After Ghost died we planted a tree in his memory. When I had seen his days were numbered, I went to Target and bought a roll of burlap in the gift section. I watched him under the piano and bound his burial bag with yellow ribbon. It was gold like he was.

Dad dug a hole in the corner by the fences. That afternoon a couple of the kids and I went to Lowe’s to buy plants. I had no idea what to buy, but what was left of the selection included a pallet of gardenia trees. We came home with one plus one hydrangea plant for either side. I was originally going for symmetry but in the end it worked out. The hydrangea plants were the cherubim. And the open path to the gardenia tree meant the tree of life was no longer barred. There’s even a grapevine, leftover from a Lowe’s trip from several years ago, that miraculously grows.

I never planted the echinacea. I watched it in its pot, tipped over in the wind and dried up by the sun. And I lined up the rocks, and matching more to make a border. Those greens did not outlast the fires, but for a summer, there was Eden in my own backyard.