Maya's POV
Ten days later Aria called me into the kitchen at seven in the morning.
She'd been checking the garden update photos Luca sent every other day. He'd set up the system without being asked. Just started sending them. Time-stamped. The same angle each time so the progression was visible.
She'd printed them and organized them in a folder.
"Look," she said.
She held up the photo from this morning.
Green. Actual green. Thin and small and unmistakable against the dark soil.
First sprouts.
I looked at the photo and felt the specific warmth of something beginning.
"Ten days exactly," she said.
"Exactly."
She examined the photo. "The spinach came first. The lettuce is slower."
"Normal."
"That's what Luca said." She put the photo in the folder. In chronological order. The fold
