Snowy-white, Rosy-Red, Will You?

I had two baby girls at once and named them for the rose trees on either side of my front door. Snow-white, Rose-red. Their father had already left us, and I hoped the trees at least would stay firmly rooted. His departure hadn’t surprised me much—he was a charmer and I’d been mistrustful, if unable to resist, all along—but I wanted to write it out of our lore as quickly as I could and give us other lore we could count on. Snow-white’s rose tree had smooth, creamy petals, while the blooms on Rose-red’s looked stuffed full of juice. To look at them was to want to eat them, which was what I wanted to do to my delicious baby daughters too: nibbling at their toes and kissing their cheeks, edging right up to consumption.