The air shimmered with heat as the temperature climbed past 110 degrees. The neighborhood felt like it was melting, but the community garden buzzed with quiet activity. It was the only spot of green left in the concrete sprawl, its struggling tomatoes and drooping sunflowers a testament to resilience.

By mid-afternoon, the garden was deserted except for two figures: Old Man Willis, hunched over a row of shriveled peppers, and Clara Jackson, furiously trying to keep her wilting zinnias alive.

They had shared this garden for years but never a kind word. Their feud was legend—fights over hose pressure, stolen squash, and who planted sunflowers too close to the path. Everyone knew Willis and Clara couldn’t stand each other.

“Can’t believe you’re wasting water on flowers,” Willis muttered, breaking the oppressive silence.

“And I can’t believe you think those sad little peppers are worth the effort,” Clara snapped back, not even looking up.

They worked in tense silence until Clara’s hose sputtered and hissed, the water supply finally giving up under the strain. She sighed, wiping sweat from her brow.

“Looks like that’s it,” she said, stepping back and surveying her plants. They looked worse than before.

Willis grumbled something unintelligible and stood, his back creaking audibly. He grabbed his battered metal watering can, still half-full from the spigot he’d claimed hours earlier. Without a word, he trudged over and tipped the water onto Clara’s flowers.

Clara blinked, too stunned to protest.

“They’re not just flowers,” she said finally, her voice softer. “They were my mom’s favorite. I grow them every year for her.”

Willis straightened, rubbing his neck awkwardly. “Didn’t know that,” he muttered. “Lost my wife last year. Peppers were her thing. Can’t let ’em go now.”

The heat hung heavy between them, but the air felt different.

“I didn’t know,” Clara said, her tone gentler.

For the first time in years, they looked each other in the eye.

Willis nodded toward the sunflowers drooping between their plots. “Guess those sunflowers aren’t so bad. Bit of shade’s nice in this heat.”

Clara smiled faintly. “And I guess your peppers are doing better than I thought.”

They didn’t say much else, but when they left the garden that evening, they walked side by side, sharing a single umbrella against the unrelenting sun.

By the end of the week, Clara’s zinnias and Willis’s peppers had survived the heatwave—and the neighborhood feud had quietly disappeared.