by Mary-Lynn Allard
October 13, 2002

Julia lay the box down on the nearby table and opened the card, the words inside warming her heart and her face. "An old and very dear friend."

Carolyn held her long blond hair back as she bent over the box and peaked inside the tissue paper, and said with a mischievous gleam, "He must be a very dear friend, to have sent you two dozen red roses."

Julia smiled and counted the roses herself. "Twenty-five roses."

She reached to put the top back on the box, but Carolyn put a hand on her arm stopping her. "You were expecting twenty-five weren't you? You might be able to convince me that two dozen roses is only a dear friend, but twenty-five says that there's a story you're not telling me."

Julia looked at her watch. "Maybe another time? I have to get ready."

"A date with the rose man?"

Julia laughed at the surprise on Carolyn's face. To someone Carolyn's age, a woman in her forties must seem to be too old for romantic dates. "Yes, tonight."

"If it's tonight, then you have time to tell me the story before he comes. I'll get these into a vase...ouch!" Carolyn nearly dropped the flowers and put the wound from the thorn to her mouth. She looked at the name on the tissue paper in the box. "I've had roses from Farrell's before, I've even bought some there. They always remove the thorns."

Julia took a rose from the group and ran her fingers down the stem, gently feeling each sharp thorn. Daniel had remembered more than their date tonight.

Carolyn's voice gently interrupted her thoughts. "Julia, you have the strangest look on your face…happy and sad, all at once. What are you thinking?"

Julia came back to the present. "I was remembering."

"The rose man?"

Julia nodded, "His name is Daniel, Daniel James, tall, blond, blue-eyed, with an incredible sense of humor. He was the first man to ever ask me to marry him. In fact the first time he asked me was twenty-five years ago tonight."

"So that's why the twenty-five roses today. But there has to be more to the story. You said the first time he asked you. Now. Tell all the juicy little details." She paused. "You didn't marry him."

The statement sounded more like a question. How little the family knew of Julia Hoffman.

Julia picked up her roses and headed up the stairs. "I'm not sure the details are juicy, but if you want to come up, I'll tell you about him."

@}-'-,-'-,---

"Julia, marry me."

He held a rose out to her, and she took it, hardly noticing that a thorn had pricked her finger. She stared into Daniel's earnest blue eyes and in them saw the life that he offered to her, the house with the white picket fence, children, the busy, wonderful, awful, unhappy, happy life of a successful surgeon. And Daniel would be successful. As the daughter of such a man, she understood that life, and as a woman she loved Daniel, as much as she had ever loved any man in her young life, but it wasn't enough.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she lifted her chin in a move that Daniel knew well as her fight mode, and he pressed his fingers over her mouth. "Don't answer me. I couldn't take the rejection. It'll spoil my record."

Julia bet back her tears. "I was going to tell you tonight. I've been accepted into medical school."

Daniel gave her a hug, holding her as long as he dared. His hand moved up to her long auburn hair to touch it one last time, and then he let her go. She looked down at the rose that had been almost crushed between them, blood staining the petals. "I've pricked my finger."

Daniel took out his immaculate white handkerchief and gently wrapped her finger, and then straightened the petals of the rose. As though talking to himself, he said, "Nothing really worth having comes without sacrifice or pain. 'Grasping the thorns' as my Gran used to say."

Blue eyes met hazel, and Julia knew there was truth in what he was saying. His face brightened. "We still have something to celebrate, Dr. Julia Hoffman."

"It's not a done deal. Father is not happy with my choice of school and says he won't pay for it."

"There are ways around that, scholarships and grants. If you want the rose," he kissed her wrapped finger and held her rose out to her, "then you'll just have to live with the thorns."

He turned her around toward the bathroom and gave her a little push. "Now fix your face and let's go paint the town red."

Hours later, Daniel walked her to her door. "Can I kiss you goodnight?"

At Julia's hesitation, he lifted her chin so that she was looking into his eyes. "I'm not going to press you. If I can't have you as my wife, I want to keep you as my friend. But I warn you here and now, I'll ask you again someday."

In spite of herself Julia laughed and put her hands on both sides of his face and brought it down to hers. The bittersweet kiss was soft and almost made Julia regret her decision.

@}-'-,-'-,---

Carolyn sighed. "You turned Daniel down and you're going to see him again. Has it been twenty-five years since you’ve seen him?"

Julia shook her head. "He meant it when he said that he didn't want to lose me as a friend. It took a while, a whole year, before I heard from him again.

