Margaret leaned heavily on her cane as she stared at the dirty South Dakota landscape outside her kitchen window. Wisps of gray hair that had broken loose from the half-hearted bun at the crown of her small head teased the corners of her tired eyes. Outside, the Christmas snowstorm hadn't arrived yet to cover winter's death stroke, and the back yard, always depressing, was worse today. "Going to be an ugly winter." Her quiet words were like music squeezed out of a wet flute � high-pitched and fluid.

"Did you say something, Mom?" Jenny's voice breaking the morning silence made

Margaret jump.

"Not important," Margaret replied. She seldom looked out at the back yard. The white board fence had rotted away in the eight years since her husband�s death, and the roses that had clung to it hung their dead heads toward long black thorns. To her, the thorns resembled the sinner's grasping fingers illustrating her small copy of Dante's Inferno. She'd taught literature in Whitewood High School many years ago, before her marriage, and had forever hated that drawing.

"Coffee's poured, Mother. Come sit with me." Jenny said.

Her daughter, Jenny, worked in the emergency room in a hospital in Chicago. She had opted for nursing school after high school and a job in the big city. She looks so young, Margaret thought. More like a teenager with her bathrobe wrapped tightly around her slim figure than a woman of thirty-two.

"You need help?" Jenny took a half step toward the window.

"No. I can make it. I've lived alone a long time and have managed fine with these old hips of mine." Margaret winced with pain as she turned from the window and paused before her first step.

"Take your time, Mom. We'll have a leisurely breakfast this morning. We're in no hurry," Jenny replied as she took her place in the chair that had been hers since childhood.

No hurry at all, Margaret thought as she sat heavily at the foot of the table. She still felt uncomfortable at the head of the table. Her husband�s powerful presence was too real, even in death.

"You look tired, dear, and you're getting thinner. You miss Chicago?" Margaret was careful not to condemn her daughter's surprising desire to go so far away from home. They'd been through that disagreement so often to no avail. Margaret had almost lost hope that her daughter would move back after her husband died.

"No. Chicago's not a wonderful place to be alone. Especially since I'm not able to go many places unescorted. It's not fair. I earn my own living just like most men, and I'm restricted as to what I can do. Besides, I've been home only three weeks."

Margaret didn't respond as she fidgeted with her napkin in the uncomfortable silence.

Jenny tried to keep her voice steady. "It's was six months ago we sat here together and cried over our argument about my decision to stay in Chicago. Seems more like six years."

Margaret paused for a few moments, then said, "Remember eight years ago, after Father's funeral? We sat here then. That wasn't so nice either."

"No, it wasn't � both of us concerned that we weren't sad enough over his dying."

"Jenny, don't say that."

"Oh, Mother. Face it. We were both a tad relieved. We loved him because he was my father and your husband, but we didn't like him much."

"I won't hear of that nonsense, Jenny. Shame on you. Your father had heartaches that we can never understand."

"What kind of problems can make a man so cruel and distant to his family, especially at Christmas time. You know it's true, Mom, how we dreaded Christmas." Jenny put her hand over her Mother's. "We wept together over it many times. Christmas is supposed to be warm and happy. You told me he'd hit you that Christmas day my baby brother died. We've never had secrets."

"Until now, Jen?" Margaret didn't try to hide the sarcasm. "I know why you're here. The movers called. My body's not so good, but I still have my mind." Margaret slid her hand from under Jenny's. "You've tried to get me to move every Christmas for seven years and nothing's changed. I'm not leaving this house until I'm dead."

"Mom, please. I didn't want . . . The movers will be here before noon."

"Believe me, Jenny. I will not be moved like a piece of old furniture."

"I don't understand. You never liked this house."

"It's been my home for thirty-eight years, and the Babcocks have lived here for nearly one- hundred years. You and I are the only Babcocks left."

Jenny was standing now, pacing. "I have a two bedroom apartment in Chicago, just a few blocks from the hospital. You'll love it, Mother, warm and sunny. And we can take care of each other."

"If you need taken care of, then move in here." Margaret slammed her cup down on the worn oak table. "You can get a job in the Whitewood Hospital as well as in Chicago."

