Kane woke early the next morning, the light filtering softly through the cracks in his window. The rain had returned during the night, but it had stopped just before dawn, leaving the air thick and rich with the scent of earth. The world felt calm, as though the night's storm had scrubbed the air clean of everything except the pure, quiet hum of the earth waking up.
Kane sat up slowly, the weight of his thoughts heavier than usual. The mango tree still stood in the corner of the yard, its branches now glistening with droplets of water. There was a sense of calm about it that he couldn't shake. He had been thinking about the tree for days now—about how it had stood through storms and droughts, how its roots ran deep into the earth, and how, no matter what, it still grew.
It reminded him of something his mother once told him. "Sometimes, Kane," she had said, "life isn't about making noise. It's about waiting quietly until the right moment to bloom."
Kane hadn't understood it then. He had thought it meant he had to be patient, that he had to wait for things to happen. But now, sitting in the quiet of the morning, he wondered if blooming didn't mean forcing himself into the world. What if it meant growing steadily, silently, until his time came?
As the day wore on, Kane spent his time by the tree, his fingers running along its bark. His father had spent most of the day working, his hands rough from the labor, but there was something different about him today. His movements were slower, more deliberate, as if the rain had changed something inside him too.
Abira, as always, was busy around the house, her soft humming filling the air as she moved through the rooms. Kane watched her with a quiet curiosity. She never seemed to stop. She was always doing something—cooking, cleaning, organizing—but there was a calmness to her that Kane admired. It was as though she had learned to move with the flow of life, never rushing but always present.
It was in the moments of stillness, Kane thought, that he began to see the most. Like the way a flower bloomed without anyone noticing, unfolding in silence, revealing its colors only when it was ready. The tree's branches had been reaching up for days, but only after the rain had softened the soil did they begin to stretch further. Only then did the quiet promise of growth reveal itself.
That afternoon, Kane noticed something. The flowers at the base of the tree, those delicate white blossoms he had seen since he was small, had started to bloom. He hadn't noticed them before—not until they were fully open, their petals soft and pale against the dark bark of the tree.
He knelt down, his fingers brushing the petals gently. For the first time, he noticed the delicate veins that ran through the leaves, the way the soft light played across their surface. The flowers had been there all along, just waiting for the right moment to bloom, their beauty concealed until now.
The realization hit him slowly, like the quiet unfolding of the petals themselves. The tree didn't rush to bloom. It simply grew at its own pace, waiting for the rain, waiting for the right conditions. And in those conditions, it didn't need to shout. Its quiet bloom was all the more beautiful because it had waited for its time.
Kane pulled back slightly, not wanting to disturb the flowers. The sense of peace he felt was overwhelming, as if the world had paused just for him to see the beauty that had always been there, hidden in the stillness.
Later that evening, as the sun dipped low and the shadows stretched across the yard, Dela and Kane sat together on the porch. The older man leaned back, his gaze fixed on the horizon. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the silence comfortable in a way that Kane didn't quite understand.
"Your mother's right, you know," Dela said after a while. "You're growing, Kane. I see it."
Kane glanced at his father, surprised. Dela wasn't a man who spoke much about feelings, especially not when it came to his son. But there was something in his voice now that was different—something soft, like the way the earth shifted beneath the surface without anyone seeing it.
"I'm not like the others," Kane said softly, the words coming out before he had a chance to think about them.
His father didn't look at him, but his voice was steady. "Doesn't matter. Everyone grows at their own pace. It's the ones who don't rush that last the longest."
Kane didn't respond. He didn't have to. He could feel the weight of his father's words settling in, wrapping around him like the quiet growth of the tree, the slow unfolding of petals he had never seen before.
As the evening deepened and the first stars appeared in the sky, Kane realized something important. He didn't need to be like the others. He didn't need to rush or force himself to fit into a place that didn't make sense to him. He could grow in his own time, just like the flowers at the base of the tree, blooming quietly, in silence, until the world noticed.
And when the world did notice, he would be ready.