Part 7 — “After the Vote”
The garden smelled like wet tomatoes and fresh paint.
Sunlight spilled over the brick path, now edged in lavender and milk crates turned into planters. A small chalkboard near the gate read:
“Community Work Day — Saturday. Volunteers Welcome. Bring Gloves.”
Below that, in messy handwriting:
“Also bring treats for Roo.”
Roo had taken to napping under the rosemary bush, belly to the breeze, tail twitching now and then like he was dreaming of chase. His coat had grown shinier, fuller. He no longer flinched at the slam of a car door or the clatter of bikes.
The whole neighborhood knew him now.
Children brought him peanut butter cookies wrapped in napkins. An old man dropped off a dog bed, too small but still accepted. The mail carrier greeted him by name.
But it wasn’t just Roo that had changed.
Mabel had too.
She moved with a new kind of energy — slow, yes, but lit from within. Her knees still creaked and her lungs still stuttered on cold mornings, but her hands were back in the dirt. She hummed when she watered. She laughed more. She wore her sunhat again.
On this particular Thursday, she stood before the empty western plot, trowel in hand, Roo nearby watching as if he understood the gravity of the moment.
“It’s time,” she murmured.
Behind her, Layla was filling out paperwork beneath the trellis.
They’d been approved for a micro-grant from the local food initiative. Enough to build three new raised beds and a compost bin. Layla had also been offered a summer internship — in urban agriculture, of all things.
“Who’d have thought?” she’d said with a grin. “All I wanted was to paint.”
Mabel had replied, “Child, growing food is painting with time.”
Now Layla joined her at the plot, holding a bundle of string and wooden stakes.
“What’s going in?” she asked.
“Collards,” Mabel said. “The big kind. The kind that hold up in frost. Jayson once asked me why I always planted greens. I told him they’re the only things that can feed a soul and a stomach.”
Layla knelt down and helped dig the rows.
For a while, they worked in silence.
Then Mabel said, “Tell me something about your brother. Something small.”
Layla didn’t pause. “He hated wet socks. Would rather walk barefoot through a thunderstorm than wear damp shoes.”
Mabel chuckled. “George was like that, too. Drove me mad.”
They shared a smile — soft, aching, full of warmth.
“He used to sing while he painted,” Layla added. “Not songs that existed. Just nonsense. Hums and syllables. Said it helped the colors find their shape.”
Mabel leaned on her trowel. “I can see that.”
“I think he’d be proud of us,” Layla said.
“I know he would,” Mabel answered.
Roo lifted his head, sniffing the breeze. A mockingbird called from the old pecan tree at the back of the lot — the one that somehow survived the bulldozers and neglect.
And then, from the sidewalk, a voice called out:
“Excuse me—can we help?”
They turned to see two teenage girls holding packets of seeds and a box labeled ‘Pollinator Garden Starter Kit.’
Behind them, a young man pushed a wheelbarrow of mulch.
Layla stood. “You’re here for the work day?”
One of the girls nodded. “Saw the post. Figured it was better than scrolling.”
Mabel smiled. “That’s the best kind of reason.”
The newcomers stepped into the garden. Someone turned on music — not loud, but cheerful. A neighbor brought by lemonade and a worn-out guitar.
Soon the garden was full again. Full of movement. Of laughter. Of strangers becoming something else.
Roo weaved through it all like a slow current, greeting, watching, circling back to Mabel now and then for a soft nudge of his head.
At sunset, someone lit candles in jars.
Mabel sat on the bench beneath the mural and looked out over what they’d built — what they’d saved.
And it hit her then: the garden wasn’t just alive again.
It was becoming.
Not preserved like a museum, but growing. Changing. Rooting new stories.
Jayson’s mural swayed gently in the breeze. Roo lay at its base, facing the gate.
As if waiting for someone else to arrive.
As if the garden still had more to remember.