Chapter 4 - The Restoration Kit
Grant went into the study and came back with a long cardboard tube. He slid out a yellowed sheet almost as long as the dining table.
Grandma Winifred's garden map.
Every bed drawn by hand. Every plant numbered. Next to each number, a few tidy words in her handwriting.
Peonies. Spring 1994. Della's first summer.
Lavender. Summer 2009. Well again, finally.
White daisies. After Della's first recital. She grinned the whole ride home.
Hundreds of them.
"It's all here," I said. "She never forgot anything that mattered to her."
We spent the rest of the afternoon working through it. Every ruined bed. Every uprooted plant, every smashed border, every torn-up stretch of lawn. We matched all of it to the map.
Two hundred and eighty-six plants.
We filled 286 small seed-and-root packets, and we numbered each one to match the map exactly. When we were done, I stacked them all inside the cedar box. At the very bottom I laid a laminated copy of the garden map. On the lid I fixed a small brass plate.
It said: RESTORATION KIT.
Nothing else. The box could speak for itself.
The courier picked it up the next morning and delivered it that afternoon. An hour later my phone lit up.
"DELLA." Brooke's voice cracked through the speaker. "What is THIS?"
"Your wedding gift."
"You seriously mailed me a box of dirt?"
"I mailed you everything you told me would just grow back."
She went quiet. Then I heard paper unfolding.
"What are all these numbers?"
"They match Grandma's map."
"I don't garden!"
"I know."
"You expect me to plant TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SIX flowers?"
"No. I expect you to put back 286 memories."
"Oh, come on. They're flowers, Della."
I took a slow breath. "No. They're the roses she planted for her anniversary. The lavender she planted after she survived surgery. The daisies she planted after my recital. The peonies she planted the year I was born. You didn't pull weeds out of the ground, Brooke. You tore pages out of our family album."
Her voice dropped. "I… I didn't know."
"I believe you. That's why I'm going to teach you."
"I'll hire a landscaper."
"No."
"I'll pay double."
"No."
"This is insane, Della!"
"So was treating my grandmother's garden like it was decoration you could throw away."
A long pause. Finally: "What do you actually want from me?"
"I want you at the lake house every Saturday until that garden is whole again."
She laughed. "I am not spending my Saturdays on my knees in the dirt."
May you like
"That's fine. Then I'll just let the family know you decided flowers don't grow back after all."
She hung up.
