By the third visit, she began to question her own memory. Maybe she’d misremembered the mess, imagined disorder so she could feel useful tending to it. Grief blurred things that way. Still, when she brushed the soil flat herself that day, she knew exactly how she’d left it.
Two days later, she returned with a plan. She took a photo on her phone—flowers tilted left, one petal missing, soil uneven. Gathering proof was a way to anchor her senses. She lingered only briefly, touching the cool stone before walking away, uneasy but determined to see what would change.