The Riverside Community, Part Three

The Meeting and the Garden

I. Research and Revelation

Grace found himself in the unexpected position of facilitating a political strategy session in the community room, surrounded by neighbors who'd been strangers two weeks ago and now felt like an extended family. The space buzzed with the energy of people who'd discovered they weren't alone in their struggles—laptop screens glowed, smartphones passed from hand to hand, and Elena's ancient coffee percolator gurgled with the determination of caffeine preparing for battle.

"Okay," Sarah said, spreading printouts across the community room's folding table like battle plans. "Our representative is Mitchell—House District 73. He's been in office twelve years, sits on the Health Subcommittee, and his campaign funding..." She paused, scrolling through her laptop. "Well, let's just say the pharmaceutical lobby has been very generous."

Áine had claimed the center of the table, golden eyes surveying the assembled documents with the gravity of a war council advisor. She'd become something of a mascot for their growing group, appearing at crucial moments with what Grace was beginning to suspect was mystical timing. Today, she wore a small collar Rosa had fashioned from red ribbon—not quite a protest badge, but close enough.

"How generous?" Malik asked, bouncing Jamal on his knee. The boy had come straight from school, backpack still strapped to his shoulders, but he sat quietly, colored pencils and paper keeping him occupied while the adults talked revolution.

"Let's see... last cycle alone, $47,000 from PhRMA, $23,000 from the insurance lobby, $15,000 from medical device companies." Sarah's nurse practitioner training showed in the way she organized data like symptoms leading to diagnosis. "And that's just what's publicly reported."

Elena made a sound like a cat coughing up something distasteful. "Ay, Dios mío. They own him outright."

Grace watched Jamal coloring—the boy had drawn what looked like their apartment building, but with flowers growing from every window and a large black cat sitting on the roof like a guardian spirit. "What do you think, Jamal? Should we talk to this politician anyway?"

Jamal looked up with the serious expression ten-year-olds reserve for important questions. "My dad says politicians lie. But maybe if enough people tell them the truth, they have to listen?"

Mr. Liu nodded approvingly. "In China, we say: 'Truth cannot be hidden under many voices.'"

Malik ruffled his son's hair with obvious pride, but Grace caught the shadow that crossed his face. "Jamal knows more about healthcare policy than most adults. Don't you, buddy?"

The boy nodded gravely. "Dad has to check my blood sugar four times a day. We count carbs for every meal. And sometimes my insulin costs more than our groceries."

The room went quiet. Grace had heard this story in fragments—Malik's struggles with insurance coverage, the tight budget, the constant worry—but hearing it from a ten-year-old's matter-of-fact voice made it somehow more devastating.

"Tell them about the scary night," Malik said gently.

Jamal set down his crayon. "Two months ago, Dad's insurance said they couldn't get my insulin until the next week. But I only had two days left. Dad called every pharmacy in the city, trying to find somewhere that would let him pay cash without prior authorization."

"How much?" Rosa asked quietly.

"Three hundred and forty-seven dollars," Malik said. "For a one-month supply of something that costs about twelve dollars to manufacture. I maxed out my credit card and borrowed from my security deposit. We ate ramen for three weeks."

Elena muttered something in Spanish that definitely wasn't appropriate for church.

"But here's the thing," Malik continued, his voice gaining strength. "That night, I'm on the phone with the insurance company—on hold for almost an hour—and I start thinking about Teresa. About how she went through this same runaround with cancer medications while I'm fighting them over insulin. And I realized: this isn't about health care. This is about what a country values. About who gets to live comfortably and who gets sacrificed for profit margins."

Sarah nodded grimly. "The insurance companies have algorithms now. They deny claims automatically, knowing that most people will give up after the first rejection. They're counting on us being too tired, too broke, or too scared to fight back."

Grace felt a familiar stirring—not quite The Green Woman's presence, but something similar. A sense that forces larger than themselves were moving, aligning, preparing for change. "So what do we tell Representative Mitchell? How do we make him understand that his votes have names and faces?"

"We tell him about Teresa," Elena said firmly. "About Jamal. About all of us. We make it personal."

Áine chose that moment to stretch, knocking a pen off the table. As Grace bent to retrieve it, he caught sight of movement in the courtyard below—The Green Woman, tending to what had become an increasingly elaborate garden. She was transplanting seedlings with the careful attention of someone planting hope rather than mere plants. She looked up, caught Grace's eye through the window, and nodded once before returning to her work.

