It’s lucky he didn’t end up with a trowel in his forehead.
Imagine! Planting a rosebush while I’m having his first son.
Not even sitting and smoking in the waiting room, but
running home to make sure I would have roses every
summer after that one. And I did. I’ll give him that much—
some years better, some years worse—but always roses,
yellow, on such strong little branches. Stronger, somehow,
after Ralphie almost ran away but didn’t, came back home,
thank God. Ralphie thinks I never knew, but I did. A mother
always knows such things—a good mother knows, anyway.