The days blurred together. The same routine. Wake up. Avoid conversation. Stare out the window. Pretend to eat dinner. Go to bed.
Lila didn't know if it was easier this way or if she was just too tired to try anything else.
But something was different now.
The picture of her parents sat on her nightstand, and sometimes, late at night, she found herself staring at it. Tracing her mother's smile. Her father's warm eyes. It hurt, but it was a different kind of pain—less like drowning, more like something aching beneath the surface, waiting to be understood.
One morning, as she sat by the window, watching the early autumn leaves drift to the ground, Walter's voice broke the silence.
"I could use an extra pair of hands in the garden today."
Lila didn't move. She knew he wasn't expecting a response.
He never did.
But then, for some reason, maybe because she was tired of sitting in the same place, maybe because of the way Walter always tried but never pushed—she surprised herself.
"Why?"
Walter looked at her, startled. It was the first word she had spoken to him in weeks.
Then he smiled. Not a big, obvious smile. Just a small, knowing one.
"Because the weeds don't pull themselves," he said simply.
—
Lila stepped outside for the first time in days. The air was crisp, carrying the scent of damp earth and the last remnants of summer.
The garden was small but well-kept. Rows of flowers, neat patches of vegetables. A wooden bench sat beneath a tree, where her grandfather sometimes read in the afternoons.
Walter handed her a small spade and nodded toward a patch of overgrown weeds. "Just clear out as much as you can."
Lila stared at the dirt.
It felt strange to do something with her hands, something real.
She knelt down and hesitantly grabbed a weed, yanking it from the soil. The earth clung stubbornly, but after a little struggle, it gave way.
Walter worked beside her, silent but present.
For the first time in a long while, Lila didn't feel completely lost in her own head.
—
The afternoon stretched on.
She didn't talk much, but she listened.
Walter hummed under his breath as he worked, an old tune she vaguely recognized from her childhood. Once in a while, he'd say something about the plants—how tomatoes needed space to grow, how some flowers only bloomed in the right season.
Lila didn't respond. But she was listening.
That night, as she washed the dirt from her hands, she realized something.
For the first time since her parents died, she had done something outside her grief.
And for just a moment, it had felt okay.
—
The next morning, she found a pair of gardening gloves folded neatly on the kitchen counter.
Walter didn't say anything.
And neither did she.
But the next time he went to the garden, she followed.