Sort:  

The prompt said "earlier that afternoon," so when the story opens, she's at Grandma's house, looking at the rose thorns, recalling how Grandma's words applied to a situation that happened that same day. Oddly, it appears nobody else brought the reader back to the opening---yet to me it seemed almost necessary to come full circle, back to Gma's roses. Given what @sarez had written, I could think of no other route to go. ;) Thanks for reading and commenting!

That is true. Nobody brought it back to grandma and her roses.
Loved where you went with it. The sad story is that in this crazy world, all of that could be true LOL