Chapter 131

Aria's POV

June arrived with its particular generosity.

The long days, the way evenings extended themselves past what felt reasonable, the garden coming into its full summer self after the tentative negotiations of spring. Margaret moved through it with the satisfaction of someone seeing a long-tended thing at its peak, assessing and tending and occasionally standing still simply to look, which was its own form of tending.

Kira had started spending evenings in the garden with her observation notebook. Not looking for beetles specifically — though she found them — but recording the quality of the long light, the specific way shadows moved at seven in the evening...