The Darling Dahlias and the Confederate Rose

Or rather, it had once been a red pillow. Now, the knitted cover was a gnarled, knotted mass of tangled red yarn, with loose, frayed ends spilling across the floor like a puddle of red blood. Thankfully, Bessie saw that the pillow itself, which was made of a tan-colored fabric covered with embroidery, seemed to have survived without a great deal of damage. But she felt this was little comfort to Miss Rogers.

“You see?” Miss Rogers pointed, her high, thin voice shaking. “Two days ago, that wretched cat shredded my very last pair of stockings. Today, he’s destroyed my pillow. My poor pillow.” She turned away, trying to conceal her tears, and Bessie’s heart went out to her.

“I am really so sorry, Miss Rogers,” she said regretfully. “I’m to blame. I should have told Mrs. Sedalius she couldn’t have him, but—”

She broke off, her eye caught by the faded sepia photograph in a wood frame on the dresser. In it, a frightened-looking little girl in a starched white dress, long banana curls draped over her shoulders, clutched something large against her chest, holding it with both arms. Bessie had seen the photograph once before, when she had come into Miss Rogers’ room to repair the window, and had thought then that the child was clutching a large handbag. Now, she realized that the girl must be Miss Rogers, and that it was the pillow she was hugging to her, as if it were a life preserver or something incredibly precious that she feared might be taken away.

“Is that the pillow in the photo?” she asked, before she thought. “And that’s you, isn’t it?” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she was sorry. Miss Rogers always made it plain that personal questions were highly offensive.

But at this moment, it didn’t seem to matter. Miss Rogers reached into her sleeve for the hanky she kept tucked there. “Yes,” she sniffled, and blew her nose. “The picture was taken the day I entered the orphanage in Richmond. I was five. The pillow was the only thing I had with me, the orphanage director said. No dolls, no toys, not even any clothes, except for what I had on. And my grandmother’s red pillow.”

Bessie took a breath and waded into new waters. “You said that your grandmother’s name was Rose?” she prompted gently, thinking that if Miss Rogers could talk about the pillow even a little, she might be less likely to cry about it. “What else do you know about her?”

“Nothing at all,” Miss Rogers said, and blew her nose again. “Just her first name, Rose.” She paused. “No, wait, there’s a little more. I recall . . . I recall my mother telling me that my grandmother drowned.”

“Drowned! How horrible! Do you know any of the details?”

“None,” Miss Rogers replied, shaking her head. “My mother—her name was Rose, too—said that my grandmother was a very brave woman and that she’d tell me all about it when I was old enough to understand. But then—” Her voice dropped.

Bessie took a breath and ventured a little further. “Then?” she asked softly.

Miss Rogers straightened her shoulders, as if she were facing a painful fact. “Then she and my father were divorced. They were both very young, you see, when they married. She couldn’t . . . She didn’t want to keep me, and he couldn’t. He was in the army. So she left me in the orphanage in Richmond. I never heard from her again.”

“Oh, dear,” Bessie breathed. How horrible, how unimaginably horrible, to be abandoned by both your parents! She wanted to know why this had happened, but Miss Rogers’ eyes were filling with tears again. So she steadied her voice and asked, in a matter-of-fact tone, “Your father’s name was Rogers?”

“No.” Miss Rogers went to the window and stood, looking out. Her fingers held her handkerchief, twisting it. “I’ve never known his name, or even who he was.” Her voice dropped as if that were something that she was ashamed of. “When I was eleven, the orphanage sent me to live with Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, on a small farm in Maryland. They had no children of their own, but they had already adopted several boys to help out with the farm work. Mrs. Rogers needed a girl to help with the cooking and the housework. That’s why they took me.”

Bessie felt her heart turn over and she bit her lip. Her own mother had died when she was thirteen, and her father had expected her to take her mother’s place in the household. But at least she had friends and a family home to ease the brutal pain of her mother’s death.