Roses and Stone #writephoto

Roses and Stone (193 Words)

It was all that he had left. All that he had left of a memory. For a moment he sat, turning the stone in his hands.

“This is ours, Ellan. Ours forever. Mrs. Coleman said she’d give me some cuttings from her rose and we’ll plant them out front. Can you imagine? Roses in our window, just like—”

He covered his ears. It didn’t help. The sound of her was inside of him. Yes, the house had been theirs. But when Marianne died, Ellan had been unable to bear it. The roses—the walls—the smooth wood floor—all of it was torture, meaningless, without her.

His fingers pressed on the stone. The stone had been a part of their wall, a part he had worked out with knife, scraped free despite bleeding knuckles and a broken nail. It was all he could bring himself to take with him. Now, looking into the clear water of a stream that had never known his wife, his home, his heart, he gave up that last piece of himself.

“Marianne,” he said, “You are more real to me than roses and stone will ever be again.”

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Written in response to Sue Vincent’s Thursday Photo Prompt. Check it out!