THE HOUSE WE KEPT

Chapter 3: The Garden

Lina’s POV

I woke up with the weight of fabric on my shoulders that did not belong to me.

It was his hoodie.

I remembered folding it and setting it by the door last night, telling myself that returning it was the same as returning the feeling that came with it. But somehow, in the space between sleep and waking, I had reached for it again. My body had decided before my mind could argue.

I pulled it off in one motion, like I was peeling off something shameful. I folded it carefully, the sleeves tucked in, the collar straight. I placed it by the door with too much precision. As if neatness could erase the fact that I had slept deeper with the smell of wood and rain and clean soap in my lungs than I had in the last three months combined.

He was already outside when I pushed the door open.

The air was cold in a way that made my breath visible for a second before it disappeared. Dreo was by the mango tree, shovel in his hands, moving dirt with a rhythm that looked more like prayer than labor. He was not using the hammer today. Today he was digging.

“What are you doing?” My voice came out hoarse from not using it.

He didn’t stop. “The ground is soft here. If we don’t fix the drainage, the water will sit under the new floor and rot it from the bottom up in less than a year.”

“That wasn’t part of the two weeks.”

He finally looked up. His eyes found mine, then they found the folded hoodie in my hands. He didn’t comment on it. He didn’t have to. He just held out his hand, palm up, waiting.

I crossed the gravel. My feet felt heavier than they should have. I placed the hoodie in his hand. Our fingers touched for half a second, barely a brush, but it was enough to make me pull back faster than necessary.

“It was an accident,” I said, though I wasn’t sure which part I meant.

He didn’t answer. He laid the hoodie over the railing of the porch like it was something worth keeping out of the dirt.

“Help me,” he said.

The words were simple, but they landed in my chest like a weight. Not “Can you help?” Not “If you’re not busy.” Just help me. As if he assumed I would. As if he assumed I was already part of this.

“I don’t know how to garden,” I said.

“You don’t need to. You just need to move dirt.”

So I took the other shovel.

We worked side by side in silence. The soil was dark and cold and it clung to the metal and to my skin. It worked its way under my nails and into the lines of my palms. I hated it at first. It felt dirty. It felt useless. But then the rhythm of it took over. Scoop. Lift. Toss. Breathe.

No one asked me why I had come back.

No one asked me if I was okay.

No one asked me about Mateo or the ring or the job I had walked away from without a plan.

For the first time since I arrived, my mind was quiet.

Aling Teresing came with a paper bag in her hands and a look on her face that said she knew more than she was saying. “Talong. Sitaw. Kangkong,” she announced, setting the bag down on the tarp like it was a gift, not a suggestion. “For the garden.”

“I’m not staying,” I said too quickly.

Aling Teresing didn’t even look at me. She looked at Dreo and smiled the way older women smile when they’ve already decided the ending of a story you’re still trying to avoid. “Itigil mo ‘yan kung ayaw mo,” she said, and left.

Dreo picked up the bag. He opened it. Inside were small packets of seeds, each labeled in shaky handwriting. He held it out to me.

“You don’t have to plant them,” he said.

I stared at the seeds. Small. Ordinary. Full of something I couldn’t see.

“Show me how,” I said.

He knelt. I knelt with him.

He took a stick and dragged it through the dirt to make a shallow line. He dropped a seed in. Covered it with his fingers. Patted the earth down like he was tucking it in.

“Like that,” he said.

I copied him. My hands were clumsy. The soil was damp and cold and it made my fingers shake. Not because of the temperature. Because he was close. Because his shoulder was almost touching mine. Because he wasn’t moving away.

We planted six rows. Row after row of things I had no intention of seeing grow. Row after row of something that would take longer than two weeks to matter.

When we were done, my knees were stained and my hands were the color of earth.

Dreo handed me a rag. The same one from before. Worn soft from use.

“Thanks,” I said.

He didn’t let go of the rag right away. He lifted his hand instead and touched my cheek with his thumb. Just once. Light. Barely there.

“You missed a spot,” he said.

He didn’t wipe it.

I did.

My skin was warm where he had touched it long after I lowered my hand.

It rained later.

But the new roof held. There was no sound of water hitting buckets or dripping through cracks. Just the steady sound of rain on wood. The sound of something being kept dry.

The door to my room opened without a knock.

Dreo stood there with two mugs. Steam rose from both of them and fogged the air between us.

“Hot chocolate,” he said. “Aling’s recipe.”

He came in and sat on the floor. Not next to me. Not far from me. A careful foot of space between us that felt both too much and not enough.

We drank in silence. The chocolate was too sweet. It coated my tongue and made my throat tight in a way that had nothing to do with sugar.

“You didn’t have to do this,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

I looked at him. “Why are you here, Dreo?”

He didn’t look at me. He looked at the mug in his hands like it might have an answer.

“My father was a carpenter,” he said finally. “He used to fix houses for people who couldn’t pay him. He said a house is only a house if someone lives in it. If someone stays.”

He took a sip.

“I don’t know what I’m fixing here,” he said. “The house. Or—”

He stopped.

I didn’t ask him to finish.

We finished the chocolate. He stood. “Sleep. The roof is solid now.”

He left.

I sat there with the empty mug in my hands long after it had gone cold.

A child came the next time I was outside.

“Hello?”

The voice was small and certain. I turned.

She was at the gate. Five, maybe six. Two pigtails tied with faded ribbon. A piece of paper clutched in her hand.

“Are you Ate Lina?” she asked, without hesitation.

“Yes.”

“My Lolo said you’re fixing Lola Rosa’s house.” She held up the paper. “I drew this for you.”

It was a house colored in pink crayon. A big yellow sun in the corner. Two stick figures holding hands in front of it. One with long hair. One with pigtails.

“You’re Mimi,” I said.

She nodded, like I should have known. “Can I come in?”

I looked up at Dreo. He was on the porch, watching. He gave one small nod.

I opened the gate.

Mimi walked in like the place had been waiting for her. She sat down in the dirt without asking and started drawing another sunflower on the back of her paper.

“You have dirty hands,” she said, looking up at me. “Like Ate Cass.”

“Ate Cass?”

“My teacher. She’s loud too.”

The laugh came out of me before I could stop it. It sounded strange. Broken. Like something that had been locked away for too long and forgot how to come out right.

Dreo heard it. I knew he did because the hammering from the porch stopped for one second before it started again.

Mimi stayed for an hour. She didn’t ask why I looked tired. She didn’t ask why I wasn’t smiling. She just drew. She talked. She ate the biscuit I gave her like it was the best thing she had ever tasted.

When her Lolo came to get her, she stood and brushed the dirt off her knees. “Come back tomorrow, Ate Lina.”

I nodded.

I didn’t know if I would.

I couldn’t sleep that night.

I went outside.

Dreo was on the porch. Awake.

“You’re not sleeping either,” I said.

“No.”

I sat down. Not too close. Close enough to feel the warmth coming off him.

“The seeds,” I said. “Will they grow?”

“If it doesn’t rain too much,” he said. “If the sun comes. Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

He turned his head and looked at me. Really looked at me.

“You’re not leaving in two weeks, are you?”

It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t a question that needed an answer.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

That was all.

But he didn’t move away.

We sat there in the dark. Two people.

In a house that had started to feel less like a ruin and more like something that could keep us both, if we let it.

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*End Chapter 3*