Page 115 of Where You're Planted

Tansy’s phone was missing, and so was the commissioner.

Jack was off looking for the latter, and while Tansy retraced her steps, Briar was helpfully dumping Tansy’s massive bag onto her desk looking for the former, saying, “Maybe you should clean this out every once in a while.”

Her office at the new library had a wall of windows on one side looking into the circulation room—a big, airy space with nearly one hundred thousand volumes, twenty-five computers, a maker’s space with a 3D printer, a cozy Children’s Corner, and meeting rooms that they shared with the gardens’ educational outreach classes.

The windows on the opposite wall of Tansy’s office looked out at the entrance to this side of the gardens, complete with a sprawling Katrina rose bush, propagated from the one onthe other side of the park. News crews were set up outside the building, swarmed by a huge crowd of families, fanning themselves in the warm spring sunshine with Pollinator Festival fans and pipe-cleaner antennae atop their heads, their faces already painted with butterfly wings.

As official branch manager now, Tansy was due to introduce the commissioner and hand him the scissors to cut the ribbon for the grand opening in about two minutes, but her speech was on her phone, which was nowhere to be found. At least she hadn’t misplaced the scissors. Apparently, the commissioner had his own pair for these events, large shiny ones with an alligator skin design printed on the handles, and they were already on the podium. She did grab the simple black ones from her desk as a backup, though.

“Any luck finding my phone?” she asked Briar, who was now shoving three pieces of gum into her mouth.

“Nope.”

“All right. I guess I’ll just have to wing it.”

An enormous Stetson passed by the exterior window. Jack followed the commissioner, pausing to cup his hands around the glass and peek in at her. He mouthed,Showtime.

Tansy and Briar slipped out the side door and jogged around to the front, where a red ribbon stretched across the entrance doors. Briar joined Amy, Omar, and little Jillian in the crowd of familiar faces, including Lena and Stella. The job Amy had helped Lena find last year conflicted with Tansy’s weekday story times, but they were dedicated weekend Garden Club attendees. Kai, Marianne, and Irma stood behind Tansy, ready to yank open the doors and let everyone explore the new building, and Ian caught Jack off to the side of the steps, passing him a radio and saying, “You forgot this again,” even though they all knew that had been no accident.

Tansy took her place to welcome everyone to the opening of the new branch and the new half of the park. “I’m so pleased to welcome our recently reelected county commissioner, Beau Burke, who gave our library a second chance,” she said into the microphone. “He spoke on a drizzly January day about the opportunity hidden in disaster. After this last year, I think Commissioner Burke must be one of those rare people with a clear and creative vision of the world because what we’re celebrating today seemed impossible to most of us back then. Let’s give him a warm welcome.”

Jack reached for Tansy’s hand as she joined him, turning to whisper in her ear while the crowd settled back down, “Some vision. He got lost on the green trail.”

“The one that loops around the pond?”

“Yep. No sense of direction whatsoever under that Stetson.”

Tansy stifled her laugh and nudged his shoulder.

The commissioner’s speech was as self-congratulatory as Tansy had expected it to be, but she couldn’t complain. Not when she had her dream library in one of the most beautiful hidden pockets of Houston. It was an utterly perfect spring day.

Following the ribbon cutting, Tansy and Jack took turns checking out all the demonstrations, crafts, and festivities with Briar, tagging out to run story times or the Ask-a-Gardener table.

Finally, as the sun cast a long shadow from the library across the transplanted Katrina roses, and the last of the visitors headed to their cars, face paint melting, and arms loaded with books, seed packets, crafts, and plants, Jack took Tansy’s and Briar’s hands. “One more thing before we head home.”

Five minutes later, they were standing over the creek, looking across at the old property. There were no stairs on this side, so they couldn’t go down to the water, but there wasa big grassy overlook under a towering sycamore, its crown of leaves bright green and waving in the wind. They sat in its shade and followed the flight of two bright white egrets as they swooped into the ravine and back out, off into the sunset.

The breeze lifted Tansy’s hair off her neck, cooling the lingering heat on her skin from the long afternoon. The water was low now—too low, really, because there hadn’t been rain in weeks. It was hard to imagine that scar ever filling with so much water again. But it would. And now the banks on the opposite side were eight feet higher, the dirt that had been trucked in to build them up beginning to sprout with new grass.

“Can we go home now?” Briar asked. “I have to feed Draco.”

Draco was the bearded dragon that Tansy had held off getting for her until two weeks ago, right after their move into Jack’s house. Like the park, his place had needed a little bit of work. He’d offered to sell it, combine the money with what she got from her house, and find a new place for the three of them, but Tansy was kind of in love with that greenhouse bedroom.

They’d used some of the money from the sale of her house to decorate two rooms—Briar’s bedroom and the office, which Jack, ever an outdoorsman, had no use for. That room was now the coziest private library, complete with the rolling ladder of Tansy’s dreams.

The remainder of the money went toward some new furniture, new clothes for Tansy and Briar—no more thrifted hand-me-downs, although Tansy made sure to keep those wrap skirts Jack liked so much—and one bearded dragon. The rest gave her a comfortable cushion of savings.

“Shoot,” Tansy said, as they all stood to return home. “I never found my phone.”

Jack dug into his pocket. “This phone?”

She laughed. “Where was it?”

“You left it in my greenhouse,” he whispered into her ear, sending a wave of heat through her. They’d…christenedthe new greenhouse before the festival.

“Mom,” Briar whined. “Draco isstarving.”

Tansy laughed. “Okay. We’re going.”

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