Page 43 of Under Story

It was miserable to say goodbye to them, but Laurel and Clare had been lucky. They found a like-minded buyer: a young couple starting their own family farm. Laurel visited every so often, bringing apples for the sheep. A buyer like Sly Perkins would rip their trees out of the ground.

“Do you realize,” Clare said, “that I’ve been doing this on my own for ten years?”

“You aren’t alone,” said Laurel. The Salters could only afford part-time employees in the fall, but a handyman named Ruben helped with weekly chores. “Let’s ask Ruben for more hours.”

“Ruben is close to retirement.”

“Then we’ll hire someone else.”

“I’m getting close to retirement! Think of what you’re asking me.”

Silas looked nervously from Laurel to Clare and said, “How do we know we have a nose if we can’t see it?”

Laurel picked him up, and Clare said, “Oh, sweetheart,” and they ferried him to the sunroom, where Clare kept his favorite toys. Laurel produced a juice box, and when Silas repeated his question, she touched his nose and said, “We feel it.” After he began to play, Laurel and Clare returned to the dining room.

“It’s not like it was when you were a kid,” said Clare, sitting. “We haven’t had a normal crop in years.”

“Why wouldn’t you come to me first?”

“I was just exploring options.”

Laurel pointed to the door through which Sly had left. “That option desecrates Dad’s memory. I wish you hadn’t let him in the house.”

Clare flinched. “A purist,” she said, “like your father.”

Laurel was proud. She crossed her arms. “You couldn’t find a single buyer with a model like ours?”

“No, Laurel, I couldn’t. We do things the hard way. To most people, that’s not a very attractive proposition.”

Laurel’s anger elbowed with guilt. She and Eli lent a hand in summer and winter, but during the academic year, weeks could pass between visits.

“Eli and I could take over,” she said.

“And continue your careers? How could you do both?”

“You haven’t given us the chance to consider it!”

But Laurel did not want to run the orchard, not really. She wanted her father to be alive, and she wanted her parents to manage it. She wanted to be the child.

“I miss him too, you know,” said Clare. “I miss him just as much as you.”

The acknowledgment defanged Laurel. It was a relief to name her father, the issue under the issue. She put her hand over her mother’s, which was cool and ridged with veins.

“I know you do,” she said. “I’m sorry. You’ve done too much for too long. I’ll try to find an alternative.”

It was five o’clock. She had planned to go straight home, but instead, she made a detour. Gloria took one look through the peephole and brought her inside, Laurel apologizing for the lack of notice and already starting to cry. She felt exhausted. When Gloria asked what she wanted to drink, Laurel said, “Is it too late for coffee?”

Gloria looked at her seriously. “Laurel,” she said, “in this house, we have coffee at any time of day or night.”

In an armchair, Laurel crumpled. After Gloria returned with a French press and two mugs, Laurel reported what had happened. Gloria listened with compassion, though she didn’t impugn Clare.

“Think of every good thing your family did with that land in the past,” Gloria said. “That was real. It still counts.”

“What do the good things matter if someone else comes and undoes them?”

“I think it matters very much. You created a model—a trial—and it worked,” Gloria said. “You have data: how to grow heirloom trees, how to manage pests without traditional pesticides. You could share that with researchers, or other growers.” Cygnus rubbed against her leg. “I don’t mean that this isn’t a loss. You’ll need to grieve. But ideas travel. You can make sure that they survive.”

Laurel finds Eli eating breakfast at a table full of physicists.