“Oh.” Mom’s blonde eyebrows rose. “You quit?” she asked.
Emily nodded while spooning some chili into her mouth. She swallowed and pointed to her bowl. “This is outstanding, Diane. Your chili has always been the best.”
“Thank you,” Mom said, but Jake could see the concern in her pleasant expression. “Are you still teaching art classes at the community college?” she asked.
“Nope.” Emily sipped her glass of sweet tea. “I quit after last semester.”
“Mmm.” Mom paused for a moment. “What about working at that other painting place? The one where you could have a little party and paint pictures. Oh, what was it called?”
“It was called The Art Spot, and I don’t work there anymore either.” Emily shook her head.
“So you’re... not working at all?” Jake chimed in.
“I’m on the hunt for something different. They weren’t the right fit.” Emily turned to Dad at the end of the table. “How are you feeling, Leon?”
Jake sighed. Emily was deflecting. But he’d get the full story out of her. Somehow.
Dad made a face. “I’m just fine, but Diane is making a fuss as usual.”
“You’re not ‘just fine,’” Mom chided. “You need to get your exercise and continue to eat right.”
Dad rolled his eyes. “Blah blah blah,” he muttered while sprinkling fat-free shredded cheddar cheese over his bowl of chili.
Emily shot Jake a look, and Jake took a sip of sweet tea tosuppress his laughter while Emily bit her lip to help swallow a giggle.
“How’s Ally doing at UNC Chapel Hill?” Emily asked, referring to Jake’s younger sister.
Mom beamed. “Great. She had an internship at a law office in Chapel Hill this summer. She’s still working there part-time, and she’s back in school now.”
“Little Ally still wants to be a lawyer, huh?” Emily said. “I can’t believe she’s almost twenty. I remember rocking her on the porch and feeding her a bottle.”
“And I remember her sneaking into my room and taking my stuff. Little stinker,” Jake joked.
Mom chuckled. “I can almost still feel the hiccups I had every morning when I was pregnant with her.”
Emily’s diversion succeeded. She’d found a topic Jake’s mother could talk about for ages: her children. They spent the rest of supper reminiscing about Jake and Ally’s childhood.
After enjoying a piece of Mom’s famous apple pie—which she now prepared sugar-free, much to Dad’s chagrin—Jake and Emily cleaned up the kitchen before they headed outside.
“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, gently tugging her arm and steering her toward the path that led through the orchard.
Above them, the sun was beginning to set, bringing with it a kaleidoscope of vibrant colors while an ensemble of frogs and cicadas began singing the day into the night.
Emily skipped over to a tree and pointed to a small red apple. “Carolina crisp, right?”
“Yeah, but they’re not quite ripe yet.” He reached over her head and picked the apple before tossing it to her.
She took a bite and then danced around. “Whatever, tastes good to me! I love Carolina crisps!”
He laughed as memories of their childhood rolled through his mind. The summer before they started kindergarten, Emily showed up in the orchard one day and asked him if he wanted to play. And that was the start of their lifelong friendship. They’d grown up here in the orchard. He couldn’t think of one single childhood memory without her in it. She’d always been at his side, through skinned knees, heartbreaks, and everything in between.
Emily finished the apple and tossed the core before her eyes lit up. “Race you to the dock!” Then she took off running.
“Hey!” he called, chasing her. “I’ll catch you!”
“No, you won’t...” she sang.
Jake followed her through the rows and rows of trees that had been passed down through his family for a century, defining the Hughes family’s legacy from generation to generation.
