Red rose tattoo on the ribs

The rose by the north wall finally opened on Tuesday, the first red one since the gale took the glasshouse roof. You asked in your last letter whether it was still the same bush Mam planted the spring you left for Glasgow, and I can tell you it is, though it has developed a stubbornness I don't recognise. Every bloom now comes out darker in the folds than on the outside, as if the shadow has gone in and decided to stay. Donald says it's the salt in the ground after the flood. I say it's just the rose showing its age.

I cut the first bloom on Wednesday and carried it in my apron along the shore road, because the wind would have had the petals off in the car. By the time I reached the post office the outer petals had gone the colour of old claret, and the centre was still a bright, nearly orange red where the light got in. I stood in the queue holding it like a lantern, and Ishbel from the shop asked if it was for a funeral. I told her it was for you.

So I'm sending you the petals. Don't laugh. Lay them flat between the pages of the Gaelic psalter, the one with the broken spine, and leave it under the bed for a month. When you open it the reds will have settled into something almost black at the edges, and you'll see the shape they made, the curl going round on itself like someone who won't say what they came to say. Keep the pressed one and I'll grow another.

Your loving sister, Catriona