She had stripped every branch bare.
She thought she had taken everything.
But she hadn’t.
Because the most important things had never been hanging from those trees in the first place.
And every autumn after that, when my children gathered beneath the branches and filled baskets with fruit, I remembered the night Monica crossed our fence.
I remembered how angry I had been.
How helpless I had felt.
How certain I was that she had stolen something irreplaceable.
And then I looked at my children.
I looked at the trees.
I looked at the overflowing baskets.
And I smiled.
Because some things can be stolen.
Some things can be broken.
Some things can be taken away.
But love, once planted deeply enough, has a way of growing back.
And Daniel’s garden was proof.
