CAREFULLY TENDED.

Rays of early morning light cast across the grounds, with the soft mist gradually clearing to reveal the dew left behind on each petal and leaf. This garden is secluded, hidden away in a place where all the plants and flowers are constantly in bloom. This is possible because she and I tend to it every single day.

She is three years old. She has hair that's past shoulder length with bangs, a cute little gap between her two front teeth. She's wearing a denim jacket over a red shirt and baggy jeans with red socks and brown boots. She's a smiley girl.

This is our home. We're always together, reveling in our uninhibited joy and feeling constantly in awe of what we've created together, and what we're still creating. We move through this space holding hands. Her hand feels soft and warm in my own, her grip comfortable. She has to reach her arm up to hold mine. This is how our mornings go — a long walk around our home, admiring how everything is growing and thriving. She points to each flower and admires its colors, petals, scents. We've got every bloom we love here — jasmine, butterfly ranunculus, dahlia, zinnia, so much more. The bees and butterflies and birds have always made their home here too.

But our most treasured bloom is our wisteria tree, a small one but with strong roots, right in the center of the garden. We each take in a few deep breaths near the tree to let our favorite scent fill our lungs. It instantly calms us. This became our ritual back when we first discovered this plant. It would only survive a few weeks out of the entire year. But we found a way to make ours live beyond its time. Maybe that's why we treasure it so much, because we know how rare it is to find something that lasts.

The first was lost, didn't have a way back to his own garden. He walked up beside me and started talking before I even noticed he was there. He asked if he could stay for a while. She tugged at my arm and squeezed my hand with a scared look on her face. What I didn't realize was that the plants he brought with him were invasive ones — they spread slowly at first, then all at once, until they were the only things left thriving. Everything else wilted, colorless, nearly choked out. The wisteria tree drooped and lost its scent. She sobbed when she looked around and realized how far our land was from what it used to be. It took a long time to undo what his plants had done.

The second was just passing through. She felt he was a good gardener, but knew right away he could not stay. I hoped he would anyway, so I asked him to stay for a while. Her hand in mine pulled me down so I could crouch down next to her. She looked at me and said he has his own garden to tend to, he'll be going back there one day. During his time with us his attention was focused on me, on giving me the gift of his flowering vine — a resilient one with periwinkle flowers. He placed it near the wisteria tree, where both could get the most sun. It was his gift to us before his departure. My eyes were stinging trying to hold back tears. She held onto my hand with both hands and pressed her cheek to it. I felt her own tears on my hand too, softer ones than my own. The garden drooped for a little while in mourning, but began to thrive again eventually.

The third — He wasn't so much lost as he was sealed. He had learned somewhere along the way, maybe long before he found us, that the closer you let someone in, the more precisely they could hurt you. So he kept himself just far enough away from everything warm. When he wandered past our garden and I invited him to stay, I think he wanted to. I think that was the truest thing about him — that he wanted to, and didn't quite know how.

He left the first time before anything could reach him. She and I were a bit disappointed but let him go. What I didn't know then was what it cost him to come back. To return was to shed something he'd been wearing his whole life — not quite armor, more like a second skin he'd grown so used to he'd forgotten it wasn't his own. He came back and said he didn't mean what he said before. She hid behind me and pulled my hand with her. I looked down at her and said, look, see? He came back. She looked at him and back at me, not completely convinced. But she loosened her grip, just slightly.

He stayed for a while. During that time, the three of us built something together — a small reflecting pond, right beside the wisteria tree. We worked on it slowly, carefully, like we were building something meant to last. She was fascinated by it from the first moment the water settled. She crouched down at the edge and watched her reflection watching her back. She stuck out her tongue and made a funny face, then burst into her big unfiltered laugh when her reflection did the same thing at the same time. He laughed too. I hadn't heard her laugh like that in a while — that open, unselfconscious, completely herself kind of laugh. She could be that way around him. We both could.

He saw me as the embodiment of grace. Not grace as something formal or performed, but the quality of the hands that tended this place. The way I moved through it. The way I treated what was growing, and the people who wandered in. He named it, quietly, without making a ceremony of it. I think that was his gift — not something from the outside that he planted, but a surface he helped us build so we could finally see what was already here.

But he was also standing at a crossroads of his own. Uncertainty had moved into every corner of his life at once, and I think he was trying to find solid ground wherever he could. He wanted us to come with him. But that would have meant leaving what was ours behind. She noticed, before I did, how the garden had begun to show the strain — not from cruelty, nothing like before, but from two people who each had their own tending to do that the other couldn't do for them. She looked up at me one afternoon with quiet knowing in her eyes. I understood.

