My Rosie...
- loves her mother and father but has never felt close to them.
- likes Tom best of her brothers even though she fights with him more than anyone else she knows.
- made herself ill the winter she was eleven with guilt over envying Frodo and Diamond their lack of parents and their cheerful adopted families.
- once asked Diamond if it felt strange, calling someone who wasn't really her father 'Dad', and never forgot that Diamond shook her head with a giggle and said 'of course not, silly, because in my head he is my Dad'.
- never once thought of envying Sam for not having a mother.
- spent much of her childhood daydreaming about the family she would one day have, but didn't really think that often about who she would end up marrying.
- cannot understand that Marigold would rather have her hatred than her pity.
- is more afraid of losing those she loves than she is of dying herself.
- feels an exasperated affection for Queen Arwen because she reminds Rosie of Frodo in a lot of ways - this does not mean, however, that Rosie thinks Frodo is Elvish in the least. Addlepated, perhaps, but that's no rarity in Bagginses.
- has often been heard to remark that 'it's menfolk who write stories down, for lasses and their mams are too busy with the telling of them', and thinks that the only thing that saves the Red Book from being downright mournful are the voices Frodo and Sam put on when they read out of it. Her favourite is the breathy tones of Frodo's Goldberry, which he obviously thinks is a rather alluring reenactment but sounds to Rosie like a canary with athsma.
- keeps a sharp kitchen knife hidden (out of reach of small hands, of course) near the front door to Bag End, just in case it's ever needed.
- has never told Sam or Frodo about this sharp kitchen knife.
- doesn't know near enough words to tell how much she loves her two dear, silly boys, and sometimes feels her heart is going to burst from the wellspring trapped inside it.
- considers her children to be the embodiment of this love she can't find the language for.
- has met the children who were not born in her dreams, and knows each of their names.
- knows that Ham's secretly allergic to cats, and that he doesn't say so because his brothers and sisters like them so much.
- would like to believe in an afterlife, but only if it's not too Elvish.
- first caught Sam's attention and affection because of her cheerful laugh, but does not know this. If she did, she would make a withering remark about sentimental ninnyhammers.
- fell in love with Sam because of his cheerful laugh.
- realised that she was in love with Frodo when she noticed that he always warmed his chilly hands on the kettle before picking Elanor up.
- is keenly aware that Frodo is sometimes a danger to the children.
- is torn in two by this awareness, and makes herself sick with indecision.
- is amused and bemused by those who believe Sam and Frodo are soul mates.
- thinks soul mates probably don't argue over the last lamb chop at dinner.
- snores, but never believes Sam and Frodo when they tell her so.
- can feel the other ending, with ships and tears and goodbyes, always the thickness of a blink away from the world.
- blames this uneasiness on the fact that it's what Frodo wrote in the Book, and has come to believe that writing a thing down for history to remember makes it almost as real as earth and wind.
- hopes the other-Rosie shares some of the joy that fills her own life.
- leaves a candle burning late into the night, to guide lost spirits to their rest and so that she can see the treasures of her life sleeping peacefully beside her.
~
Pretty Good Year | email Mary