Only the Beautiful

by Susan Meissner

An amaryllis is always waiting to delight and surprise you, even when your world seems cold and dark.

I could see that future day, hidden from me now like an amaryllis bulb in a dark place: that day when this life would be behind me and my new one would be starting, and I would say those words for myself and mean them.

I now have five things that belong to me. The sun every morning, the cloisonné pendant, the silver key, Helen Calvert’s letter on how to care for an amaryllis, and the bargain I made. Six things, actually. I still have the colors.

I sense in this moment, this very stretch of seconds, that now is when my new life is truly beginning.

I am Rosie no longer. That girl is gone. In her place is the woman who has been shaped from that pitiful child. The woman whose second life is beginning today.

“George and I will find a way to help you. We will. George knows the law. And he knows how to use the law to get information. Don’t you worry,” Lila says.

“I know of that state institution where the girl was sent,” George says when I am done. “It’s true what Celine said about it. It’s my understanding they’ve been sterilizing patients there for years.”

“Synesthesia. Rosie’s auditory and visual sensors are tangled. That’s why she sees colors and shapes when she hears sounds. For people with synesthesia, stimulation of one sensory modality triggers an automatic response in another modality. For her, sound produced colors.

I suddenly feel connected to Rosie by a thin but luminous thread: the amaryllis. The bond is new and loose but real. As real as the link we already share as mother and aunt to the same child.

“All of us, at some point in our lives, wish for a way to go back in time and make different decisions. I wish for it, too. You have no idea how much.”

The word fell on my ears like a hammer. Krankenmorde. Mercy killing. “What are you saying, Emilie?” “They are killing disabled people in the name of mercy.”