The Girls on Rose Hill

The Girls on Rose Hill

A Novel

by

Bernadette Walsh

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter 1

Rose

The noon sun blinded me and it was all I could do not to turn around and crawl back into bed. I was tired. Bone tired as my mother used to say. I rummaged through the straw basket and found a scratched pair of plastic sunglasses my granddaughter left behind last summer. I grabbed the thin iron railing and made my way down the porch's steep steps one step at a time, the way my mother had in her last few years. Old. I was getting old. I'd flown up and down these stairs since I was a child but last month I missed the third step and twisted my ankle. Now, like my mother before me, I had to be careful.

I peered through the damaged glasses. My brother's anchored sailboat bobbed merrily in the high tide. In the distance, several men fished off of the Centershore bridge, their low murmurs carried by a light breeze. One of the men wiped his bald head with a rag. A small bead of sweat trickled down my own brow. Summer used to be my favorite season but this month's string of ninety degree days had sapped my energy.

I walked over to the shed, painted the same robin's egg blue as the house, and hesitated, almost involuntarily, before I stepped inside the dank, termite ridden structure. The sharp tang of fertilizer mixed with kerosene still reminded me of my stepfather. Sixty years on, I could almost see his broad shoulders block the narrow doorway, his thin lips a hard line. I shook my head and forced the image out of my mind. A stepladder lay just inside the shed's door. I dragged it out into the sun and over to a large lilac bush. Although it was June, a few flowering branches remained. They would make a nice addition to St. Ann's mid-week altar arrangement.

"Hello, Rose," Barbara Conroy said. Barbara and her late husband had lived next door for close to forty years. I couldn't remember the last time our greetings had extended beyond a hello and a weather observation. Yet as a long time neighbor, Barbara's habits and schedule were as familiar as my own. Barbara carried a tray of sandwiches for her weekly historical society meeting.

I forced a smile. "Hi, Barbara. Hot enough for you?"

"It's brutal." She placed the tray in the back seat of her new silver Mercedes. Since her husband died last spring, Barbara had enjoyed spending all the pennies he'd pinched over their long marriage.

I waved one last time to Barbara and turned my attention to the lilacs. Every Wednesday I freshened the altar's flower arrangements, although attendance at the daily masses was sparse. Still, Monsignor Ryan appreciated my efforts.

I wiped my sweaty palms on the faded housedress my daughter tried to throw out last summer and then grabbed the heavy gardening shears out of the straw basket. I climbed to the top of the stepladder and reached for a large unwilted blossom. As I lifted the shears over my head, a sharp pain pierced my skull. The gardening shears fell to the ground. I shouldn't have gone out in this heat, I thought as I climbed down the ladder. I reached the last step when another flash of pain, stronger than the last, ripped through my head. Then darkness.

* * *

Two weeks later I found myself installed in a small single room at St. Francis Hospice. Invasive brain cancer. No treatment options. No hope. Three months at most. It seemed I'd meet the Lord a little sooner than I'd expected.

"I said, do you want me to put more water in this vase?" my sister-in-law Lisa shouted in my left ear.

"Sorry, yes. That's fine," I said, my voice, despite my effort, no louder than a whisper.

"These are pretty. Are they from your garden?" Lisa asked loudly as she walked to the small adjoining bathroom.

I wanted to tell her I had cancer, I wasn't deaf. Instead I replied, "Yes. Ellen brought them yesterday." My daughter, Ellen, had brought offerings from my garden every day since she'd arrived from Washington. If I live much longer, there won't be a blade of grass left.

"Well, she certainly didn't cut them very well, but then Ellen was never one for flowers, was she?" Lisa bustled back into the room and a small stream of water dripped from an overfilled vase. "I can't believe she's staying all alone at your place. Paul and I told her she was more than welcome to stay with us. The kids are away at camp this month so there's plenty of room. But no, she said she wanted to spend time at home. I was surprised to hear her call it that. Home. When was the last time she was back anyway?"

"I don't remember," I lied as I looked out the small window next to my bed. The window faced a small courtyard with a statue of Our Lady in the center, surrounded by a bed of day lilies. A young woman placed a small bouquet of flowers at Our Lady's feet.

"I don't think she's been back twice since Kitty died. I would've thought that she considered D.C. her home now. Not like Paul. He's always loved that old house. He was born there after all," Lisa added as if I didn't know.

"So was Ellen." I looked at the young woman praying in the courtyard, her dark hair a curtain across her face. The bright orange of the day lilies was like fire against her black hair as the blossoms danced in the breeze. I stared at the flowers and an image of my Auntie Margaret's back yard in Bay Ridge flashed across my damaged brain.

Margaret's front yard, like that of her Brooklyn neighbors, consisted of a small postage stamp lawn. All proper and controlled. In the back she'd created a magic garden for me and my cousin Molly. Paths lined with rows of beautiful wildflowers criss-crossed the small yard and bright orange day lilies softened the back fence. We would hide for hours among the flowers. Molly and I crept along the rough wooden fence, orange blossoms caught in our hair, the day my mother and Peter came to take me to the house on Rose Hill.

My hands were covered in dirt and Auntie Margaret tried to rub them clean with a soft handkerchief, her eyes red with tears. My mother stood next to a strange man. He was tall with a large nose and enormous hands. My mother handed him a small suitcase and then hugged me. My grubby fingers stained her pale green dress. "Rosie, I have the best news. You have a new daddy, and we're going to take you with us to live in a beautiful house by the sea. Isn't that marvelous? Aren't you the luckiest girl in the world?"

"Are we going on vacation? Can Molly come too?"

"Of course Molly will visit us. But no, this isn't a vacation. You're coming to live with me. With us," Kitty said, in a bright, chirpy voice.

"But I live here," I said, bewildered. "I live with Auntie Margaret and Uncle John and Molly and baby Jack."

"Yes, you did live here. Now you're going to live with your own mommy and daddy," Kitty said, her voice hardened as she glared at Auntie Margaret.

I looked at the sour-faced man. "But I don't know him. I don't like him!"

The man glanced at his watch as if he hadn't heard a word I'd said. Tears slid down my cheeks.

Auntie Margaret took me in her arms. "Hush now, child," she said in her soft brogue. "There's no reason to cry. You'll love your new home with your mammy. And we'll all come out to visit you soon."

"Kitty, we need to go," the man said.

Without another word, my mother lifted me up in her arms and carried me out of the yard. I looked back through my tears. Auntie Margaret crouched down beside my cousin Molly, Margaret's black hair framed against the fire of the day lilies.

Lisa's grating voice brought me back to the hospice room. "...and so I offered to send my gardener over to your place, but Ellen wouldn't hear of it. Really, it's no problem. After all, she'll need to get back to Washington, to her job and her family soon I would think, and someone will need to take care of the house. Paul and I would be happy to do it." Lisa squeezed my thin hand in her plump one.