The Gardener’s Wife’s Mistress

Windwalker (Ghost Girls and Rabbits) spins a melodramatic tale of a widower’s second chance at life. After middle-aged landscaper Hayden Hill loses his 46-year-old wife, Shelly, to a stroke, he finds out that she was the secret co-owner of a flower shop, and that she has willed her stake to him. The shop turns out to be a front for a shelter for at-risk transgender teens, and Hayden, who has never been around trans people before, overcomes his initial awkwardness by befriending Melodie, who works there. He also accompanies Mateo, one of the at-risk teens, on the walk to school, to protect him from bullies. Hayden’s adjustment to his new life is complicated when he finds evidence on Shelly’s phone that suggests she and the store’s co-owner, Rachel, were having an affair. Windwalker crafts effective metaphors for Hayden’s sadness (“He might be a pleated inkcap mushroom, fated to live and bloom and burst into death in only a few hours”), but the plot is simplistic, and it leads to a hopeful but far-fetched conclusion. It’s a mixed bag. (Jan.)