Tattered Roses

Solitude, silence. There was a time where I found solace in it. I would slam the heavy door of my office shut, and try to drown out the giddy screams of curious children. I never wanted to stifle their joy, but Daddy had to work. Every once in a while, the handle of the door would jiggle impatiently, and Sarah's cooing voice would slip underneath the gaps in the door, ushering children to the backyard. I'd peek out the window to see the twins playing war games in the grass, and Sarah pushing through the bushes, trimming wilted flora from the bushes. Her garden was older than our children, and she tended to it with such grace, it could have been mistaken as our firstborn. She could have won prizes for her roses, should she had been vain enough to try.

We were at the shower when the news came. Alerts on the phone of every guest. Sarah was busy separating boxes of bottles and toys from crinkling paper, and pulling onesies from sparkling bags. We didn't get to do this for this boys, so we went all out for the girl. Sarah planned meticulously, insisting on a venue in the country. It was nearly an hour from home, but she was right. It was perfect. She'd made the centerpieces from her garden, unsatisfied with the arrangements the florist suggested. Those were perfect, too.

A murmur, then a hush fell over the party. Guests bolted to the door, silent as they rushed from the venue. Sarah looked at me, knowing in her eyes. Her mother came and clutched Sarah's hand tightly, hurriedly whispering words of comfort, only to stop mid-sentence and stare out of the window. A massive cloud mushroomed in the distance. I scooped up our boys and ran to the door. Sarah waddled desperately behind. I tossed the boys into the back of the minivan, unconcerned about seat belts or car seats. My mother-in-law slipped into the seat beside them, and Sarah soon caught up and plopped herself into the front passenger seat. We sped off down the winding country road. Green pastures blurred by, and the boys whined about feeling sick. We heard farm animals chirp and bray in distress, only to fall silent moments later. Sarah meekly suggested we slow down. Regretfully, I barked back, asking if she was ready to die. The boys began to cry. We turned the corner of a mountainside and crossed paths with a pickup truck.

I came to, unsure of how much time had passed. The sky was a murky, as if the sun had gone into hiding. There was a splitting pain in my side. I lifted my shirt to find a bruise forming on the right side of my body, just below the ribcage. To my left, Sarah lay sprawled across the seat, face bloodied. I turned behind me to find the boys and Sarah's mother twisted and posed in similar unnatural ways. I grabbed a piece of broken glass, and held it under the nose of the other passengers. Their air was still. The pickup truck was largely intact, save a large dent in the driver's side door. I limped to the wreckage, and found that the driver, a rugged, weatherworn man, maybe sixty or so, was dead, too. The driver's cell phone, somehow still intact, chirped loudly. The last alert, from nearly four hours prior, said that we'd been threatened by hostile nations with full intentions of firing on us. We and our allies replied "Not if we get there first." I wondered if those in power were still alive. I hoped not. But cowards always have a place to hide.

I pushed the driver onto his side and inspected the contents of the truck. The keys were still there and the engine managed to turn over. We were nearly halfway home. This would not be our resting place. I carried Sarah's mother and the boys with a surprising amount of ease. Finally, I unbuckled Sarah gently and pulled her from the passenger seat. Weeks away from childbirth, she was thirty pounds heavier than the last time I'd carried her, but I refused to leave her behind. I dragged her body across the asphalt and through a concerted effort, hauled her into the bed of the truck. The roads ahead were sparse, peppered with the occasional crumpled body or empty car. Miraculously, the truck carried us back into the suburbs and to the driveway of our home. The house was a shell of itself, mostly framework and rising smoke. The pain in my side was blinding now and so I left their bodies in the truck, hoping that future explorers will know that we were a family.

I stumbled across the debris to where my office once stood. The window to the garden had been blown out, as had most of the wall. The boys' swing set had toppled over, and their playhouse was laid to waste. Sarah's garden was nearly ashes, except for a single rose bush tucked away in the corner of the yard. A notebook from my desk was thrust beneath its thorny branches, partially intact with a pen shoved inside its metal rings- just as I had left it. Beside this bush is where I lay, scrawling the last moments of the Family Gray: Tom, Sarah, Jason, Jackson, and the not yet born Delilah. Sarah's mother Joyce and the man on the country road- I am responsible for them, too.

My eyelids are growing heavy. The bruise from the wreckage now spans the entirety of the left side of my torso, flecks of yellow and green mixed in with the purples and blues. I thought to pick the roses and press them in this journal, a final reminder of Sarah's gentle hand. But though their petals are shredded and stained, I will not be the one to rob them of their privilege.