"I will."
"And if I show up for the unglamorous parts—watering schedules, brick-wall coffees, elevator rides without speeches—will you let me?"
Celeste looked at him: camel coat dusty with soil now, burgundy scarf crooked, face pink with cold, eyes steady. She looked at June pretending not to listen. At Ms. Kwan locking the shed. At Tully bribing Pocket with the sound of a treat bag. At the FARVEES-blue memory of the night the SOLD tag went up under two pairs of hands.
"Yes," she said. "With conditions we already named. And with room for new ones if we need them."
"Deal," he said.
They did not stay until dark. No one asked them to. The ending of the morning was a scattering: June taking Hattie toward hot lunch, Ms. Kwan catching a bus with her spade wrapped in burlap, Tully declaring Pocket had done enough community service for one year. Celeste and Gideon walked together as far as Reza's, where BUTTON'S COURAGE turned out to be strong coffee with orange peel and a dash of something spicy that made Celeste's eyes water in a way she decided to call hopeful.
Reza watched them from the counter. "Needles?" he asked.
"Planted," Celeste said.
"Good," Reza said. "Then you can sit at the front table. Front table is for people who have put something in the ground."
They sat. Outside, a yellow taxi passed. Snow began again, light as dust. Inside, nobody asked them to define what they were. The drinks steamed. Their knees almost touched under the table and then did. Celeste thought of the first tree, the fake snow on Gideon's hair, the laugh she had not expected to still own. Gideon thought of the empty corner waiting at home and, for the first time in months, did not hate it for its emptiness. Emptiness, correctly held, was just room for what came next.
"So," Celeste said, echoing herself from a colder night, softer now, earned now, "about that coffee."
Gideon smiled, not satisfied exactly—satisfaction was too small a word—but present. "About that coffee," he said.
And they drank it while it was hot, which was, after everything, a kind of vow ordinary enough to keep.