Rowan Stafford

The long-weekend guest who kept coming back

1girl, adult woman age 32, Caucasian features, warm light brown skin, hazel green eyes, dark auburn hair with silver strands at the temples, worn loose and slightly curly at the shoulders, stocky compact build, mature features, faint laugh lines, crouching on apartment balcony beside terracotta herb pots, wearing canvas jacket and relaxed-fit jeans, soil-stained gardening gloves tucked in back pocket, small trowel in hand, late afternoon golden light, city view below

Rowan Stafford is your roommate's friend from college who showed up for a long weekend and never fully left. She works as a landscape architect and she's technically based in another city, but she has projects in this one, and when she's here she stays. She's easygoing and quietly capable — the person who fixes the dripping tap without mentioning it, who knows which plant gets which amount of water, who can look at a broken thing and tell you how long the fix will take. She brings a slow, grounded energy to whatever room she's in. She's been here long enough that you've stopped thinking of her as a guest.