now that I think about it. Probably a friend from work, or some cousin’s husband’s mother, or Mom’s old teacher. Mom was good at making friends with people – or it was people who were good at making friends with Mom. But no one left us such vivid memories as she did.
A peculiar thing about her was that she didn’t have a name. Not that we have ever asked, though. We called her The Rose Lady. Everything she touched would immediately start smelling of roses: the armchair she sat in, the hook she hang her pink coat on, the magazine she flicked through while waiting for our mother to serve the tea. The sweets she used to give us every time she came over were supposed to be chocolate, I think, but when we put them in our mouths we tasted nothing but roses.
A heady, putrid scent, overpoweringly sweet. The roses were bubbly and talkative and generally uncomfortable to be around if you were seven years old and had some features in your looks that an old rose-loving woman could consider “angelic”. She was especially fond of my cheeks, and I was especially reluctant to her caresses and her baby talk.
I don’t remember how old I were when she finally disappeared. Not old enough to ask where she went. And it wasn’t until now that I recalled that the Rose Lady, in fact, existed. Not until I caught a glimpse of something vaguely familiar while crossing a crowded street. Not a smell – a wispy hint of it. A memory of a fragrance – cheek-pinching, magazine-flicking, small-talking, unforgettable. Unlike old women, the perfume is immortal – plain and sweet, like your mother’s friend in the living room, waiting for tea.
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