The Pressed Rose

Karen was in her mid thirties. She thought she found the love of her life, when one day she was looking through an old scrapbook and saw a rose that she had forgotten about. The scrapbook was from her times of her high school days. The pages of this book were filled with all her memories of her friends. The pages only contained one item from Sam, the red rose.
This wasn't the only rose that he had given her, but it was the most special of all.

Seeing this one red rose was like a time warp. She stepped into this flattened memento like one walks into a dream. She can remember the very night that she was given this rose...

...It was a Friday night and they were in Sam’s car down at the public dock. They were sitting there watching the boats sail across the waters of Lake Erie. It was summertime but the rain and the wind made the night air seem like it was in the middle of Autumn. They were quietly listening to the radio and talking, while holding hands. Sam was rubbing his thumb over the back of Karen’s hand like he had something that he desperately wanted to say, but each time he tried he would lose his nerve, and the moment turned into an uncomfortable evening.
Karen, looking at Sam said, “Sam I know you have something on your mind, so please...” Sam let go of her hand and rubbed his throat like it was sore, coughed and started to move around in the car seat. “Sam! Please tell me!”
Sam took her hand in both of his, looked her in the eyes and said, “Karen, I want to tell you that after high school I am joining the Navy and I... and I” Sam starts to hesitate and then he reaches into the back seat of the car and pulls out a long stem red rose. He then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of yellow paper. He hands the rose to Karen, and begins to unfold the piece of paper
Karen’s brown eyes begin to tear up with tears of joy because she feels that this is the moment that she has been waiting for all her life. The anticipation of this moment is now making her nervous and she starts to twist and twirl her hair in her fingers. She even goes as far as sticking a few strands into her mouth.
He clears his throat, while reaching once again into his coat pocket and pulls out a small felt covered box. The box has a small hinge in the back and has a little gold sticker on it. Sam tries his best to get down on one knee but being in a small car it really isn’t possible. He looks Karen square in the eyes and says...
“Karen, we are young and we have our whole life before us and I know that I have hooked on to a good thing in you and I want us to always be together. You are my first thought in the morning and you are my last thought at night, but my darlin’ that is no longer enough. As I hold your hand...” Sam looks around and sees that it is still raining so he changes his speech so it will fit the mood. “As I hold your hand on this rainy night, I want you to know that my heart only sees sunshine. Karen what I am saying is that I want you to be my wife to make complete what will become my life.”
Her brown eyes are now in complete tears ...Sam has just made her the happiest woman in the world. She is crying and her tears are falling on her lavender dress. She tries to say something but she can’t seem to choke down the teardrops. After a minute she looks at Sam and says, “Yes! most definitely I will be your wife” She moves closer to Sam and they kiss, and this kiss as you can imagine was the kiss of all kisses. They break their embrace and the windows are all steamed over.
Then they hear a knock on the glass of the drivers window, and a man saying “Roll the window down”
As he rolls the window down he realizes that a policeman is standing outside of the car, Sam says, “Yes officer”
“This dock closes at sunset so pack it in and take off”
The young couple complies and they drive off to another parking lot about three blocks away. Sam puts the car in park, turns the engine off, and once again looks at Karen. He takes the ring box out of his pocket again, opens it up and pulls the 1 carat diamond engagement ring out and tries to slip it on her finger and it won’t fit. The ring is stopped from going over the second knuckle on the ring finger. Sam is devastated and Karen is speechless. Another awkward moment in the car.
“Karen, don’t worry, I’ll get this fixed,” and then he took the ring off her finger and put it in the box. “Don’t let this mean that I don’t love you, because I do very much.”
“I know Sam. I know that you love me” said Karen.
They both now cry together and then they hold each other. They both know that things between them will be alright. They sit in the car for awhile that night just holding and loving one another.
Sam gives her the the written proposal. Karen puts the letter in her purse and holds the flower for the rest of the night. She holds that rose in both hands, with her arms and the flower close to her heart.
It was only 10:00 o’clock when Sam brought her home and Karen’s parents are in the living room, watching television when they walked in. Karen’s eyes look like a racoon, because of all her tears and her dress has a couple of wet spots. Her parents look up from their show and see Karen in her state and they show concern on their faces.
Karen’s mom asks, “Karen what happened to you”
“Oh mom,” and she begins to cry again, “Sam asked me to be his wife”.
“What are you crying for then?...Honey that is great news.”
“But Mom, the ring doesn’t fit,” said Karen tearfully.
“Karen you didn’t need a ring before tonight to know that Sam loves you, so why do you need one now?" asked her understanding father.
“Because he’s joining the Navy.”

For the rest of the night the four of them sit down and the dinning room table and talk about their future, the wedding, the Navy, and the older couple was giving the younger some advice about how marriages work. They all watch as the sun begins to rise in the east and then Sam decides that he should go home and get some sleep.

Three month’s later Sam is in boot camp and he keeps the letters coming to Karen daily. Karen cries at the end of each one because she never wanted to be apart from the man that she loves and 8 weeks was like a lifetime full of eternities for her. She marks the days on her calendar with a red heart sticker for every day that he is gone.

Karen waits anxiously for the phone to ring or waits for Sam to show up on her doorstep. But nothing happens, she has called the airport for arrival times and they have all come and gone. She has called the bus terminal and the train station and still she gets the same replies. She is desperate and she calls his family and she is quite shocked when the woman on the phone is crying when she answers the phone.
“Hello...sniffle.”
“Mrs. Baker it is me Karen”
The phone is dropped and she hears distantly, “I can’t tell her Jim”.
She hears footsteps and then the phone is bobbled and then a man answers “Karen, I have to tell you that our son." he begins to sob, “our son is dead.”
The the phone is dropped again but this time it is Karen who dropped. Sam's father hears her crying, hears her sobbing. He tries to coax back to the phone.
"Karen, Karen honey" he says, "Karen please pick the phone up again".
Karen's mom walks into the living room and sees Karen crying and the phone on the floor. She walks over to her sitting on the couch. She puts her hand on Karen's shoulder. "Honey, What is it? What is wrong?"
Her sobs get louder and so does the voice on the other end of the phone. "Karen"
The mother picks up the phone and says, "Hello, this Karen's mom"
"Why is my daughter crying?" she asks into the phone.
"This is Sam's father and I..." he hesitates, "I just told Karen that..."
"Just told her what?" asked the mom.
"I told her that Sam is...dead," said Sam's Father, "his bus that he was riding to the airport was involved in an accident and Sam was pinned underneath when it caught on fire".

Karen remembers placing the rose in her scrapbook as a memory of the happiest time of her life. She meant to throw the rose out when she got the engagement ring, the way that diamond sparkled she would never see again. She was devastated and then time did it’s job and made the pain more easy to bare and finally she had put Sam into the back of her mind... until today.
She looked around at the life she now lead and now she wondered where she would have been if her and Sam could’ve lived out their childhood dreams. Of course she thought she was happy now with her husband and her four lovely children and she realized just how fragile love and life are.
Just then her husband walked in and saw the pressed rose and the tears in Karen’s eyes and he didn’t say a word and he walked up to her and gave her a big hug. He ran his fingers through her long brown hair. She closed the scrapbook...
The end.