Dale found an apartment in Spokane before spring arrived. Brynn came into the garden one Saturday and quietly asked if I would teach her how Nana’s seeds worked. We never discussed the video. There was no dramatic apology or forced conversation. We simply planted together, letting the soil fill the silence between us. In April, the magnolia bloomed over the front steps, and I spent an afternoon sanding a worn section of the pine floor with a borrowed sander and two cans of oil.

By July, the first tomato ripened. I carried it inside and placed it on the pale yellow kitchen counter, then stood there for a moment looking around the room Nana had protected for me. I finally understood what her letter had really meant. She had never been asking me to wait for a place at the table. She had been asking me to stop waiting for permission to belong. The farmhouse was mine, not because I had won it from anyone, but because Nana had trusted me to care for it. She had never been asking me to wait. She had been asking me to stay.