The call ends with a soft click that seems to echo in the sudden silence of the bistro's kitchen.
We stare at each other across the scarred wooden prep table, what we've just heard settling over us like snow. Maya's laptop screen has gone dark. The numbers Claire quoted, two hundred thousand dollars, four percent interest, eighteen months, hang in the air between us, almost tangible.
"That just happened," Maya says slowly, her voice pitched somewhere between disbelief and wonder. She's still holding her phone, thumb hovering over the screen as if she might need to replay the conversation to confirm it was real.
"That just happened," Rogan echoes. He runs a hand over his face, then through his hair, dislodging his topknot. When he looks at me, his eyes are bright with the first stirrings of belief that this impossible thing we've been building might actually stand.
I'm already calculating. Twenty percent of two hundred thousand is forty thousand. The community signup sheet had thirty-two names. If each household commits an average of twelve hundred dollars?—
"It's doable," I say aloud. "Tight, but doable."
Rogan pulls me into his arms. His heart hammers against my ear.
"We're actually going to pull this off," I whisper against his shoulder, the words half-muffled by fabric and disbelief.
"We're actually going to pull this off," he agrees, his voice rough with something that sounds like wonder and relief tangled together.
The developer'sresponse comes three days later.
Webb withdraws his public offers.
Not quietly. He issues a statement through Marissa citing "insufficient community readiness" and "misaligned development timelines."
The subtext is clear: he's pulling back because fighting unified public will costs more than the land is worth.
Mayor Elsie frames the statement and hangs it in her office.
I stand in front of it, reading the corporate language that means we won.
Rogan appears beside me. Slides a mug of tea into my hands.
"You okay?"
"I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop." I sip the tea. Some floral blend he's been experimenting with. "This feels too easy."
"Easy?" He laughs. "Ivy, we just organized a community cooperative in under a week, secured financing, and stared down a developer with actual lawyers. That's not easy. That's a minor miracle."
"Sustained by locally sourced vegetables and sheer stubbornness."
"My favorite kind of miracle."
I lean into him. Let myself feel the exhaustion I've been ignoring.
"What happens now?"
"Now we build it. Together. One season at a time."
Outside the window, early spring light slants across the bistro garden plot. Tiny green shoots push through dark soil.
Heirloom seeds I planted three weeks ago, before any of this felt possible.
They're growing.
The wildflowersI dug from the barn's east corner sit in a shallow flat beside the bistro's front door. Their roots tangle through the soil, delicate but determined. I've been hauling water from the kitchen for the past twenty minutes, soaking the ground until it's soft enough to accept them.
Inside, Rogan's voice rises above the clatter of small hands and enthusiastic chaos.
"No, no, you don't need that much oil. Just a drizzle. Like rain, not a flood."