"When do we go?" Rosa asked, one hand resting on her belly where the baby was due in eight weeks. She'd been quieter than usual during their planning sessions, and Grace had wondered if the approaching birth was making her more cautious.

"Next week," Grace said, surprising himself with his certainty. "Mitchell has office hours Thursday afternoon. We go as a group, tell our stories, ask him to explain his votes."

"You think he'll actually listen?" Malik asked.

Elena studied Rosa's face with the careful attention of someone who'd raised six children and recognized worry when she saw it. "Mija, you seem nervous about this. Is it just the baby, or something else?"

Rosa was quiet for a moment, her hand moving in small circles on her belly. "My boyfriend, Miguel... he's undocumented. He's been here since he was twelve, but he doesn't have papers. He's terrified of anything that might put him on anyone's radar, even something like this." She looked around the room apologetically. "He wants to be here, wants to help, but he's scared that showing up to a politician's office, even as a constituent, might somehow lead to deportation."

"Ay, Dios mío," Elena murmured with understanding. "Of course he's scared. These days, they're picking people up everywhere."

"So he's working double shifts instead," Rosa continued, "trying to save money for when the baby comes and I can't work for a while. But it means I'm doing this alone, and honestly?" She looked around the circle. "I'm terrified about what happens if we lose insurance coverage when the baby's born."

Grace looked around the room—at faces that had started as strangers and become neighbors, at Jamal's careful drawing of their building transformed into something magical, at Áine presiding over their plans with feline authority.

"I think," Grace said slowly, "that politicians are like old trees. Sometimes they bend, sometimes they break, but they always show you which way the wind is really blowing."

---

II. Preparing for Democracy

The week that followed felt like preparing for a pilgrimage—part spiritual journey, part practical mission, with the strange energy that comes from ordinary people deciding to participate in democracy rather than simply endure it.

Elena appointed herself logistics coordinator, which meant everyone's nutritional needs were covered. She showed up at the community room Wednesday evening carrying enough empanadas to feed a campaign headquarters and the kind of tactical wisdom that came from decades of working within systems designed to ignore her.

"Mijo," she said, arranging food on paper plates with the efficiency of someone who'd been feeding people through crises for sixty years, "you know the most important thing about talking to politicians?"

"What's that?" Grace asked, accepting coffee strong enough to power small machinery.

"Respect them just enough to show up on time. Then remember that they work for us, not the other way around." She handed a plate to Sarah, who was reviewing her notes with the intensity of someone preparing for medical boards. "These men—and they're mostly men—they get confused about who's the boss. Sometimes you have to remind them."

Mr. Liu had arrived with his wife, Lin, who spoke very little English but whose presence filled the room with a quiet dignity. She moved slowly, one hand often pressed to her chest, but her eyes were sharp with intelligence.

"Lin says politicians in China also forget they serve people," Mr. Liu translated. "But she says in America, you can still speak truth to power without disappearing. We should use that privilege."

Malik had brought Jamal again, but also something else—a folder thick with documentation that made Grace's social worker heart ache with recognition. "Insurance denials," Malik explained, setting the folder on the community room's coffee table. "Every fight we've had over Jamal's insulin for the past two years. Prior authorizations, appeals, pharmacy benefit manager rulings. All of it."

Jamal was coloring again, this time drawing what appeared to be politicians—stick figures in suits standing behind a tall fence, while other stick figures on the outside held signs. "That's us," he explained, pointing to the figures outside the fence. "We're telling them what's wrong, but they can't hear us because they're too high up."

"Dios mío, you’re good at this," Rosa said. She was sitting carefully, both hands on her belly, looking more uncomfortable each day. "Though I hope they hear us tomorrow."

Grace felt the weight of what they were attempting—seven neighbors who'd never engaged in political action beyond voting, preparing to confront a system designed to exhaust them into silence. It should have felt overwhelming. Instead, it felt necessary and empowering to do it together.

"What exactly do we want Mitchell to do?" Sarah asked. "I mean, specifically?"

Grace had been thinking about this question for days. "First, we want him to explain his voting record. Why he voted against Medicare expansion, why he supports the Big Beautiful Bill's Medicaid cuts. Make him say out loud that he thinks our struggles are acceptable costs."

"And then?" Elena asked.

"Then we ask him to vote differently. To remember that his constituents include people like us, not just pharmaceutical lobbyists."

"And if he says no?" Malik asked.

Grace looked around the room—at neighbors who'd become friends, at Jamal's drawings of a world where politicians listened to people instead of money, at Áine, who had found a spot to sleep peacefully, in Rosa's lap.

