The cloudy sky allowed Shan to more easily take in the view of the city. The skyline was nothing like majestic Seattle’s with the Space Needle, the Puget Sound, and Mount Rainier in the background, but Atlanta’s had grown on her over the years. The city was lush and green, with the Chattahoochee River running along the northwest perimeter. In the early years of the marriage, she and Max had countless picnics in Piedmont Park, which they could rollerblade to from their home. The sunshine is what she appreciated the most. Atlanta received more rainfall than Seattle, but it arrived in buckets, all at once, and then afterward the skies cleared and the sun shone. Seattle had a constant drizzle and grayness that she could never get used to.

Chandani found a spot on the first level of the parking garage, and they headed toward the entrance. She was a brisk walker. Shan could hardly keep up.

“Thanks for bringing me here, Aunty. I needed to get out of the house. I’ve been too much in my head lately.”

“You’re grieving. That’s normal. And this place is good for grief. It’s the first place I visited when I moved to Atlanta,” Chandani said. “I was missing Harjeet and felt so lonely. As it turns out, spending time in nature, where things bud and grow, is a good reminder that one can begin again.”

They followed a path that wound through the foliage. The crisp air smelled of cinnamon and soil. The clouds seemed to bloat with the next, imminent rain.

“Why did you move to Atlanta?”

“My niece lives here. After Harjeet died, she convinced me I needed a fresh start somewhere new. We get together on Sundays, but she has a family and a full-time job, so she’s too busy to see me more often than that. So I got myself a membership here. I come here for clarity.

The loss of her baby, perhaps the only baby she would ever have, had given Shan the clarity she needed about her marriage. It was the kind of clarity that she had tried to push away for years, hoping Max would change. He didn’t change, but she finally did.

If Chandani could survive the death of her husband, start her life over in her seventies in a new state where she knew only one other person, Shan could start over too. She could sell the house, move, look for another job, and build something beautiful on her own.