Free Missing Rose (9781101603864) by Serdar Ozkan Page A

also have liked to tell him that he could contact her through the hotel further down the road, and even save him from the cheap motel by offering him a room. But she said good-bye and left without doing any of those things.

19
    I T WAS PAST midnight when Diana came down from her art studio. She threw herself carelessly on the bed without a thought for the blue paint spattered all over her. As she’d expected, the bedding became streaked with blue. It’s a fair price to pay for painting the sea, she thought.
    Actually it wasn’t the theme of the painting that was to blame for the mess, but rather the new way of painting she’d tried. She’d begun by throwing aside all the rules she’d ever learned from the art lessons she’d once taken. She’d squeezed a whole tube of blue paint onto her palm and, accompanied by the mystical melodies of Loreena McKennitt, had spread it with both hands in random circles onto the canvas.
    Diana felt in some way indebted to Mathias for prompting her to paint again after such a long time. More important, the story he’d told had made her feel a little better. She didn’t want to lose this feeling and even wished to add to it by doing something that would please her mother.
    She reached for the green envelope lying in front of the bedside lamp, and read Mary’s second letter once again.
    L ETTER 2:
“T HE P ATH IN THE G ARDEN”
    22 February
    My beloved Mother,
    In my childhood years, in spite of Others, I was able to preserve my dream of finding you. But as time passed, I could feel my strength fading in the face of their never-ending attempts to turn me into an “Other,” too.
    Then, one night, I had a dream. I saw myself in a little wooden boat being carried by the current across the ocean. I was wearing a white nightgown and an orange hat. The horizon was clear, but the boat had neither sail nor oars to take me there. As I was waiting helplessly, you spoke to me from behind the gray clouds:
    â€œMary, return to me.”
    â€œWhere are you, Mom?”
    â€œYou have not lost me; I’m always with you.”
    â€œThen why can’t I see you?”
    â€œBecause you are not with me.”
    â€œHow can I be with you?”
    â€œSee me in yourself.”
    â€œI can’t do that.”
    â€œThen try to see me in my gifts.”
    Suddenly there was a deafening crash as the heavens split open. A hand of light came down and took off my hat, replacing it with a crown of white roses. That hand was your hand, Mom. And that crown was the most beautiful gift I’d ever received.
    Looking at its reflection in the water, I admired the beauty of your gift for some time. Then, a huge storm broke out. As the boat rocked this way and that in the middle of towering waves, I crouched down in the bottom of the boat and started to sob, “Help me, Mom!”
    A little later, the wind ceased, rain began to fall and the sea calmed.
    When I looked at my reflection in the water again, I saw that my crown was no longer on my head. At that moment, I felt as if everything I had was lost. I felt like a dry river, a wingless bird, a scentless rose . . . Yet I was still a river, a bird, a rose. I had to search for my crown immediately.
    I searched for it in the boat. I searched for it in the distance, on the sea and in the sky . . . But I failed to find it.
    I called out to you: “Mom, where is my crown?”
    â€œBow your head, Mary.”
    As soon as I bowed my head, I saw from my reflection that my crown had merely slipped to the back of my head. Then, you spoke to me again. But this time, your voice was not coming from the sky, but coming from the roses in my crown.
    â€œMary, my child. So that you never think you’ve lost it, don’t search beyond yourself for that which you already have.”
    Right then, a palace emerged from the middle of the ocean. Near the palace was a garden; its walls were