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NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
Chapter 21:
Cultivating Calm
Dirt. That's where it started. Just plain old dirt,
delivered in bags to her tenth-floor sanctuary. Billie
surveyed her tiny balcony, a concrete rectangle jutting
out into the grey cityscape.
She slipped on her gardening gloves, the old fabric
feeling good and familiar on her hands. She looked
around at her little collection of pots—her tiny green
world. It was bursting with color, even though it was
small. The bright red flowers of the geraniums
tumbled over the sides of their pots, a real pop of life
against all the city buildings. The little basil and
rosemary plants looked like tiny green trees and
smelled like summer was just around the corner. And
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