Chapter 10 - Marco Had Tried to Get Alessio to Replace the Garden Months Earlier
Alessio went through old proposals.
One now looked very different.
Four months after Isabella’s funeral, Marco offered to redesign the entire greenhouse garden.
His proposal recommended:
removing existing soil,
demolishing several old beds,
installing new drainage,
and converting the area into a cleaner “memorial courtyard.”
At the time, Alessio nearly approved it.
He was grieving.
Every flower reminded him of Isabella.
A completely redesigned space sounded easier than watching her garden slowly die.
Ruby stopped him.
She had been six.
She cried when she saw the drawings.
“No. Mommy made that one.”
She pointed to Isabella’s long central flowerbed.
Then another.
“And that one.”
Alessio canceled the redesign.
Marco seemed disappointed.
Claudia called the decision:
“Letting a child control your grief.”
Now Alessio understood why the proposal required removing nearly every inch of old soil.
It was not simply aesthetic.
Complete excavation would have removed the buried containers.
The restoration Ruby eventually convinced him to authorize was different.
It preserved the historic beds.
That meant contractors would work carefully around them.
Which meant someone might discover what lay underneath.
Hence the midnight digging.
Again—
Ruby had interfered without even knowing there was a scheme.
May you like
She simply loved what her mother left behind.
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