Tag: bloom

He gave it to her the day they first met. A beautiful and lush purple orchid laying in sugar-water. Eve didn’t know who he was then only that she was going to be forced to marry him when she became of age. She was only thirteen and he must have been twenty when they first met. How could he even think Eve was attractive? Eve thought it a bit dirty, but her parents didn’t say much just that the age difference wouldn’t be so much when she was old enough to be wed.

” Why do I have to marry him?” she asked her mother.

“Because” Eve’s mother Blair said ” he has a lot of money, something we don’t. We maybe aristocracy, Eve, but our fortunes run dry. He is a self-made American who owns much land and business. He will take care of us all, but especially you. He asked to be betrothed to you himself, after all the other girls he could have had that are his age. Don’t you think he’s handsome?” Blair asked her daughter.

” Well yes, I think he is handsome. and well-built, but he’s just so old Mom.”

——-

Seven years later at age twenty-one the wedding took place. Eve looked at herself in the mirror wearing a beautiful lace wedding gown with an extremely long elegant train. She also had the flower her fiancé had given her when she was only twelve, it still lived and looked everyday the same, healthy and full of vitality. Eve had grown into a beautiful women with long wavy blond hair and greenish-blue eyes. She was lovely and curvy and she saw the way her fiancé Jonathan looked at her. They had become friends and strangely enough that had led to a deeper connection between them. Something Jonathan had said he knew there would be even when she was a preteen.

So, they married and had a family and many years together. All those years the orchid continued to bloom in its little round bowl. It wasn’t until Jonathan and Eve were well aged and having great-grand children that the orchid began to fade. Slowly, and strangely so did Eve and Jonathan’s health, until one day, they didn’t get up in the morning.

Eve’s maid found the elderly couple asleep in their bed holding hands. She looked at the bowl that held the orchid her former lady had loved or what was left of it. The orchid that had always bloomed now crumbled until all that remained was the dust of the flower floating in the water.

Word Count: 430 words

Thanks to I Smith Words for hosting and giving the prompt flower.