He left. She was sniffling, her tears slower and softer than other times. We stood together at the edge of the pond for a while without saying anything. Then she crouched down and looked into the water. She stared at her reflection for a long moment, then let her gaze drift slowly across the surface. In the distance, she saw the reflection of an olive branch — from a tree on the other side of the garden we hadn't paid much attention to before. She tilted her head in thought. Wondering, quietly, how we might use it one day.

The fourth found the place in a really healthy state. He sought me out first, distracting me with his gardening costume. I let him stay for a while to admire the land. He dressed like a gardener, talked like a gardener, seemed caring like a gardener. I assumed he would help take care of it. She wasn't completely convinced. And she was right. She cried hard because what we tended to looked much worse than it did the last time someone came to stay. The earth over time became shriveled up and wilted. The wisteria tree didn't have any flowers, only bare branches. I didn't understand why this was happening. Until I found out he was a fake — he pretended to help other people with their gardens when he actually lingered around long enough for the plants to wither. And then he'd move on to the next plot to do it all over again. He disappeared without a word. We pruned the bare wisteria branches together, me cutting with shears and her gathering the branches to throw into the compost. I told her with a smile, you're doing a great job. She laughed her big unfiltered laugh and ran around with more energy to collect more branches faster, motivated to revive our favorite tree.

The fifth — rain clouds started drifting in above us, and not long afterwards, he arrived. It was sprinkling out. I asked him if he'd like to stay a while. She gripped my hand and said we needed to test him, see if he's a real gardener. So I asked him lots of questions — what was his garden like, how did he tend to his plants, how would he show up for what we've built. He gave correct answers. She still looked scared of him though. His eyes moved past me almost immediately and landed on her. She was the most alive presence in this place and I think that's exactly why he chose her as his target. He stayed for quite a while. And so did the rain, constant downpour. Over time when we'd work with him, he would voice more and more often each thing he didn't like about what we've created — everything from where things were placed to the ways she and I tended. He was especially cruel to her. Watching her move through the garden and doing things her way, which has always worked for her and me before, when it was just the two of us. And everything was absolutely thriving then. He constantly went up to her and told her she was doing it all wrong. He kept telling her to stop, his voice getting louder each time. To let him do it. He would pluck up every flower that she planted, just to make himself seem like he was the best gardener there. He was the one who was meanest to her, and she was pushed to the point where she couldn't take it anymore. She wailed and screamed and yanked at my arm like it was a tug-of-war rope. She kept asking me to make him leave. It would be a long time before I kicked him out. The one time I actually stood up for both me and her, I screamed at him to get out because he ruined our sanctuary. Plucked flowers were scattered all over the grounds, plants were shriveled up and torn apart. The wisteria tree was cut down to a stump. He was holding an ax, and he tried to twist my words so that it seemed like all of this destruction was my fault. He left.

The ground is absolutely muddy with the storm coming down hard. The thunder is crackling so loud it's like it's roaring. It's nighttime by now, and under the dim moonlight I can barely see her face. The rain feels like pellets hitting my skin and it's cold out. From down here on my knees, the garden looks completely unrecognizable. The plants are uprooted and flowers are ripped out of the ground, tossed aside, far from where they were originally planted. Next to the tree stump is the severed top of the tree. He had plucked every cluster of flowers from the branches first, one by one, and then taken the ax to the trunk. He made sure before he left to take the blooms with him, because he was threatened by such a beautiful tree and by the talent of the hands that tended to it. He could not stand to see another gardener be that skilled, so he tried to ruin what she and I worked so hard to nurture and let thrive.

She is beside me, lying face down on the ground, her head buried in her arms folded out in front of her, crying into them. Loudly, screaming and wailing. She's kicking her legs around so muddy water is splashing everywhere and she's covered in mud. I am the one who reaches for her. I try to pull her up but she resists me at first, keeping her head buried in her arms and kicking harder and splashing more. I feel her body weight droop a bit under my grip — she's tired of fighting me and she feels heavy. I sit criss cross on the ground and I pull her into my lap, cradling her in my arms and hunching over her to shield her from the rain as best I can. Her cry doesn't get softer. Her wailing and screaming hold nothing back, and she's right up against my ear. I'd been ignoring her cry for months and she demands that I hear the full force of how she's been hurt. And I don't stop her. I let her cry ring in my ears for as long as she's got it in her, because I need to show her that I hear her now. My heart tightens in pain like it's a fruit being crushed by someone's bare hands. The rain and thunder are so loud but I try anyway. I ask her to look at me. When I find her gaze, I tell her: I promise I will never abandon our garden again. I will protect you, and our garden. This is our home. She looks at me through her tears and some wheezing escapes in between her cries. She looks away and keeps crying, but she nuzzles her face closer into my shoulder and wraps her arms and legs around me, her hands clutching my dress with whatever strength she has left.

