The garden demanded the most work—and gave the most solace. Gloved hands gripping pruning shears, she hacked through tangles of thistle to uncover wilted peony roots, curled in the dirt like dying infants. Kneeling in the cold mud, her nails crammed with black soil, she remembered Tom laughing at her “archaeological approach to gardening.” He’d loop his arms around her waist, rest his chin on her head, and murmur, “Dig all you want. Find a dinosaur egg, and I’ll be your personal chef for a week.” She buried her face in her knees, then sat up, red-eyed but determined, and dug deeper.
She hauled home lavender, sage, and sunflower seedlings from the nursery—thin, 筷子粗细 stems, leaves translucent as tissue paper, as fragile as her flickering hope. She named each plant: the lavender “Maggie,” the sage “Old Harris,” and the sunflowers “Tom.” Every morning, watering can in hand, she’d lean down to the tallest seedling and say, “Grow strong today, okay? Soak up that sun.”
At first, the neighbors were like ghosts—glimpses through curtains, footsteps fading around corners, never stopping. She baked lemon cake, the kind Tom had loved, stacked it on his chipped enamel plate, and went door-to-door. The Harrises across the street opened theirs a crack; Mrs. Harris’s eyes darted from the cake to Rose’s house, then back, and she mumbled, “We’re having dinner,” before slamming the door. The wind from the impact made the cake box wobble.
The young couple two doors down stared through the peephole for a full minute before the boy called out, “Allergic to dairy!” His voice was muffled, as if he’d buried his face in a pillow. The third house never answered—only the porch wind chimes jingled, a sad, hollow sound, like someone sighing.
Rose carried the uneaten cake home, the frosting leaving a white streak on the plate as she walked. She cut it into small pieces and fed it to a stray orange-and-white cat, which grabbed a chunk and darted away, its tail twitching as if fleeing danger.
But she persisted. Each morning, she set up her easel on the porch and painted the garden. She layered soft purples for the lavender petals, used tiny pencil circles to capture the sage’s fuzz, and blended pale blue to show dust motes floating in the sunlight. Once, mid-brushstroke, she paused—curtains across the street twitched, and a shadow vanished, quick as a rabbit. She pretended not to notice, turning the blank space into a halo of light, like sun through leaves.