"Then we make sure everyone knows where he stands. We tell our stories publicly. We help other people organize their own delegations." Grace felt something crystallizing in his chest—not quite hope, but something stronger. "We refuse to disappear quietly."

Through the window, the courtyard garden glowed in the evening light. The Green Woman had finished her work for the day, but her presence lingered in the thriving plants, the stone paths that seemed to lead toward possibility, the rosemary bush that grew where nothing had grown before.

Áine stirred, opened one golden eye, and meowed once—a sound that might have been agreement, or blessing, or simply a cat's way of saying that tomorrow would bring what tomorrow would bring.

---

III. Democracy in a Small Room

Representative Mitchell's district office occupied a strip mall between a tax preparation service and a nail salon, as if democracy had been franchised and distributed to the most affordable square footage available. The waiting room held eight mismatched chairs, a coffee table laden with pamphlets about veterans' benefits, and a single staff member who looked young enough to be somebody's earnest nephew.

"Representative Mitchell will see you now," the staffer—his nameplate read "BRAD"—announced after keeping them waiting exactly seventeen minutes. Grace suspected this was calculated: long enough to show them who had power, short enough to avoid obvious rudeness.

Mitchell's office was larger than Grace had expected, with the carefully curated feel of a political stage set. American flag in the corner, family photos arranged just so, a bookshelf that definitely included Profiles in Courage and probably stopped being read after election to office. As Grace stepped across the threshold, he felt a subtle pressure behind his eyes, like the atmospheric change before a storm. The air seemed denser here, weighted with something he couldn't name.

Mitchell himself stood behind his desk—a man in his early sixties with silver hair and the comfortable bearing of someone who'd learned to speak in talking points.

"Folks," Mitchell said with practiced warmth, "Brad tells me you have some concerns about healthcare policy. I always enjoy hearing from constituents."

The seven of them had arranged themselves in the available chairs like a small congregation. Elena had claimed the seat closest to Mitchell's desk with the territorial authority of someone who'd raised six children and knew how to command attention. Grace sat to her right, the manila folder of Malik's insurance documentation balanced on his lap like evidence waiting for trial.

"Representative Mitchell," Grace began, "we're all neighbors in Riverside Apartments. We're here because we've been affected by healthcare policies you've supported, and we'd like to understand your reasoning."

Mitchell's smile never wavered, but something shifted behind his eyes—the subtle recalibration of a politician recognizing constituents who'd done their homework. "Of course. What specific policies are you concerned about?"

Sarah leaned forward with the directness of someone who spent her days delivering medical diagnoses. "The Big Beautiful Bill. Specifically, the six hundred billion in Medicaid cuts over ten years that will affect ten-point-nine million Americans."

"Ah." Mitchell settled into his chair with the air of someone shifting into campaign mode. "Well, first, I appreciate your concern, but those numbers are a bit inflated. What we're talking about is eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse in the system. Making sure taxpayer dollars go to people who truly need them."

As Mitchell spoke, Grace felt a strange chill creep into the room—not cold exactly, but something that seemed to leach warmth from human connection. The air itself felt thinner, more calculated. Áine, who had been sitting quietly again in Rosa's lap, suddenly tensed, her ears flattening against her head. A low growl rumbled from her throat—not at Mitchell, but at something else in the room, something only she could fully perceive.

Her golden eyes fixed on a point behind Mitchell's desk, and Grace followed her gaze to see The Green Woman standing impossibly in the corner, her earthy presence a stark contrast to the sterile office environment. Áine's tail twitched once, deliberately, directing Grace's attention to what The Green Woman was pointing at.

Grace followed her gaze to a framed photograph of Donald Trump shaking hands with Mitchell at some campaign event. But as Grace watched, the image began to shift like a developing photograph in reverse. Trump's face dissolved into Ronald Reagan's genial smile, then morphed into Margaret Thatcher's iron-set jaw. The handshake remained constant—the same grip, the same posture of mutual congratulation—but the faces cycling through decades of the same fundamental ideology.

Forty years of the same lie, The Green Woman's voice whispered in his mind, though her lips didn't move. Different faces, same extraction.

Something else moved in Grace's peripheral vision—not The Green Woman's earthy solidity, but something that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. A presence that felt like bureaucracy given form, like the cold mathematics of profit margins calculating human worth. Áine's growl intensified, her fur standing on end as she stared at the empty air where Grace sensed but couldn't see this shadow-presence. Grace couldn't see it directly, but he could sense its satisfaction with Mitchell's words, the way it seemed to feed on the distance between policy language and human suffering.

