Lily frowned.
"Did they grow back?"
Talia smiled.
"A few did. Others needed replacing."
The little girl looked toward the oldest plant.
Then asked whether the flowers remembered being hurt.
For a moment, the adults became quiet.
Talia knelt beside her.
She considered the question carefully.
Then answered.
"Plants don't remember things the way people do."
Lily nodded.
Talia continued.
"But when they're cared for properly, many can recover from damage."
The girl studied the flowers.
Then looked toward the watering can.
"Can I help?"
Talia smiled.
"Of course."
She showed Lily where the soil needed water.
The child poured slowly.
Several adults watched with gentle smiles.
For Talia, the moment was unexpectedly powerful.
A year earlier, she'd stood in almost the same place while a police officer destroyed the flowers and ordered her into handcuffs.
Now a little girl was learning how to care for them.
The contrast brought tears to her eyes.
But this time, they weren't tears of humiliation.
They were tears of gratitude.
Later, when the guests had returned home, Talia remained outside.
The afternoon sunlight was beginning to soften.
She sat on the porch steps holding Lorraine's old gardening notebook.
The restored roses moved gently in the breeze.
For several minutes, she simply listened to the sounds of the neighborhood.
Children playing.
Birds calling.
And distant traffic moving through the streets.
Then her phone vibrated.
It was a message from Marcus Reed, her colleague at the state oversight office.
He'd received an update concerning another municipality reviewing its contractor-enforcement practices.
The investigation there had identified similar documentation weaknesses, and local officials were introducing corrective measures before serious harm occurred.
Talia read the message.
Then smiled faintly.
The work would never be finished.
There would always be new complaints.
New policies.
And new questions about how public authority should be exercised.
But sometimes one carefully documented problem revealed weaknesses that could be corrected elsewhere.
She replied with a brief acknowledgment.
Then placed her phone beside her.
For once, she wasn't interested in reading another report.
She wanted to sit with her mother's roses.
As evening approached, Talia walked toward the garden.
She wore the olive-green crop top, oversized camouflage cargo shorts, and tan suede boots from the morning of the arrest.
Her short platinum-white hair caught the fading sunlight.
The small black handbag hung from her shoulder.
Inside was the official credential card that had changed the atmosphere of the confrontation.
She rarely thought about the card now.
Not because her work was unimportant.
But because she'd come to understand how painfully limited its protection had been.
The credential didn't prevent Mercer from kicking the roses.
It didn't prevent the shove.