He held up a pocket watch he’d just fixed for a farmer whose father had carried it through a war. The hands were moving again, counting out seconds like small, steady gifts.
Years later, a reporter came to write about the young man who had turned an abandoned factory into a community workshop. She asked Leo what he called himself.
Leo took the geranium. The soil was dry. The roots were cramped. He repotted it in a chipped enamel bowl, added compost, trimmed the dead leaves, and set it on a sunny ledge.