We sit there for a while with our eyes closed, waiting for the rain to lighten up, waiting for her crying to slow. I rock my body back and forth to help her calm down, rubbing her back and telling her over and over again, it's going to be okay. We're safe now. The rain gradually lightens up, eventually stopping and bringing the dawn. I turn to look at her and see her eyes are closed. Her breathing is slow and steady, her hands have loosened their grip — they're relaxed and resting against my back. She's asleep. I just keep rubbing her back and wait for her to wake up. She's been through so much, and I want her to decide when she's ready to join me again in the waking world.

My hands move with intention — building, constructing, forming. And that intention is to make her feel safe. She will have a say in who enters the garden. This is our home.

I'm building an Italian style wrought iron gate colored bronze. It features ornate scrolls and cascading tendrils. Over time, some of the vines start to crawl onto the gate and cascade over, making it more beautiful. The structure takes time to build — I'm the one taking care of that while she works on the plants. All of them. I want her to have complete creative freedom and autonomy when it comes to reviving our garden. I trust her completely and want her to feel like she can trust me too. She shows gentle care to each and every plant and flower, and most especially the wisteria tree.

One morning I look up from my work and find her standing alone at the center of the garden, in front of the wisteria tree. It's flowering again for the first time since we'd revived it. She doesn't call out to me or point or giggle. She just stands there, eyes closed, and takes in a long slow breath of its scent. All to herself. I watch her and don't say a word.

Eventually the gate is finished and what's ours is restored. We show each other all the work we've done, telling each other how proud we are of one another. I remove from my neck a small gold key attached to a delicate but sturdy gold chain. It unlocks the wooden door at the front of the gate, where the entrance to the garden is. I crouch down to her level and show it to her. She's mesmerized by how shiny and pretty it is. I tell her: it's yours, you get to keep it safe. Just like you've kept me safe all this time. I put the chain around her neck so she can wear it like a necklace, and she smiles so big. She throws her arms around me in the tightest hug that a three year old could possibly give with her short arms and little hands. And I hug her just as tight. She's calm — I can feel her breathing slow. And somehow my own syncs with hers. I don't let go until she does.

The garden is not only revived — it's been thriving like never before. It's been just me and her for a while, starting each day with our morning walk and admiring it all. Tending, nurturing, laughing, playing, relaxing. Even planting new things. It was her idea. She believed this place had been restored to the safe space it was always meant to be, and said that it's time to welcome more beauty in. I thought she was just talking about flowers and plants. I didn't think too hard about it. I just followed her lead.

She has become the expert of everything in our garden and she's a natural. I gradually begin to notice what's different. The sunlight shines brighter. The colors are more vivid and the scents are more fragrant. The butterflies and bees and birds have returned home here too. When she's not tending, she follows the butterflies as they flutter across the greenery, crouching down to watch them closely, observing their every movement, giggling with delight. There's one she's grown particularly fond of — a bright yellow one with a dainty flutter that always comes to find her. Sometimes she calls out to me to look at what they're doing. I smile at her, wanting her to keep alive that wonder and joy.

She leans over a flower, talking to her yellow butterfly, asking it what they want to do together in the garden today. Then she hears leaves rustling from outside, unhurried footsteps gently stepping. She looks past the flower and the butterfly and further out past the gate. There's a man. She's not quite scared — more curious. She tiptoes closer to the gate to get a better look at him. He doesn't see her at first. He's silently admiring the vines that have made their home on the gate, his gaze wandering slowly over the beauty of what's growing there. She watches him. He's walking around slowly from a distance, sometimes bending down to smell the flowers, but he doesn't touch anything. He eventually finds his way to the front door. She rustles something in the bushes and he looks toward where the noise came from. They look at each other for a moment. And he smiles at her — a genuine one. She smiles back instinctively, her cute little gap between her two front teeth showing. He notices and chuckles. But then her face falls and her eyes widen. She disappears and comes running to find me.

I'm working on a freshly tilled spot in the soil when I hear her little boots stomping on the ground as she runs up to me. She tells me someone is at the door. I look at her wide eyes and watch her catch her breath — she's not afraid, but her voice is urgent, her face serious in a way I haven't seen before. I put down my tools. She takes my hand and rushes me to the front door.

