Pressing the lid back onto the box, I set it on the kitchen table. First I’d finish unloading the car, and then I’d put away the groceries, wash the towels, hang the curtains, and plant the mint I’d picked up at the nursery. Then, if there was any time left, I’d think about the origami. I wouldn’t think about unboxing a new piece of art, the excitement of a new exhibit, even poring over a museum catalog. Those feelings were all mixed with Aimee now, tainted. A life of washing towels and gardening was all I had. It would have to be enough.

By the time I rescued the mint, it was limp from the intensified heat of the car. I carried it straight through to the backyard and set it down so I could search for the hose and a trowel.

All the backyards in our neighborhood were enclosed by high fences with gates facing the street. To get from one yard to the other, you had to go out through the front gate and then back through the other one. Our own backyard was a rectangle, barely twelve feet deep and a few feet wider than the house itself, planted with a hardy green grass. “St. Augustine,” our realtor had said. “Shade-tolerant carpet grass.” She might as well have been speaking a foreign language, but Michael nodded and asked some follow-up questions about our new automated sprinkler system.

Then, through a loose slat in the fence, I caught a glimpse of blue water in Lena’s yard, promising the cool relief that no shade could deliver in this humidity.

Giving up on finding the hose, I ran the mint under the spigot, blasting it a little too hard. When I turned off the water, I heard Lena say, “That you, Kacy?”

I turned and glimpsed her distinctive red hair through the gap in the fence. “I’m trying to plant some mint.”

“Need any help?”

“I can’t find a trowel.” Although, after looking, I wasn’t completely sure Michael and I even owned one.

“Hold on, I’ve got one.”

She moved away from the fence, and I set the dripping plastic pot down. A few mint leaves, bruised by the force of the water, released their scent, the sole hint of coolness in the heavy, humid air.

In only a second, Lena was back. “Heads up!” and a small hand trowel flew over the fence, glinting in the sunlight.

“Thanks.” I bent and jabbed the trowel at the tough ground, hacking out a small hole. I thought Lena might go back to what she’d been doing, but instead she stayed by the fence, where the slats were too narrow for me to see anything except the shadow of her presence.