College cringe.

*****

There was a woman who lived next door and had a rose garden. She was often in her backyard tending it. I would go outside and pretend to play so I could watch her. She was equipped with hedge trimmers, trowels, spades, watering buckets full of rose food or bug repellent, and a hose. Her movements as she snipped, sprayed, picked, and pulled were quick, strict, and by the book, with little or no heart behind them. I wondered that such obvious love and care behind planting the garden didn't seem to exist in its caretaker.

Three colors blossomed in that garden, although roses can be grown in many more hues: pink, red, and purple. I counted the plants, and there were exactly ten of each color. The pinks were all climbers, the reds were trees, and the purples were bushes, all together forming a beautiful, thorny, mysterious jungle.

The front yard was bare except for one small white miniature rose in the center of the yard. If her attentions were forced and severe in the backyard, they were soft and tender toward that little rose. She always left it for last on her weekly gardening spree but spent nearly as much time with it as she did the whole backyard. I couldn't figure her out.

I was eighteen when she died. She left no heirs, so everything in her house was auctioned off and the house was put up for sale. My parents had always admired that house, so I didn't need to push much for them to buy it. I was so nervous and excited the first time I stepped into the house. It was spotlessly clean and smelled fresh and crisp. All of the rooms were decorated in pinks, reds, and purples except for the master bedroom, which was pure white and absolutely beautiful. Strangely enough, it seemed that she had slept in the guest bedroom, which was smaller and contained all three of the backyard rose colors.

It wasn't long after I moved into the guest bedroom that I found her diary. I didn't—couldn't—open it for a long time. It sat on my desk my first year of college, collecting dust until summer. I took it to the garden and sat down on the porch swing, looking around. My mom had taken over care of the rose garden, but it seemed sadder now. The blooms seemed to droop and the perfume didn't seem so sweet. The little white rose and been dug up and replanted next to the porch swing.

The cover of the diary told me her name: Patricia Rosalyn West. She had died on her seventieth birthday. I was surprised—she hadn't looked that old. I opened the diary to the first page:

August 17
Jeremy asked me out.

September 1
First kiss.

September 25
Jeremy broke up with me.

She had been eighteen when those words were written. All of the following nine entries were similar in format and content. A long gap in time was followed by three entries when she was twenty-eight:

December 25
Bought house.

April 1
Planted white rose for Him.

April 2
Planted pink climbers,
Red trees,
And purple bushes.

The rest of the diary was empty. I flipped through again and again until I understood: Pink climbers for first dates full of hope, red trees for first kisses full of love, and purple bushes for each heartbreak. One question still nagged me: Who was the man for whom the white rose was planted? Who was "Him"?

I looked all summer until the last day before I left for college. Inscribed on the garden shed door were three words: "God is Love."