They stopped right in front of me. Trixie Goat got on her hind legs to give me a hug. I hugged her because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Mr. Bob made a grunting sound.

“Get in the truck,” I told them, pointing at the truck.

They turned to get in the truck.

“Tiala,” I called. “I’ll be right back.”

She laughed. “Okay, goat lady.”

I opened the front door of the cab and helped them in. Then I drove home, Mr. Bob’s and Trixie’s heads out the window, the wind running through their fur.

I swear they were smiling.

People waved at them as we drove by.

“You’re naughty goats,” I said.

They did not seem daunted.

* * *

Each day I walk from Rose Bloom Cottage to my own home through the flowers as they bloom during the spring, summer, and fall: Daisies. Tulips. Irises. Columbine. Lavender. Lilacs. Rows of marigolds. Jupiter’s-beard. Foxgloves. Roses.

I find peace in the flowers. Who knew that my grandmother, a woman who was kind and filled with love and also filled with mental illness, would create something that I, two generations later, would wander through to calm my mind, soothe my nerves, and rest my almost ever-present anxiety as I await the next premonition?

There are painted Adirondack chairs all over. Purple. Blue. Green. Red. My mother says that chairs belong in gardens so that people can “find their own splendor amidst the petals.” So I will often sit in one chair, then another, then a different one the following night, or sit in the gazebo.

I have never had a premonition while in the garden. It’s as if the delicate colors, the petals themselves, block it out. I don’t know how, or why, that would happen, but it does. How could our willow trees, or the roses that bloom all over the trellises and verandas, or the purple wisteria vine that winds up the gazebo, or the lily pads in the pond, or the secret garden room with the oak tree in the middle of it, stand in the way of premonitions that can hit me at any other time, in any way?

Maybe it’s the tranquility. Maybe it’s the quiet. Maybe it’s being alone. Maybe it’s my grandmother’s loving spirit, still here, surrounding me like a protective hug.

At the end of the season, when the flowers are dying, I’ll still sit in those Adirondack chairs or drink coffee on the bridge or lie on the yellow bench overlooking the meadow. Even in November, December, January, and February, somehow the garden protects me. It’s as if the memory of the flowers, or maybe the bulbs that lie under the ground, the perennials that will pop up again, have filled the air with protection. But just in case, in the winter my mother always fills two huge barrels on my deck with purple pansies.