“Did you know I hadn’t agreed to this?”
“I knew you didn’t know. I didn’t realize you’d already said no.”
I turned back to Greg.
“We’re done for tonight. Nobody touches another thing until I decide what happens.”
“Simone…”
“I’m not destroying it. I’m asking for one night where nobody makes another decision for me. She’s my daughter too.”
The next morning, I asked the building manager if Greg had permission to use the roof.
“Yes. He said you didn’t know yet.”
Then he smiled.
“Liv once said somebody should grow herbs up there. Then she said you could kill basil in under a week.”
A laugh caught me by surprise.
Liv had complained about my lack of green thumbs for years.
That afternoon, I called Ben.
“Can you meet me for coffee?”
At the café, I asked why he’d come back.
“Greg called me.”
He told me Greg wanted to build something for Liv and asked him to help.
“I came because I miss Liv with my entire being, Simone. And because I thought enough time had passed.”
“For what?”
“For you not to look at me like moving forward meant I’d stopped loving her.”
I remembered the dinner when Ben told us he was seeing someone.
I’d said, “Well, that was fast.”
Three years.
I had been cruel.
“I’m sorry, Ben.”
“You were grieving.”
“Both can be true.”
“I didn’t stop loving her because I kept living.”
I carried that sentence home with me.
That evening, I opened Liv’s box.
Inside were her gardening tools, an ugly mug she adored, and an old packet of herb seeds.
Then I found a photograph.
Liv and Ben were sitting on overturned buckets on our rooftop. Along the border, Liv had drawn a crooked planter box.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I went to find Greg.
“The roof stays closed.”
He stared at me.
“You don’t get to decide that by yourself.”
“I found the photograph.”
