The words formed at the back of my throat and stayed there, hot and humiliating.
Because there was no way to explain any of it without sounding like exactly the kind of woman I was trying not to be.
I was the kind who snapped.
I was the kind who got caught.
I was the kind whose ex had somehow managed to cheat and still walk away with the moral high ground and the power to make me explain myself to strangers.
I swallowed. “Good.”
Zane watched me for another second. Then he nodded once.
He stepped back.
Relief should’ve come with the space.
Instead, I felt it like a handprint.
Mulch, as it turned out, wasn’t friendly. It clung to everything, hid in my shoes, and flew up when I used the rake too fast, sitting there smugly on my blouse like brown confetti from the world’s least festive parade.
By late morning, my hair had slipped from its neat twist, and damp strands stuck to my neck. My eyes stung from sweat and sunscreen. My arms ached. My thighs had begun a private protest.
The P-Patch kept going around me.
Birdie moved through the beds with clippers, pausing beside Tyler long enough to say, “That tomato is called a mortgage lifter, which means you should treat it better than you treated the compost.”
Tyler shaded his eyes with one dirty hand. “The compost and I are in a growth period.”
“You’re in something,” Gus said.
Zane pointed at Tyler’s shovel. “Turn the pile, not your feelings.”
Tyler sighed and went back to work.
And Zane was everywhere.
He lifted a cracked planter, repositioned a hose so it didn’t kink, showed Tyler how deep to dig, took a call near the shed in a low voice I couldn’t hear, and came back with his jaw tight and his attention locked on work.
I noticed him every time he passed.
I noticed his boots on the path, his hand closing around a shovel, and the flex of his tattooed forearm when he lifted the wheelbarrow handles. When he called, “Gus, I’ll grab more screws from the shed,” the scrape in his voice went right through me.
The man was a public safety hazard.
At noon, Birdie brought out a small cooler. “Anyone who pretends not to need lunch will be judged.”
I sat on a bench under the pines with my water bottle, a granola bar from the bottom of my tote, and the dawning realization that my shoulders might never forgive me.
Tyler dropped onto the grass several feet away. “I thought community service would be, like, picking up trash with one of those stick things.”
Gus lowered himself onto an overturned bucket. “You wanted a poking stick?”
“I wanted distance from the consequences.”
I choked on my water.
Zane, leaning against the shed with his own bottle, looked at Tyler. “You’re here because you painted a parking meter.”