"We can't afford this house," Jenny said with forced calmness.

"Afford it or not Jenny, I am not leaving."

"Mother, it's a worn-out house. The roof leaks, basement's wet, everything sags and there's dry-rot everywhere. And the plumbing and electric . . . well. We'll finally have a wonderful Christmas together, away from the memories in this ugly house. Chicago is so beautiful at the holidays � all decorated with lights and tinsel, and carols playing everywhere."

Margaret clenched her teeth and fought to control tears.

Jenny continued. "And you're not well. Those stairs. You barely get from room to room. I don't want to have to force you." Jenny touched her mother's arm. "Don't make me go to a judge."

"You . . . you'd declare me incompetent? Jenny, you couldn't . . . . we've been . . . no, Jenny. No."

"Oh, Mom. I don't know what else to do. I won't let you live alone in this house any more." Jenny was near tears.

Margaret pushed herself up from the table and hobbled to the window. "I prayed I'd never have to tell you."

Jenny went to her mother and put a hand on her arm. "Tell me what? You're frightening me."

Margaret nodded toward the garage and the back yard. "What do you see out there, Jenny?"

Jenny stood beside her mother and peered out the window. "The back yard. I see our back yard."

"You know what I see? A graveyard."

Jenny looked again out the window. "You mean Father's roses?"

"Do you remember what color they were?"

"Red. Black-red. I hated those roses. I'm glad they're dead," Jenny replied.

Margaret turned away from the window. "Help me back to the table. I'm tired."

Jenny held her mother until she was again seated at the table, then walked back to the window. "Strange way to describe a yard of dead roses. A rose graveyard?"

There was another strained silence while Margaret stared at her hands. "Did you ever notice one little pink rose bush � in the far corner � by the garage?"

"No," Jenny replied, as she strained to see the spot her mother had indicated.

"It's the only bush still alive, the only one I have energy to care for. The rest were your father's � the Babcock's." Margaret hesitated a few seconds. "I planted that pink one for my firstborn, a girl."

"I had a sister? I didn't know . . . ."

Margaret dropped her head and stared into her cup. "Every rose bush back there is a baby's grave." She spoke the words quickly and quietly.

Jenny's lips looked blood red on her blanched face, and she clutched the edge of the sill. "You mean, every one of them is a grave? Symbolically, right?"

"They're very real, Jenny. That's why I can't leave. No one would understand if they were found. I must die in this house."

It was many moments before Jenny could speak. "Why . . . did Father . . .?"

"Oh, no darling, no. They died . . . all babies. Most stillborn. The Babcock boys weren't born strong. If they'd been born in a hospital . . . or had a doctor. But the Babcock's, well, I'll just say they were private people."

"How many are there � out there?"

"Five. Three were your father's brother's � your uncle Charlie's sons. That one at the far end of the fence was your baby brother who died that Christmas � when you were six."

"But, it's illegal to bury the dead in the back yard." Jenny leaned hard against the window glass and stared at the dead thorns clutching at the frozen ground.

"You see why I can't leave here."

"It's not fair Mother � for you to be the only one left to have to cling to this terrible thing."

"Think of your poor father. He promised his dying father that he'd have a son, an heir to the Babcock name.

"And me. In my whole generation of Babcock's. I was the only one that lived. That's why he hated that I was a girl."

"And that I failed to produce a son," Margaret nearly whispered.

Jenny knelt at her mother's side and laid her head in Margaret's lap. "Now there's only us."

Margaret stroked a fallen tear from her daughter's black hair.

At a heavy knock on the front door Jenny stood up. "The movers."

"Jenny, please."

"Finish your breakfast, Mom." Jenny kissed her mother's cheek. "I'll send them away."

Jenny came back into the kitchen and poured them each another cup of coffee. "Feels like it may snow today."

"Let's put the tree here, in the kitchen. It's always warm in here." A weak winter sunbeam, the first of the day, reflected off the smile on Margaret's lips. "And I've always wanted lilacs in the back yard. Their scent is much sweeter than roses."