I should have been annoyed.
Instead, I laughed.
That was Dean’s gift.
He could make an ordinary moment feel safe, even when nothing about our life was safe anymore.
We planted the tree together.
Mostly, I dug while he gave instructions from a lawn chair.
When it was finally in the ground, he pressed the soil down with his shoe and rested one hand against the thin trunk.
« Give it time, » he said. « It’ll surprise you. »
Dean died four months later.
For the first two years, the tree produced nothing.
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