The heavy curtains were drawn in Aunt Alice's bedroom when Sarah crept inside. She could barely make out the sleeping form of her aunt on the big bed. She was taking a nap. Perhaps she wouldn't even feel well enough to come to tea. Remembering the angel's words, Sarah placed the rose and a note on her vanity table. The note said:

Please come to tea at 3:00pm in the garden.

Come because I love you.

Sarah

As she turned to go, she saw how bright the rose looked in the dimness of the room.

Excitedly, Sarah organized her tea party in the garden. The afternoon was warm and the breezes were gentle. She listened to the angel's song as she sat her teddy bear in one chair and coaxed Bart into another. He was looking very fine indeed in the bright blue ribbon she had placed around his fluffy neck. He sat expectantly while Sarah laid out the snowy tea cloth and set the blue and white china cups and plates at each place. She unpacked the hamper, delighting in the lovely warm scones with raisins, the watercress sandwiches, the tiny cakes with pink icing. Bart licked his whiskers. Sarah placed the cozy over the brimming pot and placed a small vase in the center of the table with a few fairy roses. It had to be very special for Aunt Alice. Finally she sat down to wait. Bart looked at her questioningly. "I hope she'll come," Sarah said.

They waited together for what seemed to them both like a long, long time.

Sarah looked up quickly when Aunt Alice came into the garden, looking around her as if in a dream and holding the rose in her hand. Her eyes rested on Sarah and she moved with some hesitation to take her seat. Sarah thought her aunt looked very pale, but her eyes were filled with something...something fragile like the tender shoots of growth in springtime. They looked at each other foe a moment not knowing what to say.

"I'm awfully glad you came," Sarah said and she poured her aunt a cup of tea, hoping it hadn't gotten cold. She poured some milk into Bart's saucer and as he began to drink, she put the pitcher down very carefully and faced her aunt again. Aunt Alice sat very still, holding the rose pressed against her chest and looking into Sarah's eyes.

"It was a long time ago..." Aunt Alice began. Sarah folded her hands in her lap and sat very still.

"...We were very much in love and we used to meet here..." Her eyes drank in the garden... "In this very place." Sarah watched as a tear slipped down her aunt's lined cheek. "You see he was lost at sea a few months before we were to be married. I loved him so much and I lost him...her voice trailed off. "And then," she said, "Somehow I got lost, too." Aunt Alice's eyes searched Sarah's face and found the courage to go on. "You see, Sarah, I have chosen to live all these years shut away with my memories and my grief, letting no one near me. Gradually without realizing...I even forgot how to care...how to open my heart...how to love...until you came..."

But Aunt Alice never finished speaking for Sarah had already slipped from her seat and was reaching out to her and Aunt Alice opened wide her arms and drew Sarah into her lap. They held each other very tightly as though something that was lost had at last been found. It was then that Sarah again heard the angel singing somewhere close by. It was a song about God's great love and how nothing, nothing could separate us from God's love. It was a wonderful song that went on and on. And after a great long while, Sarah got down from Aunt Alice's lap. Aunt Alice poured the tea for Sarah and for her teddy bear; she poured another saucer full of milk for Bart, and they ate the pink iced cakes and the watercress sandwiches and the raisin scones and celebrated all the long, golden afternoon.

©Rebecca W. Waldrop 1999