Blossom and Grow

I met up with Patrick again at the café in town. The whole time I was with him, my heart was going a mile a minute.

“It’s great to see you again,” I said, doing my best not to stammer.

“It definitely is. Now come on, let’s go get something to eat.” He said. His cute accent made me smile. Just one more thing I liked about him.

He didn’t even comment on me ordering French toast for lunch. We had a lovely meal, and we sat and chatted for hours afterwards without even realizing it.

By the time I was ready to leave, the sun was starting to set. I stood up.

“Blush, wait,” Patrick said. He stood up as well.

“Before you go, there’s just one thing I want to do,” he said.

“Oh? What’s that?” I asked.

Then, he gently put a hand on my arm…

And he kissed me. It was soft and sweet, and exactly as I had imagined a first kiss ought to be. I had never dated in high school or beyond, so this was a new experience for me, but a happy one.

When we broke apart, I gently took his hand.

“I-I’ve had an amazing night. C-can we do this again?” I asked, blushing a bit.

“Any time ya want,” Patrick replied. “I hope to be seein’ a lot more of ya.” He said, smiling.

Then, he kissed me again, a touch more insistently. I wanted to melt into his arms right then and there.

He drove me home, and as he pulled away, I found myself staring out the window and sighing.

This was love. It had to be!

Fern and Dad had decided to have the wedding on our property, and there was no doubt that there was no more beautiful place.

They made their vows, and I felt tears welling up. I wasn’t jealous of my father anymore. I was far too happy for him for that. They were so amazing together. I just hoped that Fern’s intentions were as pure as my father’s, but since she came from a famous family, I was fairly sure that she wasn’t in it for money or fame.

Tears were rolling down my cheeks, but I was distracted when I heard a voice.

“Y’aren’t th’ daughter of th’ groom, are ya?” A male voice with a heavy Irish accent asked.

I turned, and was surprised to see a pale, handsome, freckled redhead I didn’t recognize.

I was also surprised by the immediate racing of my heart when I met his eyes.

“I am. I’m Blush.”

“Patrick O’Conner.” He said, taking my hand and shaking it. “An old friend of th’ bride’s family.” He smiled at me.

“So tell me a bit ‘bout yerself. Y’can’t be Fern’s daughter, she’s not much older than ya.” He said.

“My mom…died, not long after my brother Raoul was born.” I confessed. Then, I looked around, and shivered. Darn it, it was getting dark…why had they wanted to wed at sunset? Oh yes, because it was beautiful…

“That’s…awful,” Patrick said. Then, he noticed my shiver. “Somethin’ wrong?” He asked. I laughed, embarrassed to confess it.

“I’m, well…I’m afraid of the dark,” I confessed. “I’m something of a coward, you see.”

“Well, I’d like ta protect ya,” Patrick said, grinning at me.

I couldn’t help it. I blushed bright red. As we said our goodbyes, I couldn’t help but wonder…was this…love?

Chess continued to be a hobby even as I worked my internship, and in fact the logical thinking that put me through learning chess also sharpened my mind and helped calm my generally excitable nature.

I started to feel my years when my little brother hit eighteen. He wasn’t all that much younger than me, but still, it felt as if I had…well, wasted time since graduation.

And then, it happened.

I think we had all seen it coming, we just didn’t want to admit it. Dad felt as if he was getting on in years himself, with the three kids he was raising all grown up and such, and…well…

He proposed to his girlfriend, Fern Annan.

Not that she could say anything else, but Fern said yes.

I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news. I was getting a stepmother! At my age! My father was getting married. I was stunned.

I was also a little bit jealous. Not that I didn’t want my father to be happy…but…

Why couldn’t I find something like that?

When Raoul joined us in high school, my little brother was instantly popular with the ladies. They said that he seemed “sad.” I suppose so, after what had happened to us. Either way, girls were all over him. I wasn’t sure if I pitied or resented him for all the attention he received…

When we were at home, though, he was still my sweet little brother, a blue-eyed loner who got incredible joy from simply staring at the sky through a telescope Father had purchased for his birthday.

I made use of it as well, and I was incredibly lucky. I found a small white Dwarf Star, previously unnamed. I named it for my mother-Inari. Now, she would be forever preserved as a star.

I will confess, I spent quite some time celebrating my discovery privately after it was officially registered with the International Astronomer’s Society. It was, I believed, the greatest moment of my life.

I took up chess, and I loved it. It was the first real challenge to my intellect. I threw myself into the game, playing furiously.

I even took up competitive chess, which was perhaps the most cutthroat thing I had ever engaged in. It was amazing. Chess was the only competition that I had ever excelled at, and since I was a petite, pretty teenage girl, my older male opponents tended to underestimate me. They learned to regret that very quickly.

All around me, time marched on. My father turned forty, and when he did, it really hit me. Graduation was coming.

And come it did, for me and for Maddie. The two of us celebrated together, as we had celebrated everything.

Maddie was beautiful, as she had always been.

And me? I suppose I looked nice enough.

Besides, I had something better to look forward to. I had been accepted into an internship program at the local hospital. I would be a doctor far sooner than I had ever dreamed!



Coming in to find my father laughing and chatting with a pretty woman on our couch was certainly a surprise. Even more of one was that I recognized her-Fern Annan, local celebrity.

I walked up to her, and she smiled.

