She may have waited too long. Francis’ aging body ached as she tended to her garden in the early morning, and she was relying on trickery more often than the gardening skills that she had so carefully nurtured over the decades. It was fall again and as she stared out the window at nothing in particular she wondered if she would live to see the spring. Francis’ house was in the middle of a small suburban block, just outside the city. It was a small white house with tidy black shutters nestled in a brilliant garden filled year round with flowers and vegetables, butterflies and bumble bees. A seemingly unending tangle of new growth and older shrubs and grasses – a busy nest of what could have been chaos were it not somehow, inexplicably, so beautiful. Although summer had barely made its exit, her garden was bursting with bold fall colors – bright orange tiger lilies leaning over the white picket fence, yellow sunflowers barely able stand under the weight of their majestic crowns...