Page 102 of Veil of Smoke

She traces the trellis again, her fingers lingering where the vines once bloomed. “She’d sit here for hours,” she says, voice soft, pulling me back. “Talking to them, like they’d answer.”

“Did they?” I ask, settling beside her, my shoulder brushing hers.

“Maybe,” she says, a faint smile tugging her lips. “I’d hear her laughing sometimes, out here alone.”

I picture it, an old woman with dirt-streaked hands, whispering to flowers, and it settles something in me, a piece I didn’t know was loose.

The light shifts, dusk creeping in, and I feel the day folding around us, gentle, unhurried. “This place,” I say, voice low, “it’s still hers.”

“Yeah,” she says, digging her hands deeper into the soil, unearthing a small root. “And now it’s ours.”

I nod, feeling that truth take hold, a thread tying us to this ground, to each other. The medallion rests there, a mark of what I’ve carried, what I’m letting go.

“She’d like that,” Viviana says, brushing dirt from her fingers, looking at me. “You being here.”

I swallow, the thought catching me off guard. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, voice firm, warm. “She’d see you, the way you listen.”

I look away, out through the cracked glass, the wild grass bending in the breeze. The sun’s nearly gone now, a thin line of gold clinging to the horizon.

“I didn’t used to,” I say, voice quiet, tracing the edge of the medallion with my thumb. “Listen, I mean.”

“You do now,” she says, resting her hand near mine, not touching, just close. “That’s enough.”

I nod, feeling the stillness stretch between us, soft and real. The greenhouse holds us, its vines and blooms a quiet witness to what we’re building.

“She planted these for a reason,” Viviana says, nodding to the tags, their faded ink curling in the light. “To say what she couldn’t.”

I pick up one, Forgiveness, the word smudged but clear. “What’s this one say to you?” I ask, holding it out.

She takes it, her fingers brushing mine, and stares at it long. “That we keep going,” she says, voice steady. “Even when it’s hard.”

I feel that sink in, a truth I’ve lived but never named. “Yeah,” I say, setting the medallion back in the soil. “We do.”

The breeze lifts, stirring the vines, and I hear the faint creak of the glass panels above. The scent of damp earth fills my lungs, grounding me here, now.

“I used to think I’d bury him forever,” I say, voice low, staring at the medallion. “Keep him with me, like that’d fix it.”

“And now?” she asks, her hand resting on the dirt, close to mine.

“Now I think he’d want this,” I say, meeting her gaze. “A place to rest.”

She nods, her eyes soft but fierce, and I feel the weight of it lift, not gone, but shared. The greenhouse glows faint in the dusk, a haven of decay and life tangled together.

“She’d tell you to plant something,” Viviana says, a small laugh slipping out, breaking the quiet. “Make it grow.”

“Maybe I will,” I say, a grin tugging my mouth, surprising me. “What’d she like?”

“Moonflowers,” she says, pointing to the trellis. “They bloom at night, bright and stubborn.”

“Fits,” I say, looking at her, the way she kneels there, rooted in this place. “Fits us.”

“Yeah,” she says, brushing her hands clean, the dirt smudging her skin. “It does.”

I settle back, knees in the soil, and feel the day fade, the golden light giving way to dusk. The medallion gleams faint, a piece of Massimo I’ve held too long.

I carried this longer than I carried him. Wore it like armor. Like penance. But here, in her garden, it feels different, like it’s found its place.

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