What the Roses Knew
The envelope was damp from the morning dew and slightly warped where it had been lying against the soil at the base of the largest rose bush, the one my father had planted the day I was born and that now reached past the garden wall.
I held it for a moment without opening it.
My father’s handwriting on the front of it: Cassandra. Just my name, nothing else, no instruction or explanation. He had always believed that the name itself was sufficient, that a person who was paying attention would know what a thing was without being told.
I was paying attention.
I set down the pruning shears and walked to the back garden bench, the iron one he had put in thirty years ago that had rusted at the legs and that he had repaired three times rather than replace because he said a bench that had been repaired was more interesting than a new one.
I opened the envelope.
The letter was two pages, handwritten, dated eight weeks before he died. His handwriting was different from what it had been even a year earlier, larger and slower, but still precise in the way of a man who had always believed that how you wrote something was as important as what you wrote.
I am going to reproduce it here as accurately as I can, because the letter is the thing, and nothing I could write about it would be more useful than the thing itself.
Cassandra,
If you are reading this you have found it, which means you were in the garden, which means you are doing what you always do when you are troubled, which is trim the roses and think.
I am going to tell you some things I should have told you before now, and I want to ask your forgiveness in advance for the delay.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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