Flowers of Winter

Roo sat in the shed. It was a small brick building Roo and Ruskin had painted white once they moved in. It was a clean canvas to make their mark. Ruskin used it to store old items such as paint, gardening tools, junk he no longer needed, things he hadn’t found time to mend. Roo used the shed for sewing. Sometimes Roo spent so long in the shed that Ruskin had to check on her to make sure she was okay.
“You’ve been in here for hours” he’d say, “I was just wondering if you were still alive”
But Roo would just be working hard on her latest dress or shirt or skirt. While Ruskin worked with busy fingers on a keyboard, Roo used hers to sew and cut and stitch.

“One day we’ll buy a little shop somewhere, and we will sell books and clothes. Some of the clothes will be yours, and some of the books will be mine. And maybe we could even sell some sweet treats; tarts and cupcakes and biscuits” Ruskin had said, Roo in his arms one summers night.

Roo sighed. Every now and again Ruskin would pick up a pen and leave a short story for Roo on the white walls of their shed, or on the stack of napkins in the kitchen, on mugs and bookmarks and notes in her lipstick containers. Roo was stuck in a Bridal store, fitting women in stunning wedding gowns, constantly waiting for her true career dreams to begin while Ruskin was busy talking to publishers to sell his first novel, smelling thickly of ink and paper.