thin fingers over mine like she was trying to hold onto me forever.
“You’ve always been my girl. From the moment you were born.”
I opened the envelope with trembling hands. The letter was written in Mr. Sloan’s careful handwriting:
“Linda,
I deserve every bitter word you could throw at me. I wanted to tell you the truth a thousand times, but I was never man enough to stand there and see the hate in your eyes.
I told myself I was protecting you, just like when I let you go. I thought you’d have a better life without me dragging you down.
Watching you these past few years – your roses, your strength, that fire in you that reminds me so much of your mother – it was the only good thing I did at the end.
I hope one day you can forgive Mom for all she couldn’t do. And maybe, you’ll find a way to forgive me, too.
Take care of Mom. Take care of yourself. No more secrets now. The truth is finally free.
All my love, Dad”
Hot tears hit the paper, making the ink blur. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d let myself cry like this. All my life I did my best to be strong and independent. I was strong when my parents abandoned me.
Strong when no one came back for me at the foster homes.
Strong when Mr. Sloan – my own father – dumped dirt on my roses…
My father. My own father had been punishing me for being his ghost, a reminder of his biggest regret.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, hugging my knees and crying. The storm had passed, leaving everything quiet and clean. I finally reached for Rose’s hand. Her eyes were swollen and red like she’d been crying too.
“I don’t know how to forgive you yet,” I whispered through my tears.
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
“But I want to try. I want us both to try. We’re all we have left.”
“We’ve wasted so many precious years.”
“Then we won’t waste what we have left. We’ll make every day count.”
We sat like that for a long time, two women who’d been too hard on the world, and too hard on ourselves, finally realizing that we didn’t have to fight alone anymore.
Outside, the roses bent in the wind, their stems flexible and strong. But they didn’t break.
And neither would we.