I knelt down on one knee and cupped one heavy blossom in the palm of my hand.

The smell was sweet and deep, mixed with the cool dampness of freshly turned earth.

Nobody had weeded or fed those roots for thirty years, but they had come up through the hard ground anyway.

Nate came down the steps behind me, his work boots pressing quiet paths through the tall clover.

“Those red ones came in thick this year,” he said, standing beside my shoulder.

“Your grandmother had peonies just like these along her back driveway,” I said.