“You must be Lo’s daughter, Blush. He’s mentioned you and your siblings a few times. Where’s Madeline?” She said. I blinked. So he had mentioned us.

“Oh, she’s staying after school for a club,” I said, as much to Dad as to Fern.

It turned out that they had met that morning in the park, when Fern asked if she could get him to take a moment so she could get a photo of him. My father’s musical talent and artistic vision were both earning him recognition around town, even with pretty young celebs like Fern.

After the picture, they had talked and my father had invited her back to the house. I couldn’t help but smile. Dad had never let himself meet other women since…as long as I could remember. I had a feeling Fern could and would make him very happy.

I smiled.

“I’ll leave you two alone, I have homework to do,” I said. I glanced back as I walked away.

The last thing I saw of them before I ducked into my room was Dad leaning in to give Fern an innocent kiss. A grin flitted across my face. Aah, what I wouldn’t give to fall in love like that…

It was a visit to the park that finally set me on the path to my future. I was sitting there, getting away from the chaos that sometimes is my house, trying to collect my thoughts, when…it happened.

Right in front of my eyes, a woman had a heart attack. She begged for help, but no one came, and by the time anyone could do anything…it was too late. I had just witnessed a woman’s death.

Chills shot through my body. Not only was night falling, but there, before me, a woman was dying and there was nothing I could do. My heart began to pound and I felt my knees go weak as people screamed for a doctor.

As I began to faint, I heard people screaming more…and the thought briefly entered my mind…

‘A doctor…a doctor does nothing but good…could I…?’

I didn’t quite have time to complete the thought, however, because I found myself on the ground, unconscious. All thought was gone from my mind.

The next thing I knew, I found myself in my bed at home, tucked in. Someone must have brought me there after realizing that I was in no real danger. Even though I was shamed by my fainting episode, the thought would not leave my mind.

The image came, unbidden-me, in a doctor’s coat.

Dr. Blush Fiore.

Dr. Fiore.

It had a nice ring to it…

After everyone had finished eating cake, Father pulled me aside.

“Blush,” he said, “there’s something I’d like you to have. It was your mother’s.”

“M-me? But why?” I asked softly.

“Because, you’re her oldest child…I think she would have wanted you to have it. It’s really two things, together…the police found part while they were searching her office and the other part when they searched the room she…” He swallowed. “…Died in.”

“…Oh…” I said.

He handed me the object.

It was a book, a diary to be exact, with loose pages tucked in the back. My heart began to pound as soon  as Father placed it in my hands.

It was my mother’s diary. A look into the mind and heart of a woman I could never, and would never, meet.

Immediately, I sat down to read, my heart pounding the entire time. The more I read, the more I felt as if I was finally getting to know her. Tears welled up in my eyes as she wrote of her budding feelings for my father, and of the strange and twisting case she had followed. When I reached the loose pages, I nearly began to cry.

In it, she wrote of her imprisonment in a tiny cell. And she wrote of how I had been the light of her life.

Then, I reached the last entry.

She must have written it only minutes before her death, because she noted the birth of my brother Raoul and said goodbye.

I closed the book.

There was only one person I could talk to.

I ran to find Maddie, and spilled the whole story to her. As I did, I began to cry.

“Oh, Blush…!” She whispered.

Then, she pulled me into her arms and I sobbed openly into her shoulder.

 I decided then that she should never see the entries about her parents, Felicia Dietrichson and Eric Elster. They had been an evil, twisted pair who together had murdered my mother.

Maddie was so different from both of them, and there was no need for her to have the knowledge of their misdeeds. A criminal daughter of criminals would never comfort her foster sister the way Maddie was so warmly comforting me, even as she began to cry a bit herself.

“Maddie, we’ll always be best friends like this, won’t we?” I asked quietly.

“Of course we will, Blush!” Maddie replied. “And you know what? I’ll bet you’ll do something great when you get older. Something that’ll be just as good as your mother did.”

There was only one problem with that.

I, Blush Fiore, am an incurable coward.

How would I ever honor my brave mother if I cannot even be outside my own home after dark?

When I was little, there was never a question of who Father loved best…if perhaps, he preferred me, because I was truly his daughter…

Or if he loved Madeline any less because of the memories she brought back, of an unfaithful wife and a near-murder…

Or if, perhaps, he favored Raoul, simply because of the three of us, he was the only boy.

No, we knew that he loved us all equally, and that he would treat all three of us as his biological children, even when we were only toddlers too young to really understand why he might favor one of us over the others.

Besides, from as soon as we were old enough to comprehend, all three of us knew that there was someone Father loved above all of us…a dead woman, for whom a monument had been erected in our backyard.

My mother.

Inari Fiore.

We were only children then, but as children do, we grew. Madeline and I, separated by only days, began school together.

Madeline and I have always been the best of friends, talking and giggling together. People believe that we are twins at school, and we have never bothered to correct them.

Soon enough, my half-brother Raoul joined us in school. Though he was a shy boy, he was always kind.

And now, Madeline and I are poised to take another step forward, once again side by side.

The step into high school.

Madeline is beautiful on this, her special day, as always. She pulls her long black locks into an intricate style I could never hope to duplicate. She is gifted that way.

And me? I feel as if I pale in comparison to my sister and best friend, but as fathers are wont to do, mine assures me otherwise.

I am Blush Fiore.

My entire life, I have heard tales of my mother, of the brave woman that she was and of the way she gave her life.

I want to honor her memory…

But how…?