“Nature really is quite the metaphor for life, isn’t it?” She leaned back on her knees and looked straight at me now. Something in her gaze made me sit up stiffly. She was looking at me as if she could see straight inside me. As if she understood every single part of me, even though we’d just met.

“Take these leaves for example”—she ripped some succulent leaves off and tossed them haphazardly into the flower bed—“even these will grow again. Pull the leaves off, and baby plants grow out of them. First the bright-pink roots stretch out and then perfect, miniature plants. It’s called propagation.”

I looked over at the discarded leaves. I couldn’t imagine them surviving like that. Surely, they’d just wither up and die.

“These things are amazing, they’re designed to survive and regrow, no matter how they’ve been broken. Even this stem . . .” She snapped the stem off the plant, leaving the head in one hand and the stem in the other. She moved some soil away, made two small indents, and placed the pieces into the ground.

“The stem will grow other plants on it, and the head will grow roots that burrow into the soil again, and both will be just as strong—maybe even more so—than they were before. And so the cycle continues.”

I looked up at her; she was staring at me again, meaningfully. “Humans break too. Bad experiences, past events, trauma . . .” Her meaningful look increased, her penetrating gaze holding mine. “But with time, with therapy, with love, we grow again. Brand new and perfect, like these will.”

“That was also a very therapist thing to say.”

“Told you I was a real therapist.”

We sat in silence for a while as I looked out over the flower bed in front of me, imagining not plants this time, but people. Broken bits and pieces of human remains, all of them in various stages of regrowth and change.

“So, what say we finish this bed and get to know each other before we jump into our work. I think twice a week will be good to see each other.”

My head jerked up. “Twice?”

“I don’t believe in doing therapy forever,” she said. “Lying about on the couch all Freudian and talking for hours and hours about how your mom messed you up, and how that time you didn’t get the right birthday present from your dad made you feel unloved.”

“Huh?” I couldn’t hide my shock. “That’s kind of what I thought therapy was.”

“Not my therapy.” She shook her head. “I like to set meaningful goals with my clients and then work with them to achieve them.”

“O-okay.”

“Good!” She clapped her soil-covered hands together. “So, tell me your story, Lori.”

“What would you like to know?”

“Everything.”