@}-'-,-'-,---

Julia was so tired, that she felt as though she was moving in slow motion as she opened the door to the tiny apartment she shared with a Mari, a fellow med student. Their schedules seldom coincided, so it was no surprise that the apartment was dark and quiet. Slipping off her shoes, and kicking them aside with a sigh, before she even shut the door behind her, she turned on a light and smiled as she saw a single long-stemmed red rose in a vase in the middle of the table. Mari, dark eyed and red lipped, seemed to inspire romance in men. As she leaned over to smell the flower, she saw a card tied to the neck of the vase. "Julia, Yours, Daniel."

She felt her throat tighten and the tension only grew worse when she saw the letter in her mail, one with his handwriting. She hadn't changed her mind and didn't want to have to hurt him again. Not one to put off unpleasant things, she tore it open.

Dear Julia,

Will you marry me? There. I told you I would ask you again, and now I've done it. And with a letter, so I don't have to worry that you will turn me down, as I know you would. Why don't we make it a tradition? Did you get the rose?

Before I left for Korea, I talked with Dr. Mitchell, and he said that you were "quite the brightest mind" that he ever trained, and didn't end his praise with those words that you hate so much, "for a woman." He says that you'll go far. I hate to say it, but you chose the right course when you didn't choose me. Not that I'll ever believe that someday you won't change your mind. Which is why I will continue to propose at regular intervals, if need be until we are old and gray. Why don't we make a pact? If neither of us is married in twenty-five years, we'll get married. Done.

I wish that I could talk with you in person. Or at the very least over the phone, but being assigned to a M.A.S.H (mobile army surgical headquarters for you civilians) unit, makes that nearly impossible…

@}-'-,-'-,---

Julia paused. "The rest of the letter was about everyday things. We've kept in close touch all this time."

"Did he ever propose again?" asked Carolyn.

"Often."

"And you weren't ever tempted to accept him?"

Julia took a deep breath.

@}-'-,-'-,---

"Julia, will you marry me?" Daniel's face held as much question in it as his voice did. "I'd like an answer this time."

"I...what can I say?"

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, but I can't be the wife you want. I can't give up medicine."

"Then don't. I never asked you to."

"Daniel, I can't do medicine as a hobby, something to do when there aren't P.T.A meetings, or a dinner to hostess."

Daniel took her hand. "Have I asked any of that from you?"

Julia shook her head with tears in her eyes. "No, but can you say that you'll never wish that I was just your wife?"

"I'm sure that there will be times I'll wish that, just like there would be times you'll wish that I wasn't a doctor. Don't you trust me? Us?"

Julia looked down. "I don't know."

He released her hand. "I'm lonely, Julia. Can't you tell me that one day you might change your mind? Give me something to hope with." At her silence he added, "I'll always love you."

@}-'-,-'-,---

Carolyn leaned over and smelled the roses that were now arranged in a vase. "And obviously he still does." She sighed. "So, he never got married. How romantic."

"Oh, but he did get married." Julia said.

Carolyn sat down on the bed and pulled her legs up under her.

@}-'-,-'-,---

Julia sat at her desk, a long stemmed rose sitting in the vase before her. Daniel had sent it, without proposal, or an invitation for dinner, but she had expected as much. Daniel's letters had come with less regularity since she had turned down his proposal last year. And they had changed tone from hopeful lover to comfortable friend. Only after she lost it, she realized how much she had enjoyed having Daniel waiting for her. And now with med school behind her, she began to realize that medicine and marriage could go hand-in-hand. Of course it would have to be after she finished with the terms of her rural medical scholarship here in Aldencreek.

She sat down, her flowered stationary before her, the words pouring out of heart and onto the page. "The last time we were together, you asked me if you ever thought that I would change my mind. I can tell you now that I have. This year, I've done nothing but think about it and about your accusation that I didn't trust you. You were right. I saw my father and mother in us, how my mother paid for my father's career with her own. But you're not my father, and I certainly am not my mother. You would never ask that of me. And now, I think I'm ready to say yes to a certain question, if you don't intend on making me wait a whole year to our next anniversary to ask it…

The phone rang and Julia put down her pen and answered it.

"Daniel! I was just writing to you…"

Julia's face fell as he said. "I wanted to tell you before you would find out from someone else. I'm engaged…"

Julia got off the phone, wondering how she could have said all the right things without breaking down and crying, or screaming. At least he hadn't asked his Teresa, or whatever the silly woman's name was, to marry him today, on their anniversary. He had done that two months before, two months, and not a single clue in any of his letters. She picked up his picture smiling at her from the desk and threw it into the garbage, relishing the sound of the glass breaking. How could he pick this day to tell her? He must have known that it would hurt her.

