She catches the Black Gem flowering in the corner of the garden in the periphery of her vision. She turns and leads straight for it, curling her hands around the buds with consideration, eyes narrowing while her mouth tips up into a smile.

There’s a groove in the ground from where a tire once lay, smack tracks from its ridged edge are still left behind like footprints. Water gathered there during the rains, and now this flower climbs higher every day. She smiles, pleased to see it return, and leaves it be. The stalk, which comes to her knee height, sways in the breeze as she leaves, waving after her like a goodbye.

She picks a few poppies, orange and bleeding pollen into the inside of her elbow, where the blossoms are resting. She brings them inside, laying them on the wooden countertop laced with red and streaks of copper melted into the knots. They wait while she putters around the kitchen, looking for a vase with a wide enough lip to allow them to rest. She finds one and fills it with cool water from the bucket beside the sink, and places the flowers in their vase on the table. A few water droplets dip down, sliding around the curve of the glass before timidly touching the surface of the wood. A small drop settles on the old copper, which has long since turned teal from oxidation.

Her partner is in the back and she calls to her. “I saw a Black Gem out there.”

“A Black Gem? Already?”

She nods, though her partner can’t see it. “It’s huge, biggest I’ve seen yet.”

“That’s good,” her partner replies, coming up behind her and pressing the palm of her hand into the meat of her hip. There’s a gentle squeeze before she feels a kiss against her hair, and then her partner is out the door again, off to complete another task. “The rains must have done it good.”

It’s comforting, she thinks, to know that flowers can be reborn after a period of drought.

She has plenty to do, but it can wait for a moment. So for now, she sticks her face onto her palm and dazes dreamily out the window.

All the while, she can feel the flowers continuing to bloom fuller.