Malik spoke quietly, his voice carrying the weight of two years fighting insurance companies. "Representative Mitchell, my ten-year-old son has Type 1 diabetes. Without Medicaid supplementing my employer insurance, his insulin would cost me eight hundred dollars a month. Are you saying he doesn't truly need it?"

Mitchell's expression didn't change, but he reached for a water glass—a politician's pause while recalibrating. "Of course not, Mr...?"

"Williams. Malik Williams. I work two jobs and pay taxes. But my son's life depends on government programs you want to cut."

"Mr. Williams, the legislation specifically protects coverage for children with serious medical conditions—"

"No, it doesn't." Rosa's voice was quiet but firm, her hands resting on her belly. "Sarah showed me what the bill actually says. They can cut prenatal care for women like me—no more doctor visits during pregnancy. And they want to make pregnant women work to keep insurance, even though we can't get maternity leave. I'm due in six weeks, and under this bill, I could lose coverage the day my baby is born."

Grace watched Mitchell's face carefully, looking for the moment when practiced compassion met actual policy consequences. The representative shuffled through papers on his desk, his collar seeming tighter than it had moments before.

"Well, Rosa—may I call you Rosa?—the bill includes provisions for emergency care, and there are certainly exceptions for high-risk pregnancies—" Mitchell's fingers drummed against his desk, a nervous rhythm that betrayed his discomfort.

"Emergency care." Elena's voice cut through the room like a scalpel. "Mijo, do you know what emergency care means for someone like Teresa Salazar?"

Mitchell looked genuinely confused. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Our neighbor. Teresa Salazar. She died last month because her insurance company—Medicare Advantage, which your policies expanded—denied her pain medication for terminal cancer. Emergency care meant letting her suffer until her heart stopped."

Grace felt the temperature in the room shift. This wasn't campaign rhetoric anymore—this was the naming of specific harm caused by specific votes. He opened Malik's folder and placed the first insurance denial on Mitchell's desk.

"This is what your policies look like in practice," Grace said quietly. "Algorithms denying care. Profit margins prioritized over human dignity. People dying not from illness, but from bureaucracy."

Mitchell glanced at the document, his politician's smile finally beginning to crack. The presence Grace had sensed earlier seemed to press closer, as if feeding on the moment when human pain met institutional indifference. "I understand your frustration, but we have to balance compassion with fiscal responsibility—"

The words felt hollow, rehearsed—not Mitchell's thoughts but something speaking through him. Grace caught The Green Woman's eye, and she nodded toward the shifting portrait again. Now it showed a boardroom full of suited figures from across the decades, their faces blurred but their handshakes sharp and clear, sealing deals that would be paid for with other people's bodies.

"Fiscal responsibility." Mr. Liu's voice carried the careful precision of someone speaking in his second language about life-and-death matters. "My wife needs heart medication. Costs two thousand dollars monthly. Insurance says older medication is 'adequate.' You know what is fiscally responsible? Letting my wife die to save money for shareholders."

"Mr. Liu, I'm sure there are patient advocacy programs—"

"There are," Sarah interrupted. "I help people navigate them every day. Do you know how many hours it takes to appeal a prior authorization denial? How many phone calls, how many forms, how many times you have to prove that doctor's medical degree is valid?"

She leaned forward with the intensity of someone who'd spent years watching the system fail her patients. "I've seen diabetics ration insulin until they end up in the ER. I've watched cancer patients delay chemotherapy because they couldn't afford copays. Your policies don't eliminate waste—they eliminate people."

Grace watched Mitchell's face carefully. Behind the practiced expressions, he could see a man recognizing that his comfortable abstractions had names, addresses, and voices. But he could also see something else—a politician calculating whether these seven voters mattered more than pharmaceutical lobby dollars.

"I appreciate you sharing your stories," Mitchell said finally, his voice regaining some of its professional warmth. "But I think you're misunderstanding the legislation. The Big Beautiful Bill is designed to strengthen American healthcare by eliminating inefficiencies and promoting competitive markets—"

"Stop." Elena's voice carried sixty years of authority and exactly zero patience for euphemisms. "Just stop with the talking points and answer the question: Do you think it's acceptable for people to die because they can't afford medications?"

