What does the White rose mean to Herbert? 

Herbert closed the door from the garage and leaned back, experiencing the finality of it all. He sighed, did his best to bring his shoulders back, and pulled himself up the three steps to the main floor of their home, a single white rose in his right hand. Quietly he side-stepped the hall leading to their bedroom and, crossing the dining room, tenderly lay the rose across the bowl of fruit that was centered on a silk runner. After hanging his overcoat in the front closet, he turned on the porch light and returned to the dining room, resting his hands on the back of Remona’s chair.

He forced a tear from his eye that had patiently waited from the moment he dropped a handful of dirt on her coffin. It was soil from Remona’s vegetable bed. The other tears needed no invitation and quickly followed, rolling down his cheeks and splashing on the table. “Well, Dear, the rain held off until I got home. Don’t worry, I’ll get the yellow sponge from the kitchen and wipe all the rain away. Yellow like the sun and the nursery rhyme you’d sing to your grandchildren.”

It was several minutes before he could break away and retrieve the sponge from the kitchen, pausing only to take a container of cold chicken salad from the refrigerator.

Returning to the kitchen he put the sponge in the dish drainer, exchanging it for a fork. He whispered, “You don’t mind if I eat in here tonight, Dear; it’s too lonely in the dining room.”

After supper, he looked around the kitchen and tidied up. Smiling, he recalled how Remona bragged to her friends that he was well trained. I guess so. You remarry late in life, if you’re lucky you can remember all the mistakes you made before and avoid them like the plague. No sense in putting yourself through all that again.

Herbert found a highball glass at the back of the cabinet, reached down in the freezer for a couple of ice cubes, and covered them with a blended Scotch. “Don’t raise your eyebrow, Dear; this is the only way to listen to the evening news. And as bad as it is, it’s still a distraction.”

He may have fallen asleep in the recliner, but the next thing he knew, the TV time was 10:47. He drained the watery content in the glass on the end table and put it down, too tired to carry it to the kitchen.

He shook his head trying to dislodge some of the cobwebs from a long day. Time for the rounds of the house. He went from room to room, checking that the curtains were closed and that the doors were locked. He counted eight white roses hanging from the center of the curtain rods of the double windows: four in the living room, two in the dining room, and two more in the sunroom. There was room for two more. One white rose from each anniversary.

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Stopping in the middle of the sunroom, he recalled how they had repainted it together. “It’ll only take us a week, Honey. We can do it on our own.” It was ten days, and we both had back pains for a month. But I’d happily paint the whole house if Remona were only here!

He stood in front of the bathroom mirror, talking to the shadow behind his shoulder every time he rinsed his toothbrush. “You remember how we agreed…that old romances are the sweetest and deepest... I joked, no diapers or teenagers…so much less to go wrong... And you added…that if one was old enough…no in-laws.” He swished water around his mouth and spit into the sink. “We both had a good laugh.” My in-laws weren’t so bad.

He washed his face and patted it dry, continuing the conversation. “And what a delight our kids were – always be kids to us – all overjoyed that we’d have each other. Even laughed when I said it sounded as if they were off-loading a failing part of an otherwise thriving conglomerate.”

He looked around the bedroom. Motes hung in the yellow light cast by the lamp on the nightstand. Sighing, he murmured, “So alone. I’m so alone.” But you’ll survive, Honey. I know you’ll survive. “Remona, I don’t know how you can be so confident.” Trust me, Honey. I know you and you’ll survive.

He swallowed. The clothes he had worn to the funeral were still where he’d thrown them when he got ready for bed. Hanging them in the closet, he remembered the white rose on the dining room table.

Only another few minutes. No rush. He stopped once again in the bathroom on his way back, griping, “Old men and their bladders. Another thing they don’t tell you about the ‘good old age.’”

He laid the rose on Remona’s pillow and reached over to turn off the light. In the dull glow from the alarm clock, he could just make out the rose. He squirmed closer and kissed the petals, “Pleasant dreams, Sweetheart.”