“I WAS twelve, growing up in Puerto Rico. My family is pretty well off. On the island you are either rich or poor, there is no middle class to speak of. As a boy I loved to race home after school, hoping each day might be the one my dad arrived home from one of his extended business trips. At that time I didn’t even know what he did, only that he was away more than not.

“Our housekeeper, Josephia, would always have warm flatbread with cinnamon and brown sugar waiting for me when I ran through the door. It was with Josephia that I did my homework and shared the highlights of my day. My mother couldn’t be bothered. If she weren’t accompanying my father on his trips, she would go into bed for days on account of ‘depression’. Glenlivet and aspirin set on the bed trays of food I carried with such deliberate care up the spiral staircase to her room. She’d pat my right cheek twice, saying, ‘You’re such a good boy.’ Then she’d push the eggs or soup to the far end of the tray and reach for the glass of amber liquid. That was often the extent of our conversations. That day was different.

“‘Fernando, here take this money and go with Ricki into town. Buy more bougainvillea for the hanging pots on the back patios.’

“My mother, a girl saved from poverty by my father, now treated her own people like common thieves. She felt it foolish to hand money, unattended, to a common gardener like Ricki. I stuffed the bills in my pocket and bounded down the stairs, through the kitchen, waving to Josephina, and out the back door to the garden. The grass was deep and green, shimmering from a recent drink from the timed sprinklers. The roses were in full bloom and hung heavily on their stems.

“The toolshed was across the far lawn and seemed disguised as part of the garden itself. Morning glories climbed clear up to the roof on the white latticework leaned against its walls. In the spring, I had sat patiently for twenty minutes as a morning glory slowly wrapped a tendril around my outstretched pinky finger. Like a python, slowly squeezing.

“The ‘shed’ served a dual purpose—it housed the garden tools and machines, including the ride-on mower, leaf blower and power washer, as well as Ricki. Split into two halves by a drywall-covered plywood wall, Ricki lived in the left side and our gardening tools lived in the right. I don’t remember when he came to work or started living back there, but I do recall him bent over the roses, his bronzed back glistening with a light sheen of sweat.