The gardener is out before breakfast, a shallow wooden trug on one arm, working along a row of rainbow chard while dew still beads on the box hedging. Sweet peas go into the basket last. By evening, the chard is on a dinner plate and the sweet peas are on a guest's nightstand, cut from neighboring rows of the same walled garden.

There's a particular kind of certainty that shows up at a dinner table. Someone orders a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, and before it's even poured, you already know roughly what's coming. That certainty is comfortable. It's also incomplete.

Most people plan a milestone trip the way they plan any other one. They open the search engine, type in a destination, and start comparing hotels. Then the date arrives, and something about it feels off. The trip was nice. It just wasn't enough for what it was supposed to hold.