Daniel had driven him.
When Thomas returned to the car, he said:
“Your mother always did have the last word.”
Daniel showed me a photograph.
Thomas stood beside Evelyn’s grave.
His hand rested against the stone.
Tucked among the flowers was a little note.
Three words were visible.
I found her.
PART 5 — EXACTLY WHAT I DESERVED
The Garden House opened eleven months after Thomas died.
We did not call it Second Door.
Thankfully.
Our first resident was a seventy-six-year-old widow named Doris.
Her husband had died six weeks earlier.
Her rental home was being sold, and her new apartment would not be ready for three months.
She arrived with two suitcases, a sewing machine, and an enormous fern.
“I hope you don’t mind plants,” she said.
I looked toward Evelyn’s roses.
“You’ll fit in.”
Then came Samuel, a widower who could cook beautifully but could not understand online banking.
