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Hart was, and would always be, a gardener. But his love of plants hadn’t started because he naturally gravitated toward them. For him, gardening came into his life as a form of punishment. And as with most things in his world, good and bad, Heather had been there for it.

When they were five years old and bored, the twins watched as one of the gardeners deadheaded the lilies that grew around the perimeter of the lawn. Hart had no idea what deadheading was, or why it was vital to the lifespan of the flowers and their repeat blooming. All he saw was the worker snipping flowerheads off their stems. What the twins did next was all Heather’s idea. She ran into the house, through its drafty corridors and echoing stairwells, all the way to the third floor, where their playroom was. And then, fully inhabiting the role of the dangerous and rebellious child, she came back out of the house running with scissors.

The twins hid in the bushes, waiting for the gardener to move on to another part of the garden. Then they pounced, brandishing their safety scissors like they were pirate swords. They spent the hour before dinnertime finishing the job that the gardener had clearly been too lazy to complete. They cut off every healthy lily until the only thing that bordered the lawn were soft stem spikes and a carpet of white petal confetti.

When Mrs. Hargrove came out to call her children in for dinner, her mouth hung open so low it nearly fell off her face. And Heather, either because she was an expert at getting in trouble, or because she was genuinely scared, tossed her scissors into the debris and threw her hands up to her face, crying into them.

“What did you kids do?” Mrs. Hargrove asked.

Hart took one look at his mom, and one look at his sister, and a final look at his own pair of scissors, still clutched in his hand. “It was me,” he said. It may have been the first time he’d gotten his sister out of a bind, but it would be far from the last.

“First you’re going to clean this up,” Mrs. Hargrove said, bending to Hart’s level. “And then, tomorrow, we plant more flowers.”

And just as she said, the next day, Hart got to work. Cait Hargrove was prepared with dozens of pots of full-grown flowers—larkspur this time—ready to be transplanted. It may have seemed like a punishment at first, but by the end of that day, Hart realized that the garden was the only place he ever wanted to be.

It was Hart’s mother who really fostered his fascination with plant life. She was always among the flowers in the Abundance Garden, wide-brimmed hat on and hand tools in a wicker basket by her side. Hart started tagging along with her while she gardened. Dad preferred that Hart spend more time practicing piano or reading books, but the more time that he spent in the garden, the more it unfurled before him like a secret code. How to take something tiny and cultivate its environment to turn it into something thriving and beautiful. It seemed both complicated and easy enough if you were diligent and patient. If he was careful, and worked with intention, then he was instrumental in bringing something to life. Hart became entranced with the puzzle of this particular world.

Mom encouraged his new interest. She called Hart her little horticulturalist, even when he started to be not so little anymore. She taught him how to make a fist around a clump of soil to check if it was healthy, and what it might need if it wasn’t. She showed him how to collect seeds once a flower had died; which flowers preferred a lot of sun and which plants grew better in a shady spot. By the time he planted his first seed and watched it bloom into a bright white daisy, Hart began to feel what he suspected his mom felt every time she was out in the gardens. The joy sprouted on the stem, and in his soul.

While other boys were becoming interested in video games, or sports, or breaking rules, Hart got really into flowers. There were some areas in the garden where the flowers grew so high and bountiful that you could walk through them and get lost in tiny worlds. Whole colorful planets at his fingertips. To Hart, there was nothing like it. Cupping a sorbet-colored ball of dahlia in the palm of his hand, breathing in the musky-sweet notes of jasmine, watching the pollen-dressed bees buzzing in the fluff.

The flowers made something in Hart’s soul stir. Or settle. Or float. He wasn’t sure what, but it felt like he’d discovered a secret that no one else knew about. That all you needed to feel perfectly in balance with the world were flowers.

He found comfort in the cyclical nature of garden life the way a child finds comfort in the dependable structure of a daily routine. Plant a seed. Watch it bloom. Let it die. Start the process all over again.

But it wasn’t something he could talk about with anyone else. It wasn’t like he could just walk into school with a bouquet of cut flowers. Although he tried it once in seventh grade. He had a crush on Lexi Atwil, which finally gave him an excuse to bring flowers to school. He brought her a bouquet of deep pink anemones every day for a week until she and everyone else in school started to refer to him as the Flower Freak. After that, Hart decided he would never try to blend his garden world with the outside world again.

The only person he knew he could share his love of gardening and flowers with was his mother. And it wasn’t just the planting of seeds that she guided him through. It was the wishing on them, too.

In the Wish Garden, Hart’s mother always instructed that he first say his wish out loud, in order to really sound it out. If he could hear it, he’d spot the flaws in it. And spotting the flaws, according Hart’s mom, was the most important part of the process.

“I wish I could live forever,” Hart said, cheeky smile in place because he already knew what his mom would say.

“Too big.” She volleyed back her own smile. “And you know what happens when you make a wish that’s too big.”

Hart nodded. “I guess what I really want is to speed things up. The pincushion flowers in the greenhouse started to sprout, and I really want to see if they’re gonna turn out orange.”

But his mom tilted her head, pursed her lips into an unsure pucker. “Skipping ahead is still a pretty big wish. Think of everything you might miss in a week. Or even a day. Try again.”

In this way, Hart’s mom got him to practice his wish-making. To do so with intention, to be specific, and clearheaded. Hart had already seen how things could go sideways fast when you made bad wishes, or wrong wishes. So he knew it was important to practice and get it right. The rule of thumb for the Hargrove family when it came to making wishes was to make them as small as you possibly could. And then, when you thought you’d gone small enough, to make your wish even smaller.

“I wish the pincushion flowers would all come out orange this season,” he said.

Mom thought it over, then gave a small, affirming nod. Hart dug a hole, planted his seed, and repeated the wish out loud. That spring, a corner of the Abundance Garden blazed with the shades of sunset.

Three months after Hart’s mother died—three months with no light or hope in his life—Hart went to the Wish Garden. It was a pilgrimage made in desperation. He’d avoided it because the one thing he wanted was something the garden could not grant him. And because it was his mother who’d taught him never to go to the garden when you were at your lowest. When you were not in your right mind, she always told him, that was when you made wishes that were dangerous.

So he’d waited. But three months with no light had proven an arduous slog. Hart needed a wish. He needed hope. Before he planted anything, he practiced his wish. “I want my mother back,” he cried. But though she wasn’t there with him, Hart could practically hear her advice in the wind.

You know the garden can’t grant a wish like that.

Hart shut his eyes tight and tried to think of something else, something that would ease the pain of his mother’s absence. And he interrogated his wish, in the same way his mother would have. He asked himself why he wanted his mother back. And his answer was because he was lonely. Because there was now a big, gaping hole where his heart used to be. But it wasn’t loneliness, not really. Now that his mom was gone, Hart realized, he was completely without love in his life. It came to him with so much clarity, what he needed to wish for. He couldn’t boil it down to anything smaller. He only needed a little anyway. It would go a long way.

He put the seed in the ground, closed his tear-soaked eyes, and spoke his wish out loud. “I wish for love.”

The next day, he walked into a gas station store and found his love there waiting for him.

And today, as Hart kneeled on the ground, seed in hand, he meditated on the most important wish he’d ever make. He thought it through, like his mother had taught him to, then he planted the seed. He closed his eyes and spoke his wish into the universe.