I hadn’t been in the presence of many children, save for the ones who visited the orchard. Those interactions were often entertaining—you never knew what a kid was going to say—but they were typically fleeting. I remembered the locals and regulars who frequented my family’s farm. Connie Hixson brought her granddaughter every year to pick apples the last weekend in September. I’d seen little Darla grow from a chubby-cheeked toddler to a surly preteen. There were a few others who’d crossedmy path regularly, too. Amos Coates was a teenager who worked part-time at the orchard, and I liked him well enough.
But despite my inexperience with small children, even I could tell the kid lurking behind me was young. Nottooyoung, though. He didn’t need diapers or anything. But he probably shouldn’t have been off on his own. He was, maybe, six or seven years old.
The bolt came loose so suddenly that it ricocheted out of the underbelly of the conveyor onto the dusty wooden planks beneath my feet. At the same time, the wrench slipped, causing my knuckle to bang painfully on the gears nearby.
I let out a sharp hiss rather than the curse word that had been ready under my tongue.
Instinctively, I clenched my fist, eyeing the bright crimson droplet welling on the knuckle of my right index finger.
The troublemaking bolt entered my periphery, held in a tiny, dirt-streaked palm like a silent offering. And maybe that’s what it was about this kid ... I’d never been around one so quiet. Kids at the orchard were always wild and rambunctious, dashing through rows of apple trees and tumbling across the giant bounce pillow, volume ranging from earsplitting to migraine-inducing.
“Thanks,” I murmured, accepting the round piece of metal and placing it atop the unmoving belt.
“I can get a Band-Aid from my emergency kit, if you need one.” The voice was high and sweet, but oddly solemn for someone so small.
I didn’t know what an emergency kit was, but I was pretty sure adults were supposed to be the responsible ones. It had been a long time since anyone took care of me but me.
“Thanks,” I repeated, finally turning to face the boy. He was staring at the little bead of red on my finger, face pale. “But I can get a bandage from the office.” Instead of doing that, I pulled a handkerchief out of my pants pocket and wiped the blood away.
He blinked big blue eyes as if coming back to himself from a short mental vacation. Then he focused on my face.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“George,” he replied, gaze flicking toward my injury briefly.
“I’m Joan,” I offered.
George was motionless—another deviation from the children I typically saw. He wasn’t fidgeting or squirming. He was as still as a little statue. Maybe it had been the blood that had him rooted in place. He was free from the spell now, and yet he still wasn’t wiggling around.
He looked clean—for a kid—and healthy, a slight roundness in his face and limbs that I associated with youth and innocent indulgence. Regular desserts after dinner and snacks on demand. I wondered if George and his family had visited Knottsford Creamery downtown.
Speaking of family, my gaze strayed over the boy’s head, beyond the shaded roof of the open-air Apple House, to the berry patches and fields in the distance. I didn’t see any adults wandering around, looking for lost little boys.
“You’re a farmer,” he said suddenly, drawing my attention once more.
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “I am. What are you?”
“An inconvenience,” he muttered.
I frowned. “Did someone call you that?”
“Gloria,” he replied offhandedly, with an accompanying eye roll that made him look like a tiny teenager.
I wondered if he even knew what the word meant. And why the hell someone had called a kid an inconvenience?Christ.
“Did you go to school to be a farmer?” George asked in his next breath.
“No, I didn’t. I learned from my father and my grandfather. We’re all farmers.”
The boy seemed to chew that over as I wondered how I was going to findhis parents and considered what I’d do if I found out his mother’s name was Gloria.
“Do you think I could be a farmer?” The soft question drew me away from my fierce thoughts, a fictional argument already half formed in my mind with a hypothetical Gloria somewhere.
With slow movements, I shifted my body on the step stool to face the boy more fully. A serious question deserved serious consideration. I didn’t really know how to talk to kids, but this was how I’d want somebody to talk to me.
I held his gaze. “Well, do you like being outside?”
George nodded eagerly.
