Chapter 20 - Mara’s GardenWe planted a garden for Mara.
Juniper was thirteen.
Not a memorial garden exactly.
Vegetables.
Flowers.
Messy.
Mara hated formal landscaping.
Orson visited once under agreed conditions.
He stood beside tomatoes.
“Your mother would complain about weeds.”
I smiled.
“She’d call them biodiversity.”
Juniper listened.
Grandpa and granddaughter had rebuilt something.
Limited.
Careful.
He never babysat.
Never handled medication.
Never managed money.
But they talked.
Sometimes boundaries create the only space where relationship can survive.
Dad asked me privately:
“Will you ever trust me?”
“No.”
He nodded.
Honest.
“But I can know you.”
He looked at me.
“That’s more than I deserve.”
“Maybe.”
We stood among Mara’s tomatoes.
May you like
No dramatic reconciliation.
Just two men accepting that love does not restore authority.
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