beautiful,” she said quietly. “I didn’t realize I was taking beauty from somewhere else to create it.”
By the eighth Saturday, only one packet remained.
Number 286.
A peony root.
Kelsey held it carefully.
“The last one?”
I nodded.
She knelt in the place marked on Grandma’s map, measured twice, dug the hole, and gently covered the root with soil.
No rushing. No complaining.
When she stood, her hands were filthy.
“These were planted when you were born, right?”
“Yes.”
She looked across the garden.
“I thought I was only