She picked up the rose, cutting her finger on a thorn and stopped herself from sending it to follow the picture. She had hurt him first. She threw it all away a year ago when she offered him no more hope. The phone rang again, and for the time that it took Julia to pick up the receiver and say hello, she hoped that it was Daniel telling her it was all a terrible joke.

"Dr. Hoffman? It's Sally. I'm downstairs." Sally was one Aldencreek's lone two nurses.

"What's wrong?"

"I just brought in a patient. It's a kid." Her voice dropped low so that she wouldn't be overheard. "I don't think she'll make it to the hospital in Williamsport. We need you down here right away."

Julia opened the door to her apartment and hurried down the stairs to her office below, which also was the closest thing that Aldencreek had to an emergency room. A child lay bleeding on an examining table. "Call Jilly and have her come in to help. And you better call an ambulance over here stat. This child needs more than I can give her here."

Hands already red with blood, Julia looked up into the anxious faces of the child's parents, pale blurs with twin worried looks. "What's her name?"

The mother stammered, "Kate."

Julia smiled in the general direction of the parents, her mind on the child, her hands already busy. "Kate will be all right. I'm good, Sally here can tell you that."

Sally beamed at Julia. "Kate's in the best of hands. Why don't we go out to the waiting room? As soon as Jilly gets here, I'll make us some coffee."

Julia stretched after she saw Sally and her patient into the ambulance that had finally gotten to them. She needed a cup of coffee, but Jilly was already working to turn the emergency surgery back into an examining room. Thanks to her skill as a doctor, there was every chance that the child would live not only to see another day, but also live a long and happy life.

The sun was already up by the time they had cleaned up the office, and sterilized and put away the instruments. Office hours were less than two hours away, just enough time for a nap. As Julia took off her clothes and prepared to drop into bed, she saw her letter lying on the desk. She reached over, and crumpled it up. As she went to drop it into the wastebasket, she saw the broken frame and took it out. Daniel, a little worse for wear, was back on her desk smiling at her. She had made a decision, and tonight showed her that it was a good one. She gave the rose one more sniff and fell into bed. If she couldn't go back, she would just have to go on.

@}-'-,-'-,---

"They were married ten months later. Teresa was a wonderful choice for him." Julia stopped talking and turned away and opened the armoire.

Carolyn could hear that there were words that Julia wasn't saying. Her choice had cost her dearly. "Julia?"

When Julia turned around she was composed. "I thought I had lost it all, the roses and attention, and hope. Up until he got married, there was always the chance that I could change my mind. But worst of all, I thought I had lost Daniel's friendship, but I underestimated Teresa. Our friendship changed, Daniel's and mine, but in the end the biggest change was that I gained a friend, Teresa."

Julia took out her new dress and held it in front of her. Low-waisted and cowl-necked, it would set off her figure to perfection, and the clotted cream color brought fire to her auburn hair.

Carolyn gave the necessary oohs and ahs, and then prodded Julia to tell more of the story. "Now that he was married, I suppose that was the end of the roses and proposals?"

Julia laughed, remembering. "Two months after their wedding, on our own anniversary, the usual rose came, thorns and all. The thorns had always been there, but I never noticed them much before that year. I've noticed them since, every year. And every few years or so, he still asked me to marry him."

@}-'-,-'-,---

"Hello, Beautiful. Will you marry me?" Daniel's voice over the telephone was a welcome diversion.

"I got your rose."

"You didn't answer my question. Will you marry me?"

Julia laughed. "And if I said yes, what would your wife say?"

Daniel joined her laughter. "Speaking of Teresa, she wants to make sure you're coming to dinner tonight."

"I'm busy…"

"You're always busy. I read one of your articles in JAMA. I could use you on my staff. I know, I know, you have your eye on Wyndcliffe. You've got to come tonight, your Goddaughter wants to see you."

Julia laughed. "You didn't let me finish. "I'm busy, but I've taken the afternoon off and may be early enough to help Teresa get the food on the table. And don't tell Cheri, but I bought the 'Tiny Tears' doll that she wanted for her birthday."

"You spoil her. And she loves it. I hope that means you'll be free for her birthday party?" Daniel paused for a moment, putting a hand over the mouthpiece that merely muffled what was being said. "I have to go. We're looking forward to seeing you. Plan on it being a long evening."

When Julia hung up the phone, she inhaled the scent of the rose once more, and then hurried back to work

@}-'-,-'-,---

"And he still sent you a rose, every single year? Not a single miss?"

Julia felt the wave of sorrow she still felt when she thought of Teresa. "Five years ago, I was the one to send flowers."

