Page 39 of Where You're Planted

“Yeah, and those ferns have seen much better days,” Jack pointed out. “Kids, as your story times have proven, don’t stay on paths, and the grounds are fragile right now. Everything’s under stress.”

“You say that like the plants are people.”

“Plants experience stress just like any other living thing.” Jack’s shoulders were tense, his heart still knocking against his rib cage from her left-field question. She wassoconfident his divorce had resulted fromhisshortcoming. His skin felt suddenly too tight.

“You know what? Itwasthe kid thing,” he said abruptly, “but not like you’re assuming.”

She paused chewing.

White-hot righteousness surged in his chest. He didn’twantto tell her about his divorce, but more than that, hedidwant to see her face when she realized how wrong her assumptions about him were. “We were actually trying to have a baby. For about two years. But it turned out it was probably never gonna happen. With me, I mean. I was the problem.Shefiled for divorce.”

And there it was, the exact reaction he expected. Her eyebrows lifted, mouth parted in surprise, and then she set her food down, looking contrite. “I’m sorry,” she said immediately,sober and quiet. “I shouldn’t have assumed.” Then, she closed her eyes and shook her head, and her chastened expression shifted. “Sheleftyou over that?”

He wasn’t prepared for the spark of ferocity in her eyes when she met his directly. He was the one who had to look away now, immediately regretting how much he’d exposed just to get the upper hand.

“What about you?” he asked, needing to shift their focus. He nodded at the absence of a ring on her hand. “Were you married to Briar’s dad?”

She tucked both hands into her lap. “Engaged, briefly. We were waiting until he finished law school and I graduated from college, but it didn’t work out.”

“Because of…” he said, glancing across the playground at Briar.

“No,” Tansy said sharply, straightening. “His dad died right before she was born. Things just…fell apart.”

There was an elephant-size gap in this explanation. Jack knew firsthand that losing a parent was a major upheaval, but he couldn’t figure out how that accounted for breaking off an engagement, especially with a baby in the picture. Unlessshe’dlefthim. Or the guy hadn’t known she was pregnant. Then again, these assumptions were no different from her snap judgments about him.

Tansy twisted to check on Briar, who was already engaged in a game of tag. New tension pulsed between them, walking back some of the progress they’d made, and Jack both regretted and welcomed the familiarity of it.

“I suppose you’re probably counting down the days until our time is up and you and your plants can be less stressed,” Tansy said to her plate.

Jack didn’t respond because, yeah, the thought had crossedhis mind. Despite what she’d intimated to patrons and her colleagues, there was no promise on the table, as far as he was aware, to reevaluate the fate of her library. In Jack’s experience, once the county pulled funding, it was next to impossible to claw it back.

Of course, she’d already delayed her library’s closure once. He wouldn’t count her out.

“It’s not even just that I don’t want to lose my job,” she said. “Our branch is the only library for fifteen miles. Which might not seem like a lot, but we’re a low-income community. Many of our patrons don’t have reliable cars, or their work hours make it impossible to get across town before another branch closes. If we shut down for good, so many people will lose access to educational and career-building resources, technology, social connections, and most importantly, a safe, accessible, free space. Do you have any idea how few places there are like that left in this world?”

Jack hadn’t thought of all that. But he understood her last point. “We’re one of the only botanic gardens in the state that doesn’t charge admission. If we did, our recovery would be farther along, and we wouldn’t be at the mercy of the county. Just seems criminal to put a price on what little natural green space we have left around here when we’re all just breathing in smog, suffering the effects of thousands of miles of freeways and parking lots, mindlessly eradicating native species without any thought to the long-term consequences…”

She nodded slowly, her eyes going wide at the force behind his monologue. “See? You get it.”

He sat back, forcing out the tension that always gripped him when he dwelled too much on the urgency of the gardens’ mission. “Yeah.”

“So, this festival…”

“What about it?” he asked.

“You’re launching a fundraiser?”

“Yeah.”

“And despite your personal stance onother people, you’re hoping for a good turnout?”

He nodded.

“AndI,” she said, pressing her palm to her chest, “am hoping to register new card holders and introduce our programs to new patrons. Many of our old regulars are starting to find us in the gardens, which brings visitors to you. And some of yours might give the library a try now that we’re in a space they’re already familiar and comfortable with. As much as you want us gone, and as much as I want to be back in our building and back to our full operations, our success is kind of tied together right now, isn’t it?”

Jack shrugged then nodded once.

She rolled her eyes at his reluctant agreement. “I think, purely for personal gain, we might get farther as allies than as enemies.”

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