“You gonna tell your jiji what this is all about?”
Ru’s eyes widened, and he looked up at Beckett, who shook his head. Ru wrinkled his nose. “Sorry, Jiji.”
Eh. It was worth a try. I followed them as they made their way to the Meeting House’s garden.
I was not prepared.
Standing in the shade of the pecan trees with my family, I held my hand over my mouth, shocked. According to the signs standing over the rows and rows of raised beds, the entire Lost Boys crew had gotten together and built an enormous community vegetable garden next to the flower gardens.
“How did you do this?” I asked, trying to take in all the details.
Holden smiled, twining his arm with mine. “We had a lot of local help… and some very wealthy benefactors.” He slid his eyes to Sawyer and Hendrix, who smiled proudly.
“But I’ve been here nearly every week. How did you hide this from me?”
“We took shifts over the last few days and worked together,” Holden explained. He pointed to raised beds that already held rows of small green things. “We decided to go all in with things that were in season right now, growing them from plantings instead of seeds.”
Beckett came up on my other side and put his arm around me. Pointing to the neatly furrowed rows of black dirt between the raised beds, he said, “We also planted a Three Sisters garden that will come in a little later.”
“What does that mean, Three Sisters?”
“Several of the peoples indigenous to Texas would plant corn, beans, and squash together, and the combination would sustain families when meat was unavailable.”
I blinked. “You’re going to have stalks of corn out here?”
He nodded, grinning. “I double-checked, and it falls within the county and city ordinances. We also worked with a horticulturalist and created a calendar so people should be able to have fresh vegetables and fruits all year round.”
“So this is truly going to be a community garden?” I asked, trading looks with Holden, who knew how much his Pops had wanted to start a community garden once he’d retired.
“Yes. We’re still working out some of the details,” he said, as a cardinal landed on one of the garden stakes, “but a certain percentage will go to Lupe, another will go to the local food bank, and the rest will be for anyone who needs it. We put out feelers to see if anyone wanted to sign up to volunteer to maintain the grounds, and now there’s a waiting list.”
“And you think you’ll be able to feed that many people?”
Joel pointed at the naked ground to the left of us. “Absolutely. In fact, we’ve just gotten started. Ozzie and I are going to sponsor this next bit so that we can have homegrown vegetables at the restaurant as well.”
Ozzie nodded, pulling Walker close to him and kissing the top of his head.
Beckett still had his arm around my shoulders. “According to the horticulturalist, we can turn all the space around the Meeting House into arable land. We can rotate crops and feed a number of families.”
The cardinal rose from its perch on the stake, flew a short distance, and landed on a branch close to my shoulder. The others weren’t really paying attention to it, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from it. It seemed to be watching me, tilting its head. I wondered if it was the same cardinal I’d seen a few times over this last year.
Probably not.
“What are you looking at?” Major asked, nudging Beckett out of the way so that he could take his place at my side. Beckett sent him a cheerful finger as Holden untangled from me and wrapped his colorful priest in a sweet hug.
I smiled at their easy affection as I answered Major’s question. “I feel like I keep seeing the same cardinal over and over again.”
“I’ve noticed it, too. Maybe it’s the same family?”
“Maybe. Do you know what cardinals represent?”
He squinted at the cardinal in question, which seemed to stare back. “They can represent a lot of things, but sometimes they’re thought to signal the presence of a loved one who has passed.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” I turned my attention back to Beckett and the Lost Boys as they explained their plans for the rest of the year. I nearly startled out of my skin when I felt something land on my shoulder.
Without looking, I knew it would be the cardinal. Wild birds up close sorta freaked me out, but I was strangely unafraid of this one. I knew it wouldn’t poke my eyes out or otherwise try to injure me. Slowly, I turned my head and made eye contact. The cardinal blinked at me a few times and let out a rapid two-tone chirp.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I whispered, biting back emotion. “I did what you said. I let myself fall in love again.”
