His garden hits me first, even from the driveway. It’s late winter, so things are quieter than they’ll be in a few months, but it’s still unmistakably his—beds edged clean, soil dark and turned, a handful of stubborn green pushing through where it shouldn’t be yet. It’s orderly chaos.
I step out slower than I want to, weight shifting instinctively to my good leg when my knee twinges in warning.
The front door opens before I can knock.
“There he is,” Harry says, already grinning, already clocking everything. “My favorite grandson!”
“Youronlygrandson.”
He waves me off. “You know, most people knock. Or at least pretend they were going to.”
I snort and step forward, and he pulls me into a one-armed hug that’s solid and familiar, his free hand squeezing my shoulder once before dropping away.
“You’re late,” he adds mildly.
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m precisely on time.”
“For what?” he asks, deadpan.
I don’t have an answer for that, and he knows it. His eyes flick down to my leg, taking in the way I’m standing.
“That knee still giving you grief?”
“Only when I move,” I say. “Or breathe.”
He hums and steps back to let me in. “You’re walking like an old man.”
“Pot, kettle.”
He laughs under his breath and shuts the door behind me. The house smells like soil and coffee and something warm in the oven. Bread, maybe. Or one of those things he insists isn’t a loaf until it’s cooled and sliced properly.
Everything here feels unchanged in a way the rest of my life hasn’t managed to. There’s the same coat rack by the door, and the same photo frame on the wall with the crooked corner. With me at nine, missing two teeth and grinning like I’d just pulled off some sort of crime. I probably had.
Grandma Adele stands behind me, hands on my shoulders, smiling soft and patient into the camera.
My shoulders drop slightly. I don’t feel the need to brace myself for anything here. Don’t feel the low hum of readiness I carry everywhere else.
But Grandpa notices when something’s bugging me, he always does.
“Garden’s calling,” he says, already reaching for his hat. “Unless you’re too injured for manual labor.”
I follow him out back, tugging my jacket tighter as the air bites. He’s already ambled over and crouched by the nearest bed, fingers bare as he presses into the dirt and mutters something to the tomato plants under his breath.
“You don’t want gloves?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Hands are tougher than people think. Soil’s good for you.”
I lower myself carefully onto one knee beside him, ignoring the protest from my leg. “That’s what you said about chores when I was twelve.”
“And did you die?”
“Emotionally.”
He chuckles and passes me a small hand rake. “Loosen that patch there. Don’t go too deep.”
I do as told, my movements a bit slower than they used to be. The soil gives easily, rich and dark, basically already prepared.
This garden thrives because someone keeps showing up for it, day after day. Season after season.
