Page 55

“We found rows of dates penciled inside the packing shed door,” Janice said. “Alan has a theory about what they’re for, but I told him to ask you.”

“First day of picking, every year we were here,” Eileen told her. “My husband started it. He said the trees wouldn’t remember, so somebody ought to.”

“That was his theory,” Janice said. “He has already added one.”

“I wrote this year’s underneath,” Alan admitted. “It seemed wrong to leave a gap.”

Eileen smiled. “He would have liked that.”

There was no sadness in the exchange. No sense that Alan had trespassed on somebody else’s memories by adding to them. They went on to talk about the orchard the way people talked about a house or a garden that had belonged to more than one family: what worked, what had never worked, what somebody had fixed twenty years ago and what had finally given up.

Kate listened while Penny sat beside Eileen with the doll on her lap. This was what she had wanted for her parents too. Not merely neighbors who would help when something broke, but people who would sit down for coffee without needing a reason.

The breeze strengthened. A few leaves lifted from the grass and skittered past Penny’s boots. Alan reached for the paper covering the sandwiches before it blew away. “Wind’s picked up.”

“Wes said it might,” Kate said.

“He messaged me this morning,” Alan said. “He’s watching the forecast, but he wasn’t worried yet.”

Eileen looked toward the upper branches. “You’ll know when it’s worth worrying about. The trees get noisy before anything else does.”

As if summoned by the words, another gust moved through the orchard. The branches of the old tree swayed. An apple dropped. It hit the grass with a soft thud several yards away.

Penny jumped up. “That came off Eileen’s tree.”

She ran to retrieve it, the corn-husk doll clutched in one hand. By the time Kate reached her, Penny was holding the apple carefully between both palms. It had landed on one side, leaving a faint mark in the skin, but otherwise it was whole.

Eileen joined them. “Well, that one was ready to come down.”

Penny looked up. “Can I have it?”

Alan had followed them over and smiled. “I think we can spare one.”

Penny turned the apple slowly in her hands. “It has a mark.”

“That’s where it landed,” Alan explained. “It might bruise there, but that doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the rest of it.”

Penny looked at the apple again. Kate expected her to take a bite.

Instead she hugged it carefully against her chest. “I’m saving it.”

Eileen’s eyebrows lifted. “For something special?”

Penny thought about that. “I don’t know yet.”

Nobody laughed. Kate understood perfectly. Sometimes something mattered before you understood what you were going to do with it. “Then we’ll put it somewhere safe,” she said.

They walked back to the bench together. Penny climbed up beside Eileen with the apple in her lap, and Eileen smiled into her coffee.

Kate sat down again beside her mother. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it at first. The second buzz made her pull it out. A client had confirmed the walk-through arranged for shortly after Kate returned home. The contractor would be there, and they needed her final decision before the next stage of work began.

The message was ordinary. That was what made it catch. Kate had scheduled the appointment before coming to Bear Creek. Back then, it had been part of the comfortable structure waiting at the end of the trip. Vacation first, then home. Work. Penny back to preschool. The usual Saturday library visit. Grocery shopping. Laundry. All the small routines that made their life theirs. Now the appointment was about a week away. When had that stopped sounding like plenty of time? She read the message again, as if it might say something different.

Janice glanced at the phone. “Everything all right?”

“Yes. One of my clients confirming a meeting for when I’m back.”

Her mother nodded. “That came around quickly.”