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A sound comes out of me. Not a laugh. More like my body remembering the concept and failing to execute.

We sit for a while. The doors opening. Cars moving.

Then she says, quietly, “Did they tell you anything else?”

I shake my head.

“Okay.”

“They said heart attack.” My voice sounds calm. Reasonable. Almost bored. “They said there wasn’t anything they could do.”

Jessica nods.

“He complained about indigestion last night,” I say.

Her face changes. Just a little. Her hand moves toward mine, then stops.

I want to lean into her. I want to rest my head on her shoulder the way I did when I was a kid and Dad was in one of his garage moods and Mom was upstairs pretending not to hear whatever fell over. I want to let my sister be the wall between me and the rest of the day.

I don’t move. If I move, something else may move too. I keep both hands folded between my knees and stare at the cigarette butt.

After a while, she asks, “What do you want to do?”

The question is impossible. Too many answers and none at all. I want to go back upstairs. I want not to go back upstairs. I want Renny to walk through the automatic doors wearing the blue shirt he had on this morning, embarrassed by the fuss, already making a joke too loud for the setting.

I want the last twenty years to loosen their grip one finger at a time instead of letting go all at once.

What comes out is, “Garden shop.”

Jessica turns toward me.

I swallow. “Today was the garden shop.”

The sentence lands between us. Small, ridiculous, and perfectly true.

The second Saturday in May—exactly one week after the Kentucky Derby—we go to the garden shop. Not the big home improvement place where everything smells like fertilizer and lumber. The small one across town. Renny liked to pretend he had strong opinions about annuals. He did not. He liked flirting with the owner and buying too many things in colors that almost worked together.

Today was the garden shop.

Jessica inhales through her nose. I hear the decision in it.

“All right,” she says. “The garden shop.”

I finally look at her. “That’s silly.”

“I know.”

“I don’t need flowers.”

“No one needs flowers.”

“Renny did.”

Jessica’s mouth presses tight. She has always been careful with her face in a crisis. We learned that from the same house.

Then she stands and holds out her hand.

“Come on,” she says. “Before they tow me.”