A Rose for Lee

It must have been close to midnight when the woman appeared, because the moon bathed his room in pale light. Her figure surfaced before him like a reflection in water, her head tilted and hands cupped as though holding something delicate. Lee took a step closer to find a red rose resting between her fingers. 

He knew her face before she looked up and knew her words before she spoke. That was one thing he did know well, his mother.

"The saddest time of year is when the snow falls, for my life is measured in what I'm forced to give"

Though her words were bitter, her smile was warm and Lee was taken back to long hot days, to short legs and dirty knees, to the sky at the top of a Magnolia, to the anxious and obedient restlessness at the edge of a curb.

"What will you give?"

He extended his hands but when he opened them, he found that they were empty. 

He woke with a start, bathed in the light of the rising sun and under the shadow of better times.