Rose Garden

12

Mother is a keen gardener. She is not such a keen buyer of garden essentials. Behind her I would trot as she stole and raided everyone else’s gardens for whatever she wanted . Nothing was untouchable, even the bird table that stood in the middle of the garden was dug out out of pre-fab gardens whilst unsuspecting owners where homed elsewhere.

She is also a manipulator. Not an adept one, by far, but even the dimmest of such have  stranglehold over children who simply want to please parents, make the pain and rejection – stop.

That house in the next street is empty she tells me, they have hundred leave roses in the garden. She stops talking right there and simply puts a spade down on the living room floor.

I pick up the spade and close the door behind me. March right up to the next steet and into this garden and set about digging up the roses.

It’s night, its dark, but it is not long before the next door neighbours are out shouting the odds and asking what I’m doing in this garden.

Fear crosses my mind, but the adrenalin rush and wanting to please mother takes over, nothing and nobody is getting in my way here.

Mission.

“Im taking the fucking flowers for my mother” I fire back with a transparent, determination and keep digging.

Deep down, I’m scared, shaking inside, don’t want to be in trouble, but I need, want, a mother more than I need to stay out of trouble.

The neighbours have already pissed off on end of my diatribe, I dig, harder, faster, sure the cops will be on way.

Roses out,, anxious, dragging the spade behind me, flowers in hand, I run for home.

She didn’t say thank you, albeit she planted them the next day, and she would be gone the next again.