"

If you are among the roses, your friends will look for you among the thorns. - Swedish Proverb

"Hey come look at this..." Ryan said as he followed Katrina and the old man into the living room. They were in the hallway and all around them lay portraits and pictures of people who he assumed were Katrina's maternal relatives.

"What?" Katrina asked as she doubled back to him.

"This... She looks familiar doesn't she? I could swear I have seen her face somewhere..."

"The portrait in my dad's office. She is supposed to be my mother, he never talked about it but grandma let it slip one day..."

"Who are those people with her?"

That is my sister Charlotte and her husband Henry. Would you believe it that that picture was taken some months before you were born...they had been so happy until the accident occurred."

"What accident?" Katrina turned around to address the man who had now introd

" The rose does not bloom without thorns. True, but would that the thorns did not outlive the rose. - Richter"

"She's with them mother, Katrina is with them. The old hag took her!" Dominic burst through the double doorways and into the drawing-room where his mother was busy knitting.

"What are you raging about?"

"Charlotte! That blasted woman took my daughter away!"

"Language Dominic!" the elderly woman scolded without once looking up from her work. It was a little cardigan. Something that she had started working on the moment she had learned of Katrina's pregnancy. These and other small knitted pieces allowed her mind to think while her fingers were distracted.

"You do not understand Mother. Charlotte took her!"

"No. I do not believe it. I am sure Katrina went there of her own free will..."

"No! You do not understand mother." her son cut her off. "I am telling the truth mother, t

" Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle may not grow. - Frances Hodgson Burnett"

"Wow... That is quite a story you two. You are so young yet you have been through so much apart and together." Mrs. Beufont said as she folded her hand to lean over the heavy desk in her small office. "I can only hope and pray that you have learnt something, hopefully onwards things we will be better."

"I cannot promise anything Mrs B. Right now my priority is this baby. Everything else is just secondary."Katrina said as she cast a furtive glance at Ryan who all this time and through her narration had chosen to remain silent. She gathered that he had already opened up to Mrs. B before and it made her wonder what was now going through his mind and the plans that he was formulating for his future and that of his baby.

"Of course Katrina. But don't forget we are called to live for peace. I believe that ev

"

If you are among the roses, your friends will look for you among the thorns. - Swedish Proverb

"Hey come look at this..." Ryan said as he followed Katrina and the old man into the living room. They were in the hallway and all around them lay portraits and pictures of people who he assumed were Katrina's maternal relatives.

"What?" Katrina asked as she doubled back to him.

"This... She looks familiar doesn't she? I could swear I have seen her face somewhere..."

"The portrait in my dad's office. She is supposed to be my mother, he never talked about it but grandma let it slip one day..."

"Who are those people with her?"

That is my sister Charlotte and her husband Henry. Would you believe it that that picture was taken some months before you were born...they had been so happy until the accident occurred."

"What accident?" Katrina turned around to address the man who had now introduced himself to them as Kenneth the younger brother of Katrina's maternal grandmother.

"The one tha

Chapter 12