I flinched.
“And I should’ve talked to you before I called him,” he added. “I should’ve talked to you before any of it.”
The next morning, I took the rooftop key and went up alone.
The bench was too large. The plaque felt worse.
I removed Liv’s name and carried it downstairs.
That afternoon, I called Ben.
“If we’re going to finish this, I need your help.”
We changed almost everything.
We kept one large planter and one chair. No plaque. No shrine.
I chose basil.
Greg chose rosemary.
Ben chose mint.
“Liv liked mint,” Ben said.
Greg smiled.
“She liked ignoring instructions too.”
A week later, Ben found me watering the planter.
“My partner would like to come with me sometime.”
My hand stopped over the basil.
The old answer rose immediately.
No.
Then I looked at the new leaves.
“Not the first time,” I said.
He nodded.
“But someday soon.”
When the garden was ready, Greg asked, “Do you want anyone else up here?”
“No.”
He accepted it.
Later, he looked around.
“You took almost everything out. Is this enough?”
I pulled Liv’s old seed packet from my pocket.
“No.”
“We plant these.”
“Together?”
I looked at him.
“We’ve done enough grieving separately.”
I knelt first.
My hands shook as I opened the packet.
“If they die, I’ll plant more.”
Ben crouched beside me.
Greg planted next.
Nothing magically healed.
Some weeks the herbs grew. Some weeks they looked terrible.
Ben visited when he could.
The mint ignored every boundary we gave it.
And when something wilted, I didn’t treat it like another funeral.
I trimmed it.
I replanted.
I stayed.
One evening, Greg stood by the door with the rooftop key.
“You coming up?”
I looked at the dishes in the sink, then at him.
“Is the basil still alive?”
“It doesn’t look happy.”
I set the towel down.
“Then it clearlyurm needs me.”
Greg held out his hand.
I took it.
For years, I’d thought loving Liv meant protecting every piece of her from change.
But love wasn’t keeping something frozen so I wouldn’t have to lose it again.
Sometimes love was planting it anyway.
And this time, when I opened the rooftop door, I wasn’t walking toward another goodbye.
