This rose was a gift from my husband during the month I became pregnant. The intuition that I would soon become a mother was greatly supported by this perplexingly magical flower that bloomed, without wilt or blemish, in a simple glass of water on my nightstand for nearly six weeks. I have never witnessed such a thing. The leaves eventually shriveled and dropped while the white blossom remained perfectly unchanged. Then a full new set of leaves grew from the nodules. The petals remained perfect in color and shape long after we confirmed my intuition. I watched in awe, day after day. Even when the petals started to loosen a bit, they still did not wilt. I decided that I couldn’t bear to see this flower die. I disassembled it and dried the petals. There were exactly 40, one for each week I would carry our son.