greedy little heart

There were a few things that stood out to Rosemary when she thought of her mother. Memory was unreliable, fleeting images that might have been imagined, seen in a movie or told in gossip. The one thing , the sure thing she knew was that her mother often said to her in a sad, scornful voice, 'You have a greedy little heart Rosemary Marie Lynch, a greedy little heart that will get you into trouble and leave you broken.' She could picture the words tumbling out of her mothers thin tightly held lips, creases running up from them, yellowed teeth in a cold smile, a cigarette coming up and closing her mouth to inhale.

She recalled the last time her mother uttered those words, the last time she said anything at all to Rosemary. She had been in and out of the hospital and the last operation had failed to remove the cancer that was eating her from the inside. Rosemary had felt obligated to visit, driven more by guilt than caring and had driven the 100 miles south to her childhood home. Pulling up in front she saw that the house seemed to have shrunken and decayed, grown as frail as her mother inside. The front door had cobwebs in the corners and the dingy paint had cracked like dried mud. The door bell buzzed instead of ringing and a spark flew out to land on her arm when she pushed the button. Rosemary gasped and stepped back, nearly falling off the small porch backwards. She stepped forward again, straightened her skirt, smoothed her hair with unsteady hands and waited.

too much time to count the stars

Rosemary reached the lake at midnight as she agreed to. Brent was not there so she waited. She looked up at the night sky and the millions of bright dots the stars made and wondered at the sheer quantity of them. If she had enough time to count them that meant that Brent was not coming after all. Stupid idea anyway, it was freezing out here and if momma found out she was gone out the window there would be hell to pay.

cutting

The thoughts of hurting herself were so tightly crammed in her head that she felt weighted down, top heavy. She had cut herself on the edge of some elegant stationary when she was 13 and it scared her to see how quickly she opened up. Like an invisible seam ripped open and raw. For a moment she was able to focus on that only on that wound and it was a great relief to her. It was if she was stuck at the top of the ferris wheel, suspended, not moving up or down, just there in the air. Rosemary never did it again at least not with paper she didn't. She sewed a swiss army knife into the nylon lining of her favorite coat and fondled it through the worn corduroy when she got nervous or scared. It was like her emergency exit, her secret way out if life finally completely failed her. Even when the coat had frayed and split, grown tight under her armpits and short at her wrists she refused to give it up, refused to give it to her mother for rags. They fought about it so many times that finally at 16 she had taken the coat and gently floated it down the river, never to see it again. She tore the knife out before she lowered the coat into the water, just in case it was ever found by anyone who could say it was hers.

Rosemary's Uncle John

Rosemary spoke to her mother slowly, stammering a bit. "I just, um, I wanted, I just wanted.."she said as her mother inspected Rosemary's finger, peering out of her thick glasses.
"It looks fine, I don't see anything Rosie...stay away from the flowers like I told you last time." her mother said, pushing her glasses back on her long thin nose. Her fingers appeared skeletal, she had lost so much weight since she got sick.
"But it hurts mommy, it hurts and it was bleeding.." Rosemary protested. She stopped, seeing that her mother had gone back to her reading. She read the newspaper daily until her fingers were stained black with ink. Sometimes she absently smeared her face and dress with it.
" Go play Rosemary" her mother sighed, leaning back into the dusty couch. " You'll be fine. Your Uncle John will be home soon so make sure you don't get your dress any dirtier please."
" He's not my uncle Mommy, he's your friend. He's not your brother, he's not anyone's brother around here!" Rosemary muttered frowning.
"He's your uncle if I say he's your uncle, now go on before I get the belt out." her mother said, not looking up from the society pages. "Must be nice to go to Paris France for a vacation.. I wouldn't know..." she mused to herself.

Rosemary went out the screen door, pausing to stick her tounge out at her mother from around the corner. If her mother caught her doing that, she washed her mouth out with soap, so Rosemary learned not to get caught. She saw a flash of green out the of the corner of her eye, a large grasshopper lighted on the porch step near her. She pushed on her finger, squeezed and held it to try and make it bleed again. But nothing came of it and the grasshopper jumped away.
Rosemary kicked at the front walkway gravel, kicked out of frustration. She hated summer, hated playing alone. Uncle John was not her uncle, he was her mother's boyfriend of sorts, mostly he just ate and slept there and yelled at Rosemary when he felt like it. He never raised a hand to her, that was her mother's job after all. She saw the way he followed Rosemary with his eyes, watching like he as waiting for something, what it was Rosemary was not quite sure. It made her uneasy, deep in her stomach and most of the time she just stayed in her room when he was over. Sometimes he tried to hug her, but she slipped down out of his arms and ran away. Her mother had nothing to say about it lately, so she figured it was ok not to let him hug her. He smelled of aftershave and dirt to Rosemary.

this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you

Some time passed after the still born baby girl, some time she does not recall. She has vague, cramped images in her mind, but they seem foggy and distant like a dream at 3am, fragmented into glass shards she stays away from. No one has asked her anyway, it is her own insistence that brings them on, her own picking at her useless memory.

Her mother told her that before she was born, she had an older sister who drowned in the lake. Her dead sisters name was given to Rosemary but it was not meant for her, it was pasted on her like an afterthought, more to remember the dead then to honor her birth. It made her feel ashamed, as if she had stolen it, a child thief. Now and then she did not answer when called, did not recognize her name when it was spoken. She had taken on a new name,Cara, only no one else knew. To tell them would be to give it away, have it taken from her and that was not tolerable to her. So while everyone knew her as Rosemary, no one really knew her at all.

the first draft day one

The first thing she remembers is reaching for the bright orange rose, swaying there in the summer sun, sees her fingers brown, nails broken and dirty, feels the pulling stretch of her arm and the green leaves dancing underneath. She can feel the grit of the sand between her toes, looking down she sees the cracked red polish that rims her big toe and the scar on her foot from the bicycle she crashed that spring. Desperate to have the rose she tries but falls short, she is only seven after all, she grabs instead the tough sharp spikes of thorns that circle the stem and pulls back quickly,not fast enough to stop the blood from dropping, dripping on the ground, splashing the dirt with deep red spots. The finger is stinging, it is bleeding, she sucks on it to stop it, so mother does not see. The rose still sways, it's scent coming to her through the humid August air, heavy with nectar and musky sweetness. Through watering eyes she looks around, waiting for a call, waiting for her name but there is nothing. A scarlet ant, alone, crawls over her foot, then down to the red spot in the dirt. She takes her finger from her mouth, forgets the stab of the thorn, forgets the rose and watches the ant. Crouching down, she observes it's fillament thin antenna, it's pincher mouth. The ant picks at her blood in the sand, takes a small grain that is red as itself,takes it away. She holds out her finger, a droplet of blood slowly forming and lets it drop on the ant. The ant stumbles a bit, drops the grain of bloody sand, then takes it again and ambles on. She smiles now, she is the sister to the ant, the mother perhaps. Standing, she gathers her skirt, smearing a tiny drop of red from her finger on the taffeta and skips down the driveway. This memory evaded her for many years only to resurface when she lost her first born, lost her in a sea of bloody sheets and tears. It gave her hope, feed her faith that her blood would bring life, kept her from taking her own life in resignation and sorrow.