Mother Day's 2008.

As we dallied in the line that snaked around the flower shop, I took a fifteenth peek into the bouquet hugged (gently) in the crook of his arm. Spotting a tiny bundle of roses (which had not been there before), I exclaimed,  "What are you doing?" We (well, I) had spent fifteen minutes debating the merits of various colour schemes; the red buds clashed horribly now with his subdued plum and white selections.

"I like roses," he said defensively.

"You know how I feel about them."

"They're pretty."

"But they're too lazy. Too obvious." (The worst offense.) "Too common."

"They're the best," he corrected. "The best flower."

There is something about roses that has always rankled with me, that I have always disliked. Perhaps because other girls received them, while I did not. Perhaps it is their weight  -- the thick, heavy knob of petals hugged around petals. Fingering the bud, it feels like layers of silken brocade. Rich, opulent, but heavy. Antiquated. Suffocating.

Give me orchids, lilies, tulips, snapdragons. They are open, light, and airy; they offer transparency, with no hidden secrets waiting to unfurl. Their clean lines and clear, bright colours, honest yet sophisticated, are modern, but still romantic. They promise beginnings, fresh life, and youth.

As we stood at the streetcar stop, each grasping our offerings to the maternal unit, he handed me the modest bouquet -- the same I had lambasted so unabashedly back in the shop. There was something in his face that told me he had outmaneuvered both me and my intolerant ways. "Happy early anniversary."

I made a face.