She hauled water from the well until her arms achd, rigged shade cloths to protect tender seedlings from the worst of the sun, talked to her plants the way she'd once heard Catherine had done, as if encouragement alone could will them to grow. Most of what she planted struggled. The lettuce bolted immediately. The squash vines produced more leaves than fruit. The carrots came up twisted and small, barely worth the effort of pulling them.
But in one corner of the garden, against all odds and logic, a single tomato plant had taken root and thrived. Eliza discovered the first tomato on a morning when everything else seemed to be going wrong. James had torn his only good shirt on a fence post. Matthew had gotten into an argument with Nathaniel over whose turn it was to feed the chickens. Meera had woken up crying from a nightmare about her mother that left her clingy and inconsolable, and Bo had been distant for days, preoccupied with something he wouldn't discuss, his usual steady presence replaced by distracted silences.
She'd escaped to the garden, seeking a moment of peace, and found instead a miracle, one perfect red tomato, impossibly bright against the dusty green of its vine, round and ripe and beautiful. Eliza knelt beside it, her fingers trembling as she touched the smooth skin and felt tears sliding down her cheeks before she'd even realized she was crying. "You made it," she whispered to the tomato, to the garden, to herself. Despite everything, you made it. "Eliza," she looked up to find B standing at the garden's edge, his hat in his hands, his expression concerned.
She hadn't heard him approach, had been too lost in her moment of unexpected victory. I'm fine," she said quickly, wiping at her tears with dirt stained hands. "Just being silly over a tomato. " "That's not silly," Bo said, moving closer. "That's the first thing we've successfully grown since Catherine died. She'd be proud of you for bringing the garden back to life. " "It's just one tomato," Eliza protested.
"Everything else is barely surviving. " "But this one is thriving," Bo countered, kneeling beside her. "And you taught it how to do that. You didn't give up on it, even when the drought made everything harder. Even when it would have been easier to let the whole garden go and buy our vegetables from town. I I couldn't let it die completely, Eliza said softly.
This garden was Catherine's. She planted it, nurtured it, fed her family from it. Letting it die felt like letting another piece of her disappear. Bo reached out and gently took her dirtcovered hand in his. You know what Catherine used to say about the garden?
What she said that growing things was an act of faith that you put seeds in the ground not knowing if they'd sprout. You water them not knowing if they'll thrive. You tend them through drought and heat and every kind of hardship because you believe that life wants to persist. That given even the smallest chance, things that should die will choose to live instead. Eliza looked at their joined hands, his calloused and scarred from years of ranch work, hers marked with fresh dirt and old burns from the kitchen.
She was wise. She was, Bo agreed. And she'd recognize that same wisdom in you, Eliza. You're doing the same thing with this family that you did with this garden. You took something that was dying and gave it a reason to live again.