Page 20 of Where You're Planted

The drop-off attendant carelessly yanked the hat off Briar’s head and chucked it back into the car, admonishing, “The rules haven’t changed. No hats.”

Which led to Tansy bolting from her car, blocking the drop-off line to a cacophony of horns, to explain that Briar had an accommodation in place—she was allowed to keep the hat in her backpack and wear it at recess. The school counselor got involved, relenting for today, only to gently but firmly suggest Briar work toward leaving the hat at home, andsoon.

All the while, Briar tucked into herself, holding the hat firmly on her head, hiding under it. Tansy itched to tell her to use her voice, to tell them if she couldn’t do that yet. But then this whole thing—needing special permission to wear a hat because it was the onlyutterly bafflingobject that helped Briar cope—felt like it undercut the message.Stand up for yourself…in order to cling to your security blanket.Tansy had made a hundred decisions in her eight years of motherhood that she feared would do lasting harm, but this choice, to either indulge Briar with the hat or nudge her to let it go, the same way they’d belatedly said goodbye to pacifiers, felt like the one that might really do irrevocable damage if she got it wrong.

Briar would be going to recess in a few minutes, Tansy knew. Although it wasn’t fully raining, a fine mist spit on Tansy during her walk toward the covered courtyard for her first story time. She felt jittery and couldn’t distinguish whether it was her own anxiety or Briar’s via some parasympathetic mother-daughter bond.

She had to fake her enthusiasm as she welcomed the first few moms with their toddlers and a grandmother with two kids. Gradually, though, the comfort of her familiar routine lifted her spirits. Only five families showed, less than a third of her old crowd. But it was okay. This was the first story time. She couldn’t expect everyone to know about their new location yet.

Tansy recognized one of the mom-and-kid pairs—Lena and her daughter, Stella. Since the last time she’d seen them, the little girl was toddling about, grabbing fistfuls of the ferns at the edge of the courtyard while Lena redirected her to the circle mats Tansy had laid out.

Usually, she got to witness the kids’ transitions from one age group to the next and gush with their guardians about how quickly time passed. She’d missed that milestone with this pair. She imagined them in the storm, as she so often did any time she reunited with people now. Did Lena also lift her child onto the kitchen counter to keep her feet dry as the water poured in? Or had she driven her to safety three days before the storm made landfall?

“Who knows our song about the weather?” Tansy asked, directing a big smile at the children in her circle. A breeze cut through the open courtyard, blowing her hair across her face, and she exaggerated her shiver. “Brr, it’s cold today, isn’t it?”

One of the moms tugged a coat onto her child, a little redheaded boy, who shrieked and bolted from her lap, only to fall face-first on the pavers. He sent up an ear-splitting wail, and the mom scooped him into her arms. Offering a quiet apology, Tansy fished a tissue out of her bag to press to the child’s bloody chin. Not a great start.

They sang the weather song and were just starting to read their first storybook when loud motors revved up and two maintenance workers began edging the lawn a few yards away. Tansy raised her voice to read over the noise, but the kids squirmed and whined, agitated by the racket, and the parents glared at the men over their shoulders. Then a riding lawnmower joined the edgers, and the noise level rose exponentially.

“I’m so sorry,” Tansy called out, closing the book. “You know what? Let’s just get out the toys and let them play.”

She overturned the crate of stuffed animals, blocks, music toys, and cars in the middle of the circle. The kids lost interest quickly, though, wandering to explore the plants, dirt, and rocks at the edges of the courtyard. One little girl was determined to climb the stairs up to the admin offices. Tansy helped redirect the children, but the parents were clearly getting frazzled. Nothing here was babyproofed.

Tansy caught sight of Jack exiting the greenhouse and ran to intercept him. “Hey!”

He kept walking, and she had to snatch the back of his shirt. “What is this?” she demanded, cutting off his outrage at the interruption. She jabbed a hand at the fleet of maintenance workers ruining her program. “I told you I was having story time this morning.”

He peered over her shoulder at the parents hastily packing up their diaper bags. “And?”

“And you had your guys do work right here,right now, to ruin it?” Her inflection made it a question, but Tansy had no doubt he’d orchestrated this to wreck her program.

“On Monday mornings, they mow the main lawn and blow off the paths. That’s been the schedule as long as I’ve been here. If you have a problem with it, though, you’ll have to take it up with Jorge. I don’t micromanage the groundskeepers, just like I haven’t masterminded the schedule in some nefarious plot against you.” He turned to leave.

“Do you always just walk away from conversations you don’t want to have?” She headed him off then countered his attempt to sidestep her. “You’resobusy,” she mocked. “I get it. You’re the busiest guy in the world. But you brought this conversation on yourself because Itoldyou I would have story time this morning, and you apparentlyknewthey’d be doing noisy lawn work, but you didn’t say a word about it.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t think about the noise.”

Tansy threw up her hands in frustration. “If we’d had arealmeeting, we could have compared schedules and worked this out. Instead, I now have stressed-out parents and two-year-olds eating dirt.”

“This,” he said emphatically, “is a botanic garden. Maybe the things you did in the library aren’t gonna work here.”

“They have to!” she snapped with an angry, helpless stamp of her foot.

He studied her, stony and silent, heightening her awareness of the ridiculous tantrum she was throwing. Finally, he nodded, his eyes trained behind her.

“What?” she bit out.

“Kid’s in the koi pond.”

Tansy whirled around to see the grandmother fishing out a little boy, drenched and crying, from the shallow pond.

“This is why I don’t want kids here,” Jack pointed out.

“This,” she cut back, “is why I asked for the gated garden.”

“If the fish are harmed—”

“Oh my God,” Tansy muttered and stomped away.

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