Roses were her favourite flower. Beautiful tea roses with their strong perfume, delicate wild dog roses rambling all over the place, she even liked the cultivated ones that didn't always have a perfume but came in such a dazzling array of colours.

But there was one colour she liked best of all.

This beautiful pale pink rose was her favourite because it had been named for her. Well, so her husband had said! A Luscious Lucy for his luscious Lucy!

After bearing five children she was inordinately flattered at the comparison. He'd got down on one knee on their anniversary after Alan had been born. 10 years and it simultaneously felt like forever and yet like it was only yesterday.

Ruth and Grant had taken the boys so they could have some precious alone time. The restaurant was not the five-star, height-of-fashion one that they could now afford. No, he had taken her to the run-down family diner that they had had their first date. The meal – cheeseburgers and fries with chocolate shakes and ice cream – had been perfect in its' simplicity.

And then he had presented her with the rose. Around the tag was a diamond eternity ring in platinum.

She had cried. It was such a thoughtful gift, the rose, so very like Jeff.

Now, their back garden had walled rose garden and was full of Luscious Lucy's and Kyrano was teaching her to cultivate them.

And that very first rose had been dried and framed, to last forever like their love.