He held the root in his palm, trembling. Then he looked out over the field. The mustard was gone, but its ghost remained—a heat in the soil, a memory of fire. Lena knelt beside him, mud on her jeans, and placed the empty seed packet into his hand.
“It feels wrong,” he said, gripping the tractor’s steering wheel. mustard cover crop seed
He still has the packet. Tucked behind the cracked mirror in his truck. The seeds are long gone. But on cold mornings, when the ground is hard and the work seems endless, he touches the paper and remembers: even the smallest, angriest seeds can turn a field back into a garden. He held the root in his palm, trembling