The room went silent except for the hum of fluorescent lights—nothing like the warm gurgle of Elena's percolator back in their community room—and the distant sound of traffic. The cold presence Grace had been sensing seemed to settle more heavily into the space, making the air feel thick with calculation. Áine had gone completely rigid in Rosa's arms, her golden eyes tracking something invisible that moved around the room's perimeter. Her ears remained flattened, and Rosa looked down at her with concern. Mitchell stared at Elena for a long moment, perhaps recognizing something he'd forgotten in twelve years of office—a constituent who expected actual answers rather than political performance.

The Green Woman remained in the corner, solid and grounded, her presence a reminder that other ways of being were possible. But the shadow-thing seemed to whisper in frequencies just below hearing, reminding everyone present of mortgage payments, campaign contributions, the complex web of dependencies that kept people like Mitchell speaking in euphemisms rather than truths. Áine's tail lashed once, sharply, and she turned to stare directly at Grace—a look that seemed to say pay attention to what you're really seeing here.

"Mrs...?"

"Alvarez. Elena Alvarez. And I'm waiting for an answer."

Mitchell glanced at his watch—a practiced gesture designed to signal time constraints—and delivered his verdict with the careful tone of someone who'd made his choice long ago: "Mrs. Alvarez, healthcare is a complex issue with no easy solutions. We have to balance individual needs with broader economic realities. The legislation I support aims to create sustainable systems that serve the greatest number of Americans."

Grace felt something shift in his understanding—not surprise exactly, but the clarification that comes when someone shows you exactly who they are. Mitchell wasn't confused about the consequences of his votes. He understood perfectly. He just didn't care enough to change them. The shadow-presence seemed to pulse with satisfaction, as if this moment of revealed indifference was exactly what it had been cultivating.

The Green Woman began to fade from the corner, but not before Grace caught her final message: This is what you're really fighting, Grace. Not ignorance. Not even cruelty. Extraction itself—the force that turns everything living into profit.

"So that's a yes," Grace said quietly. "You think our suffering is an acceptable cost."

Mitchell stood, signaling the end of the meeting with the smooth efficiency of someone who'd perfected the art of dismissal. "I think we may have to agree to disagree on policy approaches. But I want you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to share your perspectives."

As they filed out of the office, Grace caught Mitchell saying something to Brad about "scheduling more time for future constituent meetings." But he also noticed Mitchell reaching for his phone before they'd even cleared the waiting room—probably calling someone to report on the visit, to reassure donors that he remained safely purchased.

In the parking lot, the seven neighbors stood in a rough circle, processing what they'd just experienced. The afternoon sun cast long shadows, and Grace could smell autumn in the air—that scent of change and dying things that might also be the smell of things being reborn.

"Well," Elena said finally, "now we know where he stands."

"Did anyone else feel like he was reading from a script?" Sarah asked.

"He was," Malik said grimly. "The same script they all use. 'Fiscal responsibility.' 'Sustainable systems.' 'Complex issues.' It's designed to sound reasonable while meaning nothing."

Rosa shifted uncomfortably, one hand pressed to her back. "So what now?"

Grace looked around the circle—at neighbors who'd started this journey as strangers and were ending it as something more. Something that felt like family, or community, or maybe just democracy working the way it was supposed to work.

"Now we go home," he said. "And tomorrow we start building something better."

---

IV. The Weight of Knowing

The community room that evening felt different—charged with the energy of people who'd looked power in the face and found it smaller than they'd expected. Elena had arrived early to set up coffee and arrange chairs, but she'd also brought something else: a bottle of wine that she announced was "for toasts or tears, depending on how we're feeling."

"I vote tears," Malik said, settling into his usual chair with Jamal on his lap. "Not sad tears. Angry tears. The kind that turn into fuel."

Jamal was coloring again—this time a picture that showed stick figures talking to other stick figures, with a big building in the background and what appeared to be flowers growing from the roof. "Dad says Mr. Mitchell doesn't want to listen. But maybe other people will."

Grace settled beside them. Áine had already claimed her position on the table's center, golden eyes surveying the assembled group with what Grace was learning to recognize as protective attention. She'd begun appearing at all their gatherings, as if understanding that her presence provided some essential comfort or continuity.

"You know what struck me most?" Sarah said, accepting a glass of wine from Elena. "He wasn't surprised by our stories. He wasn't shocked or outraged or even particularly interested. It was like we were telling him about weather—unfortunate, but inevitable."

"Because to him, we are weather," Elena said with bitter clarity. "Natural disasters that happen to other people. Storms he can watch from inside his nice, safe building."

Mr. Liu nodded slowly. "In China, during Cultural Revolution, officials would visit villages, hear about famines, nod politely, then return to Beijing and order more grain exports. Same expression—concerned but unmovable."

