After several hours, and once the two delighted garden owners had expressed their thanks for way longer than necessary, Laura found herself happily helping Bob load the extra plants and tools back into the truck. She always felt better when she was active, even though she’d developed a secret habit of imagining her own muscles while she used them, which was probably weird. When she was going through rehab, her PT would talk her through everything her body was doing, and it stuck. She would bend to lift a fifty-pound bag of soil up into the truck, for example, and visualize her own quadriceps, glutes, and abdominals working, then her shoulder girdle and arms as she lowered it onto the truck bed . . . weirder still—and this she was never going to tell anybody—she always imagined her muscles as a highly trained team of miniature hers, little Lauras in leotards looking focused and dedicated and crushing it like an amazing internal flash mob.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Bob, who had finished loading the last of the tools and was hunting in his pockets for his keys. “You’re smiling.”

Laura dusted her hands off on her jeans. “Nothing. Daydreaming.”

She walked around to get in the truck, and Bob watched the sun warm the honey tones of her hair. Get a grip, Robert, he told himself. You barely know this woman.

They climbed into the truck, and Bob turned to Laura. He was full of the energy he always got from finishing hard work, and for once he was able to talk without thinking about it.

“Are you hungry? We kind of worked through lunch . . .”

Laura looked at her watch. “It’s four thirty.”

“Early bird special?” Bob grinned. “Denny’s? Or Larchmont?”

Suddenly Laura was hungry, too. Ravenous, actually. “Denny’s,” she said. “I’m feeling a little homesick for diner food.”

“You grew up in a diner?” Bob was still grinning as he checked over his shoulder and pulled out into traffic.

“Yes,” said Laura, surreptitiously holding the armrest, “but behind the counter, so, you know, it was private.”

“Plus all the ketchup packets you could ever want.”

“Exactly.”

TWENTY-TWO

They pulled into the Denny’s parking lot and made their way to the entrance. The Denny’s smelled the same as every other Denny’s—pancakes, coffee, relaxed good humor. You know the smell.

Bob and Laura sat in a booth, and a friendly waitress came to take their order. That accomplished, and coffee received, they sat across from each other and smiled. Away from the work of the garden, Laura felt awkward. She started studying the surface of the table, which was remarkably consistent with every other diner table she’d ever sat at. She looked at the condiments: ketchup, check; sugar, check; little creamer things, check. Yup, everything appeared to be in order.