PART 4 — The Things We Water
They started small.
Just two raised beds behind the house, right where the crabgrass used to overrun the fence. Cal laid the wood frame; Frank filled it with compost and topsoil from a friend’s farm in Bear Creek. Together, they planted rosemary, lavender, and marigolds—plants that wouldn’t die if they forgot to water them for a day.
It wasn’t much.
But it was something that belonged to both of them.
The neighbors noticed first.
Mrs. Holloway walked by and called over the fence, “You selling cuttings yet?”
Frank just smiled and waved. But later that night, he jotted it down in a notebook. Soft-stem starts for neighbors. Ask about hollow-root pots.
Cal saw it, and his chest warmed.
They weren’t calling it a business yet. Not officially. But they set up a folding table at the Sanford Sunday Market with three flats of potted herbs, a hand-drawn sign that said “Delaney Roots,” and Rex asleep in a shaded corner, cone collar finally gone.
Frank wore his old work shirt. The green one, with the faded patch.
Cal brought a clipboard and a cash box.
They sold out in two hours.
People didn’t just buy basil—they talked. They told Frank how they remembered him clearing snow off their steps without asking. How he always waved to their kids, how he still edged lawns straight even if nobody would notice. They talked about their knees, their insurance woes, their retirement fears.
Frank listened.
He always had.
And when they left, they smiled—not because they’d bought a plant, but because someone had made them feel seen.
That night, Cal stood by the sink washing clay off his hands.
“You ever think it’d come back to you like this?” he asked.
Frank sat at the table, rubbing liniment on his shoulder. “Didn’t expect anything to come back at all.”
Cal paused. “I mean it, Dad. You built something people remember.”
Frank looked up. “And I almost left it behind.”
He meant the insurance policy. The one he’d cashed out for Rex.
They never spoke about the money again, but Cal noticed the quiet changes: Frank stopped ordering takeout. Cancelled the cable. Started comparing generic meds at the pharmacy. He was cutting corners so the dream wouldn’t die a second time.
Cal wouldn’t let that happen.
So he kept researching.
One night, after Rex had curled up beneath the table and the crickets had started their slow summer chorus, Cal pulled out a brochure.
“I called the county extension office,” he said. “They run a grant for veteran-owned agricultural startups. You’d qualify. We just have to file the EIN, write a letter of intent, and get basic liability coverage.”
Frank blinked. “Slow down, professor.”
Cal laughed. “Sorry. I got excited.”
Frank turned the brochure in his hands. “All that government stuff… makes me nervous.”
“I’ll help. We’ll do it together.”
Frank nodded slowly. “You sure this ain’t just a phase? You’ll be off to college soon.”
Cal looked at him.
And said something he hadn’t before.
“I turned down that scholarship.”
Frank’s brow creased. “What? Why?”
“Because it wasn’t right for me,” Cal said. “And I want to build something real, with my hands. Like you.”
Frank looked down. Said nothing.
Until he reached across the table and gripped Cal’s hand. Hard.
They sat there for a long while, man and boy, father and son, the silence loud with things neither had said when they should have.
Two weeks later, they got their first landscaping order for a full backyard redesign.
It came from a woman named Denise, who ran a hospice home near the outskirts of town.
“We just want the garden to feel… peaceful,” she said. “For the families. Something soft. Calming.”
Frank nodded. “Lavender. Low benches. Maybe a fountain.”
Denise smiled. “That’s why I called you.”
He blinked. “Why’s that?”
She hesitated, then said, “My husband passed two years ago. I watched you every week—out front, mowing the neighbor’s lawn. I didn’t know you, but something about the way you worked… made me feel like the world wasn’t falling apart.”
Frank didn’t reply. Just touched the brim of his cap.
That night, they drove home in silence.
Frank finally spoke. “You think people can really feel that? The way something’s been trimmed? Or the slope of the earth?”
Cal looked at him. “I think people feel love, even when it’s quiet.”
Rex took a turn that same week.
He wasn’t eating much. His back leg, the one shattered in the accident, had stiffened despite therapy. The vet called it “degenerative.” Nothing to fix. Just to manage.
Frank sat beside him on the porch that night, the same comforter folded neatly beneath the old dog’s body.
“You done good, boy,” he whispered. “You brought my son back.”
Cal watched from the screen door.
He didn’t interrupt.
By late August, the backyard nursery had a nameplate, two benches, and a chalkboard list of “Today’s Smells” featuring mint, lemon balm, and frankincense.
People came just to breathe.
Some stayed to talk. Some left with seedlings. One man left a check for $500 with a note: “For the vet bill. For all the quiet kindness.”
Cal folded it and slipped it into a new envelope marked “Hope Fund.”
He never told his dad.
He didn’t need to.
Because this time, they were building something together.
Not a business. Not just a garden.
But a life that remembered what mattered.
And watered it—daily.