“Sometimes, you’ll have to put up with bad things to accept some good,” Della said. “‘There are more things in Heaven and Earth’, and all that. Sometimes, you may not understand how good can come from events so terrible. But there are places we were never meant to see, ideas we were never meant to know. Even if it’s a person doing these things, it’s with blind faith, not pure understanding. Maybe that’s why it’s so special.”
She was in her garden again, stubbornly wheeling herself between fruit bushes, plucking those that were ripe, cleaning the others of the greasy dust that hung constantly in the atmosphere. I was following on behind her, bagging the fruit and wondering what she was going to do with so much. There were only so many pies she could make.
“I can’t see how any good has come of the Ruin. Millions have died. The world’s gone to pot.” I thought of the marks on my chest, slowly growing and expanding. I had still not told her. “Millions more are going to die.”
She looked up at me from her wheelchair. “If you see no good in the Ruin, it’s ‘cause you’re not meant to. Me, I see plenty of good in it.”
“What? What good?”
Della sighed. I wanted to hold her, comfort her, protect her. But I knew I never could. “Look at all that,” she said, indicating the basket of fruit I carried. “I’ll never use all that. A few pies, a tart, a fruit salad. All that’s left will turn brown, decay, collapse in on itself. Then I’ll spread it on the ground and it’ll give new life to the seedlings I plant next year. New from old. Good fruit from bad flesh.” She took a bite from a strawberry, cringed and threw it to the ground. “So, in years to come, when all the mess of the Ruin has cleared up or rotted down, the world’s going to be a much safer place.”
I did not understand what she meant. I still do not understand now. But I like to think she was right.