For the first time since the wedding, I believed her completely.
Kelsey had finally learned enough to understand why an apology was never actually the hardest part of any of this. Showing up, week after week, had been.
As we packed away the tools, Zac walked over carrying two glasses of lemonade. He smiled at his sister. “I owe you an apology too.”
She frowned. “For what?”
“I kept asking Nadia to be the reasonable one, because I knew you wouldn’t be.” He looked over at me. “That wasn’t keeping the peace. That was just asking the kinder person to carry the whole cost by herself.”
Kelsey lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
Neither of them made a speech out of it. It didn’t need one.
Part Nine: What Grew Back
The following spring, the lake house looked alive again. Some blooms appeared in slightly different places than before. A few colors came back softer than the originals. But Grandma’s garden had found its shape again, one Saturday at a time.
I arrived one morning and found Kelsey already there ahead of me, kneeling beside the peonies, pulling tiny weeds before I’d even unlocked the garden shed.
A little girl visiting the neighboring cottage reached out toward one of the flowers. Kelsey gently stopped her hand. “Careful.”
The child looked confused. “Why?”
Kelsey smiled at her. “Because somebody loved that flower long before we did.”
The little girl nodded and stepped back without complaint.
I stood quietly on the porch, watching all of it. The lake shimmered behind the garden. Butterflies drifted lazily through the lavender. For the first time since Grandma died, the yard didn’t feel frozen in the past anymore.
It felt alive again.
Grandma had been right all along. Flowers really were better than photographs. Photographs only capture a single moment. The garden proves someone kept coming back for all the ones that followed.
And now, finally, one more person understood exactly why.
