“Thank you, son.”
“Don’t thank me.” Tyler shook his head. “My grandmother used to get vegetables from somebody like you. When I was a kid. Down in Iowa. I never knew who. I just knew some weeks there was a bag of tomatoes on our back step.” He blinked hard. “I’m going to look into getting you that special permit. Fast-tracked. Community garden exemption. There’s a category for it. I’ll find it. I’ll walk the paperwork through myself.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes,” Tyler said. “I do.”
Brent was still sitting on the gravel.
He looked at Tyler. He looked at my father. He looked at his mother, standing over him with her two empty grocery bags.
Then he stood up.
He brushed the gravel off his bathrobe. He wiped his face with his sleeve.
He turned to Tyler.
“I want to withdraw my complaint,” he said. “Officially. Today. Whatever I have to sign. I want it gone.”
