Her forearms crossed on the steering wheel, then her head drooped forward so her forehead was resting on her arms. The strength had drained from her neck, like someone had jerked her power cord from the outlet. No energy. No will. No desire but to cry. So cry she did.
Anna couldn't remember any time in her life being so bad. Her mind flipped through the mental dead-end list she'd accumulated for months. Hating every second of it, every day had become a revolving barrel of regrets and recriminations. This bad choice led to a small pot of bad luck. Bad luck meant she'd missed the one opportunity that might have made a difference. That opportunity - or anything remotely like it - wouldn't ever return, which felt like bad karma to her. Hugely bad karma. Intensely bad karma.
That was it. Her karma was so bad, it had spawned her personal hell on earth. And this morning, sitting on the side of the road, with her head on the steering wheel, she decide that it was all her fault. Her fault, and the roses.
The roses had been the start of it. Before the roses, the sun shone. After the roses, the darkness descended. The roses startled her when she saw them. It was like they'd appeared from nowhere, but he had definitely given them to her. She'd been waiting, as usual, in the minivan, in the minivan-and-SUV-line waiting for Jack, her youngest. Talking on the phone to Mardie passed the time, allowed her a moment of escape.
Suddenly he was at the window. It startled her, of course, but didn't scare her. His air was of strength, of knowing. Mardie was still on the phone. Anna let her talk. She was unable to look away from the man.
"Anna" he said. It wasn't a question.
"Yes" she replied.
"I want you to have these".
With that he produced the roses that he'd been hiding below the window.
The roses were straggly, wild looking, with spikes and leaves. The stems had not been cut, but looked ripped from the bush. A tied piece of string kept them together, probably eight or ten in all.
He smiled. He proffered the bunch a half-inch closer. It was a gift. She took them, holding them awkwardly outside the minivan door. One of the thorns nicked her thumb.
She closed her eyes to sniff them, to find their perfume. They smelled odd, like no roses before in her life. Rich and fragrant, sure, but there was a kind of subtle coppery undertone.
By that time he'd started walking away, and was more distance down the street than seemed right for the seconds she'd been smelling. Biggish guy, biggish strides, longish hair. Unkempt.
The roses drew her back. Their colour was odd. The base of the petals was white, but the remainder a kind of rust red. She touched a petal. They were dry, but the colour rubbed off, like they'd been dyed. They
had been dyed. She looked back up the street, and the man was still walking away.
"Mardie, are you there?" she asked, back to the phone.
"Sure, what happened, I've been talking for hours here".
"What do white roses mean?" asked Anna.
"White roses? Innocence, I think. Virginity? Oh, wait, I remember: new beginnings".
"And what do red roses mean?"
"Red? Give me a hard one why don't you? Red is for passion. Love. You know, lust. Why?"
"That's what I thought" said Anna, sounding far away.