Rosa had claimed the most comfortable chair, her pregnancy making long sitting painful. "I keep thinking about what he said about 'sustainable systems.' Sustainable for who? Not for people like us."

Grace felt The Green Woman's presence before he saw her—that familiar scent of wet earth and woodsmoke drifting through the room despite all the windows being closed. When he looked toward the grimy glass, she was there in the courtyard, tending her ever-expanding garden under the early evening light. She caught his eye and nodded once, then returned to her work with what appeared to be new seedlings.

"Grace?" Elena's voice pulled him back to the room. "You're looking thoughtful."

"Just processing," Grace said. "I keep thinking about what Teresa would say about today."

"What do you think she'd say?" Malik asked.

Grace considered the question, feeling for Teresa's voice in his memory. "I think she'd say that showing up was the point. Not because we changed Mitchell's mind—we knew we wouldn't—but because we refused to stay invisible."

"Sacred resistance," Elena said softly. "That's what she called it, right? Refusing to let cruelty have the last word."

"But what's our next step?" Sarah asked with the practical directness of someone trained to move from diagnosis to treatment. "We can't just keep having meetings and feeling better about ourselves."

Jamal looked up from his coloring. "Dad, remember when Tommy's mom got sick and all the neighbors brought food? And when Mr. Patterson lost his job and everyone helped with his rent?"

Malik smiled—the first genuine smile Grace had seen from him all day. "Yeah, buddy. I remember."

"Maybe we do that," Jamal said with the simple logic of childhood. "Not just talk about helping. Actually help."

Grace felt something clicking into place—not just intellectual understanding, but the kind of deep recognition that came from soil and seasons rather than policies and procedures. "Mutual aid," he said quietly. "We start taking care of each other directly, without waiting for politicians to give us permission."

"Like what?" Rosa asked.

"Like Sarah helping people navigate insurance appeals," Elena said, her voice gaining energy. "Like me making sure everyone eats well. Like Grace fixing things when they break."

"Like Mr. Liu teaching us about medicine from someone who actually understands bodies instead of profit margins," Malik added.

"Like all of us being there when Rosa's baby comes," Grace said, looking around the circle. "Making sure she has everything she needs, whether or not her insurance covers it."

Rosa's eyes filled with tears—not sad tears, but the kind that came from people who'd been carrying burdens alone suddenly realizing they didn't have to.

"You know what this is?" Sarah said with growing excitement. "This is exactly what Mitchell was afraid of. Not our anger—our organization. Not our complaints—our capacity to take care of each other without him."

Áine chose that moment to stand and stretch, then pad over to Rosa's chair and settle beside her feet with a purr that was audible across the room. Through the window, The Green Woman's garden seemed to glow in the gathering dusk—not with artificial light, but with something deeper. The rosemary bush in the center had grown visibly larger, its silver-green leaves catching the last light like small prayers.

"So we start tomorrow," Grace said. "We figure out what everyone needs, what everyone can offer. We build the community that politicians like Mitchell don't think is possible."

"A neighborhood that actually neighbors," Elena said with satisfaction. "Imagine that."

As people began gathering their things to leave, Grace felt something settling into place—not exactly hope, but something more grounded. The satisfaction of work that mattered, of relationships that endured, of resistance that grew from soil rather than slogans.

Jamal held up his newest drawing: the same apartment building, but now it was connected to other buildings by bridges made of flowers. People walked across these bridges carrying food, tools, and children. In the center of it all, a large black cat sat like a guardian, and beneath everything, roots grew deep into earth that looked rich and dark and full of possibilities.

"That's us," Jamal explained. "But not just us. All the neighbors helping all the neighbors."

Grace looked at the drawing, then out at The Green Woman's garden, then around the room at faces that had become family.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "That's exactly us."

Outside, the rosemary grew in soil that had been watered with grief and tended by hands that understood the difference between politics and power, between asking for help and building the capacity to provide it.

---

🌿 Stay tuned for Part Four: “The Riverside Way”

The meeting is over. The politician smiled, the shadow grew fat, and no laws changed. But something else did.

Because grief, when shared, can grow roots.

In Part Four, the neighbors return home—not defeated, but changed. What began with casseroles and frustration becomes something quieter, stronger: a community learning how to carry each other. One meal. One ride. One act of remembering at a time.

It’s not revolution with banners. It’s resistance with soup and socket wrenches.

And in a world that teaches us to struggle alone, maybe the most sacred thing we can do is show up for each other again. And again. And again.

---

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