Outlined roses on the upper arm

The rose man came through again on Tuesday, the one with the van that sounds like a dying goose. He didn't buy petrol. He stood in front of the pumps staring at the back wall, where the faded sign still says Cold Drinks, and asked whether the roses were still underneath the whitewash. I said they were. I watched your father draw them the summer before the flood, in pencil first, then with the black pen he'd nicked from the school, never filling them in. He said he liked things with no colour in them. A line tells you what a thing is, he said, and leaves the rest to the weather.

I tried to paint over them in the spring, honestly I did. Three coats of cream, and every time the dry weather came back the lines rose through like veins under old skin. Four open roses, one leaning over the other, the leaves fanning out sideways like they were reaching for the road. The small bud on the far left is still closed. You always said it was waiting for something, and I used to tell you that was nonsense, but I haven't had the heart to paint that corner since.

The dust came over the highway again on Sunday and filled the cracks in the bottom row, so now the outlines look sharper than they did when he made them. Customers squint at them and ask who drew them. I say a boy who ran out of paint and had to make do. That's near enough.

I've left the bud alone. When you come back up this way, stop for a cold drink and tell me what it's waiting for.

Love, Mum