The sweet peas are coming up.

He almost missed them — they are small, and the south bed is not the first thing he attends to in the morning, and he has been moving through the last two days with the specific distraction of a person who is trying to resolve something they haven’t yet managed to name. But on Thursday he goes to the south bed after his break, crouching to check for moisture, and he sees them.

Three shoots. No: five, when he looks carefully. Small pale loops, not yet fully vertical, still in the process of deciding which way is up. The cotyledons are the size of his thumbnail. They have the colour of something that has been in darkness and is not yet certain it’s safe to be green.

He crouches for a long time, looking at them.

He thinks about what it is that makes you plant something when you know what you know. He has been thinking about this since the seed packet — since before that, since the first morning she stood at the fence gap and stayed. He has been asking himself what it means to continue and has not arrived at an answer that satisfies him.

But the seeds don’t ask.

They simply push.

They do not know about Zone Viability Assessments or expedited secondary reviews. They do not know that the soil they are in may not be accessible in October. They are doing the only thing available to them: responding to warmth and moisture and the particular chemistry of the loam, which holds what they need and releases it slowly.

He presses his finger gently to the soil beside the nearest shoot. Close enough to feel the small resistance of the seedling without touching it.

He thinks: someone brought these here.

He thinks: she brought them before she knew. Before any of this was anything more than a woman standing at a fence and a man pretending not to watch. She brought them on the third day — the day after she saw him for the first time, the day she must have gone home and thought about what she’d seen and decided to respond to it with something that grows.

He does not know what that means.

He thinks it might mean something.

He stands up.

The morning is mild today. The sort of mild that could tip either way — toward spring or back toward winter — and you have to wait for the afternoon to know which it is.

He goes to start the next bed.