Part 4 — “Before the Bulldozers”
The sky hadn’t cracked open yet, but the birds were already restless.
Mabel Coates sat upright in her folding chair, quilt over her knees, eyes fixed on the garden gate. Her back ached. Her hands were stiff. But her breath came calm and steady. The kind of breath you learn when you’ve stood your ground too many times to count.
Next to her, Saturday dozed with his chin on his paws, ears flicking at every truck that passed on the main road.
At 5:42 a.m., the first rumble came.
Not thunder. Machinery.
The sound of demolition crews arriving down the block. Orange vests. Flashing lights. One of those steel-jawed backhoes with the teeth.
“They’re coming,” Layla said from the edge of the garden, her voice tight.
She was perched atop a stack of milk crates like a lookout. Her hoodie was splattered with paint. She hadn’t slept. None of them had.
“Let ’em,” Mabel said.
Around them, the rest of the group stirred — twenty-seven people in all, tucked in tents, on lawn chairs, on flattened cardboard. Elders from the block. High school kids. One city council hopeful with a clipboard and something to prove.
Someone had brewed a fresh pot of coffee using an old camping stove. The air smelled like burnt toast and wet clay.
At 6:01 a.m., a Channel 5 news van pulled up.
By 6:07, a second reporter from an indie community blog arrived.
And at 6:15, the demolition crew’s supervisor — a broad man with a thinning ponytail and a clipboard — stepped through the chain-link gate.
He stopped cold when he saw the crowd.
When he saw Saturday, standing in front of Mabel with his ears up and his cloudy eye narrowed.
And when he saw the mural.
The canvas with Jayson’s final painting had been re-hung on the fence, now flanked by two fresh signs in bold paint:
“WE WILL NOT BE MOVED.”
“ROOTS REMAIN.”
The man frowned. “Who’s in charge here?”
Mabel rose slowly.
Her knees cracked like old porch wood, but she stood tall.
“I am.”
He squinted. “Ma’am, I don’t want trouble. I’m just following orders.”
“We all are,” she said. “Following the orders of our conscience.”
Layla stepped up beside her. “We have a petition. Local media. A sit-in underway.”
The man sighed. “You’re trespassing on private property.”
Mabel’s eyes flared. “This land belonged to this community before it belonged to paperwork. Children planted peas here. Neighbors buried pets here. There are ashes in this dirt. You understand?”
Silence.
The man looked over the crowd — tired, firm, full of righteous fire.
He looked at Saturday.
Then he said, “I need to make a call.”
The wait was thick.
Some of the teens passed out granola bars. An older woman handed Mabel a small inhaler, just in case. Roo paced the fence, growling low each time a new vehicle turned the corner.
At 6:53, the supervisor returned.
And behind him—someone unexpected.
Not a developer in a suit. Not a police officer.
A woman in her thirties with jeans, dreadlocks wrapped in a scarf, and a badge clipped to her belt.
She introduced herself as Sierra Lockwood, a representative from the Department of Parks and Urban Greenspaces.
“I saw your petition this morning,” she said, holding up her phone. “And the mural. And the dog. And the letter. All of it.”
Layla clutched Jayson’s letter in both hands.
“You read it?”
Sierra nodded. “I read it three times.”
She turned to the supervisor. “Temporarily halt demolition. Effective immediately.”
Mabel blinked. “Wait, what?”
Sierra stepped forward. “This land may have been earmarked for redevelopment, but there’s a clause—one the city forgot. If a parcel of land has been used by the public for a decade or more as a community garden, with documented stewardship, a petition from a quorum of residents can trigger a protective review.”
Layla gasped.
Marcus fist-pumped in the background. “We are the quorum!”
Sierra smiled. “Seems you are.”
Mabel swallowed hard. “So… what now?”
“Now we verify. I’ve already contacted the zoning office and requested a temporary stay. You’ve got three weeks to gather evidence — photos, testimony, receipts, whatever you’ve got. If you can prove this garden was used and maintained by the public, and not formally abandoned? You have a chance to designate it as a protected community green space.”
The crowd erupted in quiet cheers, hugs, handclasps, disbelief.
Mabel gripped her trowel like a torch.
“You mean we’ve got a chance to keep it?”
Sierra nodded. “You’ve got a chance to make it official.”
Saturday barked once — short, sharp, triumphant.
Later that morning, after most of the crowd had dispersed to call neighbors and dig through old photo albums, Mabel sat under the wooden trellis with Roo at her feet.
Layla sat beside her, arms wrapped around her knees.
She looked out over the lot — still scarred, still ragged, but no longer doomed.
“I didn’t think this would happen,” she said.
“Me neither,” Mabel said. “But your brother did.”
Layla looked over.
Mabel pulled something from her coat — the postcard Jayson had painted with the woman and the dog.
“He saw us,” she said. “Before we even knew we’d be here.”
Layla nodded, tears quietly spilling. “He saw everything.”
And in that cracked-up, broken-down plot of soil, something new began to root — not just seeds, but a memory made flesh, walking on four legs with a clouded eye and a second chance.