“Could you walk with me to the garden?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
Outside, the night air was cool and smelled faintly of rain and trimmed grass. The estate gardens stretched beneath low lights, less formal now than they had been in old photographs. Lenora had ordered a section replanted with vegetables, herbs, and wildflowers in Ruth’s honor. Some board members had called it unconventional.
Lenora had called it necessary.
She and Mr. Wilson walked slowly along the stone path.
“Do you ever miss what this place used to be?” she asked.
He thought about it.
“I miss some people,” he said. “Not the way the place made people behave.”
Lenora nodded.
At the edge of the garden, she stopped beside a row of young tomato plants. Their leaves smelled sharp and green when she touched them.
“My grandmother would have fussed over these,” she said.
“She sounds like a woman worth being fussed over by.”