The man has stepped back a bit from the entrance, leisurely pacing. He hears us approaching and glances up at me. Our eyes meet and he doesn't look away for a few seconds. Her hand in mine pulls at my arm, snapping me back. I crouch down to her level to meet her gaze. I ask her how she found him, what he's doing here, how she feels about what she's seen of him. She doesn't have any clear answers. She tells me she just followed her butterfly friend, and there he was. And he smiles at her — her, first, before me.

I ask her: how do you feel? Would you like to let him in? She looks back at him — waiting, unhurried, still looking at us calmly. A bit expectantly but without impatience or entitlement. She grins a bit and nods at me. She takes my hand and walks me toward the gate. She pulls the key from around her neck and turns it inside the keyhole to unlock the door. She waves him inside, to walk through the threshold. He smiles at her and tells her, thank you. And she smiles that huge gap-tooth smile again.

He moves through the doorway and into our refuge. He looks at me with a smile and his gaze moves outward. He's in awe of what he sees, his eyes following wherever the morning light's rays are shining. She and I watch him tread softly, following the grassy pathways weaving throughout the whole garden. He admires, he compliments our work, he asks questions about how or why we chose these flowers and plants. Sometimes his jaw drops from looking at something that catches him by surprise. I answer his questions and receive his compliments tentatively at first. She still holds my hand and giggles at his reactions.

He notices the freshly tilled spot in the soil. He asks me what we plan on doing here, and I say we don't know yet. He looks around at the garden, down at the tilled soil, and then at me. He asks: may I please plant something here? I look down at her and she's already grinning up at me, nodding and holding back a giggle. I tell him yes. He smiles and nods a thank you, takes out a seed from his pocket — she and I don't recognize what kind it is — and he plants it.

She and I watch the way he works — caring, intentional, gentle. His focus is that of a gardener who is also passionate about nurturing a living thing. He does things differently from how we do them, and she asks him questions about why he does things that way, what it's for, can he show her. He invites us to come closer and see. She's fascinated and I feel calm. He sees her, includes her, encourages her. I didn't think that someone could really do that for her, after what we've been through. Tears start to well up in my eyes and I try to hold them back with a smile. He's in mid-conversation with her when he looks up at me and notices. I look down and blink back the tears before they escape.

His hands move swiftly to cover the seed with dirt and he finds a clear spot in the grass to sit down. He waves us over and asks if we'd like to just sit and talk for a while, so we do. She's sitting in my lap, her gaze moving back and forth between him and me. He's talking to us both but it's mostly me conversing with him — she's observing. She can see not only how at ease and like myself I feel around him, but also how the garden is thriving even more with him there. The weather is calm, sunny, pleasant. There's that slight chill in the air that reminds me of early spring. He says silly jokes to make her laugh in between the conversations he and I have together.

She squeezes my hand and looks up at me, smiling, giggling, then looking back at him. He chuckles and smiles too. She points to the flower he planted. It's in bloom, and it complements the rest of the garden beautifully. He didn't tell us what he planted, and somehow it blends right in with its surroundings. It makes this place — whole and beautiful on its own — somehow even better. She and I look at each other and make a silent agreement. I ask him if he'd like to stay and plant more flowers together. He smiles a smile and looks at me with a gaze that tells me he's been waiting patiently this whole time for my yes. To come from me, not forced by him.

He takes out another seed from his pocket — she and I not knowing what this one is either — and asks her to show him where in the space we could plant this next one. She hops out of my lap, takes his hand, and shows him the way. They work together to plant the new flower. At one point she brings over her gardening tools and tells him to just watch her work. She concentrates and feels proud of how she tends, and he's just in awe of her. He gives her more seeds, and also asks her to bring more of her own. And they plant together.

I till more soil to make room for more flowers and plants. He comes over to help me. As we work the ground together, we look over and watch her, talking to the bees and birds and her butterfly friends. He's come to find out how hard I've worked to protect her and our garden. It's our refuge, our sanctuary, our soft place to land. He takes my hand that's still buried in the dirt and holds it. He looks me in the eye and promises me he will protect her too. He will protect me too.

He lets go, and I feel something in my hand. I look down to find a key — the key to his own garden. He tells me there's a place he'd like to take us to one day, if we'd like. It's a place we can visit any time we want. We are always welcome. But he doesn't ask us to leave ours behind. It's simply another place we can tend together. He knows our home will always be here, in our garden. And this key he's given me — he asks me to keep it. I want you to decide when, and I'll be here whenever you two want to go.