Read The Girls on Rose Hill for Free Online Page A

underneath my mother's door. All was quiet except for the clang of a distant buoy.
    I turned to go back to bed when a low thumping sound stopped me. I walked into the hallway and placed my hand on the door to my mother's room. The door vibrated as if something was being thrown against it. I turned the brass doorknob and pushed against the door with all my might.
    "Go back to bed!" my mother shouted. A stream of blood dripped from her forehead.
    "Mama! Mama what's wrong?"
    Her voice ragged with tears, she said, "Rosie, love, go to bed."
    "No, Mama."
    Peter came up behind her, threw open the door and pushed Mama to the floor. In the light I could see her left eye was swollen and almost completely shut. I stepped back and fell against the hallway table. A porcelain vase crashed to the floor. "Sorry, Peter," I whimpered. "I'm sorry."
    Peter lifted me like a rag doll and threw me onto my bed. My head slammed against the wooden headboard. Then darkness.
    * * *
    Ellen
    I looked in the rearview mirror. My roots were over an inch long. Back home, every four weeks I religiously visited the same Georgetown salon frequented by the First Lady. I'd forgotten that under my carefully maintained artifice of "number 5, ash blonde" lay the same steel grey strands that covered my mother's head. How could I've thought that hot Billy Conroy was flirting with me? No man would look at me twice in this state. "Ellen, grab hold of yourself," I muttered. It's not like I'd ever given Billy or his scrawny overachieving brothers the time of day in high school.
    I walked through the now familiar halls of St. Francis and tried to shake off all thoughts of Billy and my seemingly awakened libido. Armed with a large thermos of coffee and a stack of magazines, I braced myself for the evening shift. The door to my mother's room was ajar. She was asleep while my uncle Danny read in the corner.
    "Sorry I'm late, Danny," I whispered.
    Danny looked up, his wire rim glasses perched on his large nose. "No problem. You okay?"
    I ran my fingers through my lank two-toned hair. "Yeah, just a little tired."
    "I can stay tonight if you want to go home and get some rest." Danny's long thin face was pale, as though it was January and not July. I wasn't the only one suffering through the ordeal of Rose's illness.
    "No, I'll be fine. I'm a bit drained, that's all."
    "You've been great, Ellen. I know it wasn't easy for you to drop everything and come up here, what with your big job and all. But we appreciate it. Me, Paul, Molly."
    I smiled. "Maybe not Molly."
    "No, even Molly. She knows how much your being here means to your mother."
    "To tell you the truth, sometimes I feel like I do more harm than good. Either Mom's so out of it from the drugs that she doesn't know I'm here or when she is awake, I snap at her and say the wrong thing."
    Danny shook his head. "No, I'm sure that's not true."
    "It is, Danny. We haven't been close for years. Hell, I don't think we were ever close. And now, well, now it's too late to do much about it."
    "Ellen, you were her life. You have to know that."
    "I don't think I know anything anymore."
    "You have to stop beating yourself up," Danny said, his homely face filled with concern. "It won't help Rose and it won't help you."
    "You're right. I know you're right." I leaned against a table and knocked over a vase. The vase fell and shattered.
    "I'm such an idiot." I crouched down to pick up pieces of the cheap glass.
    "It's fine, it's fine. There are too many damn flowers in here anyway. I'll get the paper towels." Danny walked to the bathroom.
    "Mama!" Rose shouted from the bed.
    My mother sat up, her eyes wide with fear.
    "Mom? What is it?"
    "Mama, Mama open the door!" Rose said, her voice high and trembling.
    "It's me, Mom. It's Ellen. You're okay, everything's okay."
    Danny walked over from the bathroom and grabbed Rose's hand. "Rose? Rose, are you all right?"
    Rose stared at Danny and howled like a wounded animal. Danny and I looked at each other,