My friend has a beautiful flower growing in the garden in front of her house. It’s a red peony plant.

I’ve always loved flowers and peonies are some of my favorites. I’ve had white ones, light pink and even dark pink, but never red.

I admired my friend’s red peony. I told her so, year after year.

And then, last spring, I was at a greenhouse and they had peonies.

Red ones!

The little plastic tag in the pot said so. Karl Rosenfield variety. There was a photo and everything. Unmistakably, deeply red.

Twenty dollars later the Karl Rosenfield bad boy was mine.

I brought him home to my garden and waited.

The first year he didn’t bloom. I wasn’t expecting that. He needed to plant his roots and have the chance to acclimate to his surroundings. Nonetheless, I fertilized, weeded and tended to Karl with the love and tenacity deserving of a soon-to-be bright-red blooming peony plant.

This year, Karl emerged from the soil after an extra hard winter. I celebrated his tenacity. Spring came and he grew bigger; his leaves stretched outward. I applauded his development.

Meanwhile my friend’s red peony erupted into bloom and I anticipated my own red glory. My young Karl had two buds — promises of flowers in the not-to-distant future.

I waited.

And then, one day the blooms burst forward.

They were pink.

Not redish pink. Not pink with a red under or overtones.

Just pink.

I Googled Karl online; I’d saved his tags from my purchase. He is known as one of the best red peonies on the planet.

Except he wasn’t red.

I showed Karl to my friend — the one with the real red peony.

She agreed that Karl was (unfortunately) not red. He was pink

Not that pink is a bad thing. It’s just that I was expecting, I was hoping for — red. I thought I’d bought red. The photo next to his fledgling self at the green house showed a red flower.

The peony in my garden was clearly not Karl. It could be a relative of Karl; perhaps his brother, Kyle.

My friend suggested returning the plant to the greenhouse. It was a possibility. Still is.

But what are they going to do with a two-year-old pink peony claiming to be red? They might give me a replacement, but what would happen to Kyle? Who would give him a place in their garden?

It was like he’d be a foster plant — without a home to call his own. And how would he feel about that? His mom giving him up and all? 

He wasn’t red, but was that his fault? 

And who says red is better than pink? Certainly not Kyle.

Kyle may not be Karl, but he has a right to grow and flourish and send his blossoms out to the world, like he was meant to do. Red, pink, green or blue — it doesn’t matter. Kyle just wants to prosper, to live his life out until the sun no longer lingers on his leaves.

There are no right or wrong answers here, but I decided I couldn’t live with the thought of tossing Kyle out just because of the color of his petals — giving up a plant because it wasn’t exactly what I originally wanted. Giving up on Kyle simply because I was hoping for a different hue. 

Giving up on any number of things in life when they don’t turn out quite as expected.

I really wanted a red peony in my garden. My neighbor has one and I love the look of hers. I tried to get one of my own, but mine turned out to be pink. And I guess that’s okay. I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore.

Well, unless it’s the color of flowers. Then, I definitely do. At least I did today. Kyle and I can both attest to that.

— Jill Pertler’s column Slices of Life appears regularly in the Times. She can be reached at slicescolumn@gmail.com.