Page 48 of Where You're Planted

“Agree to disagree.”

He remembered the look on her face the day she’d stormed into his house, turned on all the lights, ordered him into theshower to sober up, and cleaned his kitchen, too. He’d been in a bad place.

“I know you pulled it together then,” Amy said, “but I don’t think you ever meaningfully recovered. I think you just cut off anything that could hurt you in the same way again and told yourself you never wanted more. And I get it, but it kills me to see you rewrite your story based onSophie’sshitty choices. And now I’m having a baby, and I can see how uncomfortable it is for you, and other than Omar, you’re my most important person—”

“I’ll be fine, Amy. I’ll be better. Fuck, I shouldn’t have dumped all this on you.”

She pressed herself even farther across the center console and firmly squeezed his forearm. “That’s not what I’m saying. It’sgoodthat you’re feeling things again. But there’s a lot that you stuffed down. You should deal with it this time, for real, and you should have support from someone who doesn’t complicate that. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’m happy for you and Omar,” he insisted. His pulse hammered at the thought that she was this concerned about him. He merged into the exit lane, impatient to get out of this traffic and to look Amy in the eye instead of having this conversation half distracted.

“I know,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make it about me. You wanted to talk about Tansy, and I just…”

Jack rubbed his face, weary. “I don’t even know what this is with her. If it’s even anything. We hadonenice afternoon.”

“That’s about all it took for me to fall for Omar,” Amy pointed out, her voice warm with affection, lighter again.

“It’s complicated.”

“Yep. And scary. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. I mean, do you think I wasn’t scared when I had myoperation? I kept thinking, what if I elect to have open-heart surgery to save my life and it kills me?”

Jack swallowed. He’d had that fear, too.

“But I took the risk. And look at what I get now.” She palmed her stomach affectionately, tearing up. “I mean, I’m sickallthe time, but I’msohappy.”

Jack thumbed the corner of his eye discretely. “The fucking heart card, huh? You always gonna have that over me?”

She laughed. “Probably.”

They rode in silence the last mile and a half to her house. Jack unloaded the grill and helped her tuck it behind boxes in the garage. Then she pulled him into a tight hug.

“Take your time, Jack,” she said, into his shoulder. “Omar and I will give you space or support, whatever you need. But this is an opportunity to rebuild the things that broke with Sophie. Whether that leads to something with Tansy or not, it’s worth doing the work.”

“Yeah,” he said gruffly.

Then she pulled back, jostled his shoulders playfully, and added, “In a way, you’re doing heart surgery, too. Just a different kind.”

15

Tansy

The day of the Pollinator Festival, the weather was perfect and Tansy felt, for the first time since the storm, like the library was back in its prime.

The gardens were full of families and other visitors, meandering comfortably from the educational tables at the front entrance to the horseshoe and mega-size Jenga games on the main lawn, story time sessions in the courtyard, the bird migration game along the back path, and finally to the Little Green Library, where a feast of titles borrowed from other branches were on offer on two long tables under a temporary canopy. Tansy rotated between leading short, hourly story time sessions, registering new card holders, assisting with the pipe-cleaner antennae craft, and applying temporary insect and flower tattoos on people with wet sponges. Her cheeks ached from smiling all morning at all the excited kids running around with butterfly-wing capes and paper-flowercrowns. This was the best version of library energy, and she wanted to bottle it up and keep it forever.

Briar hung close to Tansy in the morning, but after their brief lunch break, she was ready to go explore other parts of the festival. Tansy had ten more minutes before her one o’clock story time, so she agreed to wander with her before resuming her duties. She shouldn’t have been surprised that Briar’s real interest was in finding Jack. She headed directly for the endpoint of the guided tour, where he was finishing up with a small group.

“And finally, we have this climbing rose,” he said, presenting a tall, unwieldy bush with reddish-pink blooms. “Following the hurricane, volunteers came from all over Texas and Louisiana to help us with cleanup and repairs. We had plants ripped from the ground and washed into the woods, for example, and those folks helped us retrieve and assess them and replant the ones we could. Some came with donations, which helped a lot because our budget has been tight.”

Tansy realized the commissioner was among the group now as he pushed forward in his politician’s suit and tie, alligator skin boots, and big black Stetson to clap a chummy hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m not a numbers guy, but it’s clear the budget, paired with a little creativity on park staff’s end, has enabled a miraculous recovery here in the gardens. To my eye, it’s been restored to its former beauty and then some.”

Jack’s jaw clenched, and he eyed the commissioner’s hand still gripping his shoulder.

“Now, I know this rose has a special story. Maybe you could share that with us,” the commissioner prompted.

“When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans,” Jack said, sidestepping subtly out of the commissioner’s grasp, “a gardener there named Peggy Martin had a rose garden withabout four hundred fifty species in it. Out of all of them, only one bounced back after the prolonged exposure to the salt water Katrina brought. She’d grown it from a cutting and couldn’t pin down its origin, so it’s now known as the Peggy Martin rose, or the Katrina rose, and this one was grown from a cutting from that original plant.”

“Katrina rose,” the commissioner echoed with the soulful emphasis of a preacher. “A symbol of hope and resilience. And, boy, is she a beauty.”

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