He paused.
“I kept the plants somewhere safe after everything happened. I wasn’t ready to give them to you until I could do it properly.”
I looked around the greenhouse.
The restored wooden beams.
The bright glass.
The people working in the garden outside.
The letter in my hand.
The roses growing from a cutting Michael had entrusted to our son seventeen years earlier.
What had seemed lost had quietly been growing all along.
I reached for Caleb.
He held me tightly.
“I’m sorry I didn’t protect you,” he whispered.
I rested my cheek against his shoulder.
“You can’t change what happened.”
“I know.”
“But you can decide what kind of man you want to be because of it.”
He nodded.
“I already have.”
That evening, after the volunteers went home, we sat on Michael’s old bench.
The sunset painted the greenhouse windows gold.
Erin had left a basket of fresh bread on the porch.
Helen had promised to return the following week with more lavender plants.
The first group of students had already signed up for the summer gardening program.
Everything felt strangely ordinary.
And wonderfully precious.
Caleb leaned back against the bench.
“Do you ever think about the wedding?”
I watched a butterfly settle on a rose.
“Sometimes.”
“Does it still hurt?”
