"Sometimes we don't grow past our grief—we grow around it, like vines curling toward light."
Krish woke up to the sound of sparrows. They were louder than usual. Or maybe he was just listening better now.
The morning was soft. The kind of morning where the sky seems unsure, half blue, half gold, as if deciding what kind of day it would be.
He dressed slowly. Pulled the curtains aside. The garden was glowing with dew.
There was a part of the yard he hadn't gone near since it happened. The small corner by the back wall where Papa used to sit— on a wooden stool, mug of tea in hand, always looking like he was waiting for something. Or someone.
The stool had stayed there all this time. Dusty. Weather-worn. Untouched.
Krish stood at the threshold. Barefoot. Unsure.
Then slowly, he stepped forward. Crossed the wet grass. The cold bit at his feet, but he didn't stop.
When he reached the stool, he sat. It creaked beneath him, as if waking from a long sleep.
He looked around. The garden was wild now. Overgrown. Unkept.
But beautiful in a way only forgotten things can be.
The marigolds were still there. Bent but blooming. A vine had curled along the back wall, and bees moved from flower to flower like they had never stopped.
Krish inhaled slowly. Let the air fill the hollow inside.
He whispered, "I thought this place would feel like a wound. But it feels like you."
His mother saw him from the window. She didn't come out. She didn't need to. She just watched. And her eyes filled, not with grief, but with something else. Something gentler.
That day, Krish cleaned the corner. He pulled the weeds gently, as if the earth might bruise. Swept away the dead leaves. Washed the stool. Wiped it dry.
By evening, it looked like a place that remembered joy.
He brought his notebook out, sat on the stool, and began to write.
But not a letter. A poem. One he didn't plan. One that came like breath:
"You didn't leave in thunder. You left in tea cups, and tools on the floor. In soft shirts folded neatly. In the garden path worn by habit.
You didn't say goodbye, but you left a seat warm. And I found it again today. Not empty. Just waiting."
He tore the page out. Tucked it beneath a brick near the stool. Let the wind keep it company.
That night, he told his mother he wanted to plant something new. "Right there," he said, pointing.
She thought for a moment. Then said, "Lemons. He always said we should grow lemons."
They planted it together the next morning. Krish dug the hole. His mother placed the sapling. They watered it in silence. A silence full of things that didn't need saying.
Days passed. The garden changed. The air changed. Krish changed.
But the stool stayed. And so did the vine. And every now and then, Krish found himself sitting there, watching the leaves move, writing new pages, hearing old voices.
And one evening, when the sky turned orange again, he wrote:
"Dear Papa, The garden you left behind has started to bloom again. But not the same. It's wild now. It grows like I do— around the space you left.
But it grows.
Love, Krish."
He folded the letter. Didn't place it under a pillow. Didn't hide it in a drawer.
He placed it in the soil by the roots of the lemon tree.
And whispered, "Grow with us."