She had no idea how to function on her own in the city. Somehow, she had to muster the courage to try.

****

The next morning, Tessa slid a rainbow sheet over one shoulder, nestling deeper into her single bed. Another morning alone in her parents’ house. Another breakfast for one. Maybe she should get a cat. She cracked a sticky eye and squinted into the sun. A strip of faded, floral wallpaper buckled away from the window. Her brain buckled in sleepy solidarity.

She flexed and pointed her feet beneath the covers. Her body was refreshed from a good night’s sleep. But still, pajama-clad and lying in the same bed she slept in her entire childhood, she felt the weight of aimlessness descend like a storm cloud. Not a sudden and ferocious squall, like the wild thunderstorms out West. Hers was a Pennsylvania storm—steady, dark, and absolutely inevitable.

Leaves rustled outside the open window, and she sprang upright. She did have a mission. Six flats of flowers waited on the back patio, roots withering in the sun. She couldn’t stay in bed all day. Tiny living things needed her.

Without bothering to dress, she dashed outside and snatched the seedlings. Carefully balancing the wobbling stack, she grabbed a trowel and the watering can from her mother’s potting bench and made off for her flower gardens.

Kneeling beside her favorite bed, she brushed matted leaves from perennials she planted years ago. Wet grass tickled her bare feet. Without Tessa’s care, the flower beds had gone wild and brambly, but with a little work, she could restore order. After all, wasn’t she the kindergartener who grew a record-breaking marigold in a paper cup?

Between a blossoming bleeding heart and a still-small cluster of bee balm lay a promising spot for coralbells. With their heart-shaped leaves, they’d look so pretty amongst more slender, spiky plants. Aware her summers in Green Ridge were dwindling, she focused her teenage gardening on flowers that returned season after season. Maybe she should have filled the beds with short-lived annuals. At this rate, she’d be gardening in Green Ridge forever.

She troweled a clump of earth. Why not plant sunflowers this summer? Sunflowers existed solely to spread joy. Not a bad life’s work. Tapping the bottom of a pot with the trowel’s butt end, she eased out a tender seedling. She should plant a whole cutting bed of annuals just like Nana Shiffer had. With a delicate touch, she separated the roots and filled the hole with a scoop of compost and a splash of water, mixing them with soil to form a welcoming mud bath, just as her grandmother taught. She re-ensconced two squirmy earthworms and settled the baby plant into its new home.