In the garden, Luke continued to cajole me into telling him stories about myself. He seemed to brighten with every bit of information, like a plant after watering. But slowly, he told me things about himself, too. He told me that he was from California; he missed the ocean, the tight feeling of salt on his skin. He told me that he’d had a little sister, but she’d died suddenly when they were both young. He wouldn’t say any more about that. He’d started college nearby, and first came to the Center after seeing a flyer for a free meditation class. After that he began visiting every weekend, and eventually befriended the gardener, an old man who couldn’t carry the bags of mulch anymore, and he’d taken up the job less than a year later, when the man retired. He’d dropped out of school to do it. He said it was the best decision he’d ever made in his life. The Center gave him lodging, meals, a small salary. The Center gave him purpose. He was grateful to earn his own way in life with physical labor, he said. It meant something to him to be beholden only to himself. He attended all of the Center’s lectures and programs, met every visiting teacher and monk. He was even learning Tibetan.

“I think without the dharma, I’d be a monster,” he said once. I suppose I should have asked him what he meant by this, but I couldn’t focus. I was sure he was no monster. How could he be? (Somewhere in the ether, Tolstoy rolls his eyes.) When he spread the mulch, he did it so tenderly, with his fingers, as if tucking each flower into bed. I still couldn’t identify that familiar smell. Soil and chocolate. Cinnamon and fern. Pomegranate baseball honeycomb leaf. Who knows what anything smells like? Things only smell like feelings.

The first time Serena came to the garden, I had no warning. She simply appeared outside the fence one afternoon while I was pinching the mums. I heard a cleared throat, and there she was, on the other side of the fence, in a long goldenrod shift I could see her legs through. She raised a hand in greeting.

“Don’t touch the fence,” Luke said.

“I know,” Serena said. “It’s electric.” Her voice sounded different to me: higher, maybe. Sweeter. Luke turned back to what he’d been doing, washing some clothes and sheets by hand in a big blue basin. I tried to catch Serena’s eye, but she was focused on the back of his head.

“Luke,” she said. “We need your help.”

He didn’t turn around. “Is that so?” he said. His voice was stern, but I could see part of his face: he was grinning.

“We’re getting close,” she said. “But we need a teacher.”

“I think I heard something about this,” he said.