The storm came all night. Wind howled through the neighborhood, and rain hammered the roof like a thousand tiny drums. Maya pressed her face to the cold kitchen window.
She watched water pour over the ruined garden — Jayden's garden, where he had planted rows of bright flowers just last spring. Her arms wrapped tight around a small tin of sunflower seeds he had left behind.
The next morning, the storm had passed. The garden was a mess of mud and broken stems. Maya stepped outside in her boots and knelt down. She took the tin and began to dig tiny holes with her fingers.
A fat earthworm wiggled past her thumb. She paused. Jayden would have laughed at that. A small smile touched her lips, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
Weeks went by. Every morning, Maya watered the bare patches of dirt. She waited. She watched. But nothing pushed through the soil.
She sat on the back porch steps, the empty tin heavy in her lap. Gray clouds rolled in over the neighborhood, and the wind picked up, whispering through the bare garden stems.
A knock came at the back fence. The elderly woman from next door stood there, holding a small clay pot and a bright orange seed packet. 'My Jayden loved these,' she said.
The words caught in the young girl's throat. Jayden had loved marigolds too. She nodded, and the neighbor woman walked around the fence and knelt beside her in the dirt.
'My own garden grew again after my husband passed,' the neighbor said, scattering the tiny orange seeds into the soil. 'One seed at a time.' The young girl patted the dirt flat over the new seeds.
When the young girl stood up, a bright orange butterfly fluttered down from somewhere and landed softly on her wrist. She gasped and went perfectly still, her eyes wide.
The butterfly lifted off and drifted toward the center of the garden bed. The young girl followed it, dropping to her knees and brushing away the soil with her fingers.
There — pushing up through the earth — was a tiny green shoot. A single sunflower seed had found its way into the light. The butterfly settled onto one of its leaves.
The young girl's hands trembled as she cupped the shoot gently. She stayed like that for a long time, watching the butterfly, watching the green leaf reach toward the sun.
The next morning, the young girl carried the clay pot of marigolds to the edge of the garden bed. She arranged them in a neat row beside the single sunflower shoot.
The neighbor woman leaned over the wooden fence, her silver hair caught in the morning breeze. 'They're beautiful,' she said. The young girl looked up and smiled back — small, but real.
The garden was growing again. One shoot at a time.