@}-'-,-'-,---

Julia walked down the hospital corridor and straight to the nurse's desk. "Teresa James?"

The nurse looked up and frowned. "Visiting hours are over. You'll have to come back tomorrow."

Julia lifted her chin and met the nurse's bored stare with a determined glare. "I'm Dr. Hoffman, and I want to see Teresa James, now."

The nurse flushed and pointed to a room just slightly down the hall. "413."

Julia nodded and with her usual confident stride, walked directly into the room. Once there, the confidence slipped a little. Teresa was lying in bed, still and pale. Silently Julia picked up her medical chart, and with a heavy heart slipped it back into place and pulled up a chair to sit beside the bed, taking Teresa's hand in hers.

"Are you taking my pulse, Doctor?"

"You're awake." Julia brushed Teresa's hair from her forehead. "You have a nurse to take your pulse, and from what I hear, one of the best cardiologists to take care of the rest of you."

"But it won't be enough." Teresa said.

Her eyes clung to Julia's face, looking for something to give her hope, and Julia tried, meeting her eyes. Teresa looked away first. "You're both good at hiding things, you and Daniel."

Julia's tone turned brisk. "Don't you dare give up, Teresa. Daniel and Cheri need you."

Teresa answered. "And he may need you soon. Will you be here for him?"

Julia chose her words carefully. "I'm here for both of you."

They sat in companionable silence until Teresa broke it with a question. "Did Daniel tell you how we met?"

Julia shook her head.

"It was in this very hospital. Daniel was my husband's doctor. It was a long illness, and there wasn't any hope from the beginning, but Daniel never gave up. After…after Robert died, it seemed only natural that we should find comfort with each other, the two of us having lost our true loves at the same time."

Julia was caught by surprise. "Then you knew that Daniel had asked me to marry him. I was never quite sure…" She looked away. She had never brought that up in Teresa's hearing, any more than she had ever mentioned the roses. She wondered now if Teresa knew about those?

Teresa struggled to breathe, and Julia lifted her to put a pillow behind her. "Daniel talked a lot about you from the moment we met. He even asked me to wish him luck when he popped the question…he loved you, and on some level he always will. But that's ok with me. He understood that Robert would always have a place in my heart, just as you always have a place in his.

Teresa rested, and Julia waited, knowing there was more. "At first I was afraid that you would take him away from me, afraid that if I made him choose between us, I might be the one left behind. You had so much in common with him, and talked a language that I could understand only a word here and there of…but I couldn't stay jealous once you became my friend."

Julia squeezed her hand. "I was jealous of you too. Sometimes I still am."

Teresa gently squeezed Julia's hand in return. She closed her eyes and her breathing eased. Thinking that Teresa had fallen back to sleep, Julia started to get up.

Teresa's voice stopped her. "I know about the rose he sends to you every year. Daniel never told me about it, but he never hid it from me either, so I knew that I had nothing to worry about. I'd like to think that you'll be there for him when I'm gone. He may even ask you to marry him again. If you love him, don't let me stand between you. Promise me."

Julia promised. Long after Teresa was sound asleep, Julia sat next to her bed.

@}-'-,-'-,---

Julia's voice broke. "Daniel was with her when she died."

Carolyn brushed a tear away. "Did he propose again?

Julia swallowed her sorrow. "No, he never asked me again. The roses continued to come on our day, and he would call or we would see each other, but never alone. And he never asked. Cheri was a teenager. It is a difficult age to lose a mother, and he had his hands full. Besides, things had changed between us."

Julia silently sighed. "That's all the story there is." She took a deep breath and smiled. "And now I do have to get ready."

Carolyn reluctantly got off the bed and started toward the door. "You haven't gotten to the best part. Are you going to marry him?"

"What makes you think he’ll ask?"

"He sent you twenty-five roses. Are you going to marry him?"

The near panic Julia felt each time she asked herself the same thing, showed on her face, just long enough for Carolyn to change the subject. "What does Barnabas think about Daniel, and about your going out tonight?"

Julia raised her eyebrows. "And just why should Barnabas care?"

At Carolyn's laugh, Julia shook her head. "I tried to tell Barnabas, once in a room in the east wing, another time...well when and where isn't important. He didn't want to know then."

"And would he want to know now?"

Julia's voice was soft. "I'm not seeing Daniel to make Barnabas jealous."

"I bet he will be, all the same," Carolyn said to herself, as she left Julia to her preparations for her date. As she closed the bedroom door behind her she paused. "I wonder if I should have told Julia that Barnabas will be here when Daniel's due." She tilted head, and smiled and hummed as she walked away.

@}-‘-,-‘-,---

Part Two