After a minute, I felt like I should say something else, so I added, “We’ve been talking about a garden, so I thought I’d start with a little mint. Think it’ll grow all right?”

“Oh sure, mint will be fine. But the ground here is like gumbo. Red clay and really erratic water. Depending on what you want to grow, it’s probably better to do raised beds. Some stuff grows like crazy, but root vegetables struggle.”

I set the mint into the hole and pressed the earth around it. “Michael’s worried about the sprinkler system. He thinks a vegetable bed might not need the same schedule as the grass.”

“Brady’s working on that too. We should get those guys together. Why don’t you both come over tomorrow night? We’ll grill and hang out by the pool.”

For the first time in months, I felt flushed with success. “We’d love to. Look out, here comes your trowel back.”

As it spun end over end into the yard next door, catching the light, I almost smiled.

This would be something to share with Michael. I could make friends, good ones.

Michael was tired that night, although he tried to hide it. He agreed to dinner the next night, and we watched television together snuggled up on the sofa. I didn’t tell him about the postcard.

Before I went to bed, I turned my bottle of antidepressants upside down so that it stood on its cap next to my sink. In the morning it was a simple visual cue to take my pill, or a reminder that I hadn’t. Dr. Lindsey had mentioned tapering off, but vaguely, like it was something we might work up to. Now I thought about walking in the sunshine with Lena, and giving up the pills seemed almost possible. At the same time, panic fluttered in the base of my stomach. I didn’t ever want to feel the way I had six months ago. Never again.

In bed, the pillow was cool against my cheek, and I fell asleep almost immediately, barely registering that Michael was reading something on his phone beside me.

When I woke with a start, it was still dark. While the blackout curtains I had hung kept any light from seeping in through the bedroom windows, the skylight in the bathroom let in just enough moonlight to make out the outlines of the doorframe, the dresser, the crease where walls met floor and ceiling.