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“I know.”

He fit the bud chip carefully into the matching cut on the rootstock and reached for the budding tape. This time he handed it to Penny.

Her face brightened. “I can do this part?”

“You can help me hold it.”

Together they wrapped the graft securely, Wes guiding her small fingers and taking over whenever the tape needed more tension. When they were done, Penny examined their work. “It doesn’t look like a tree.”

“It will.”

“When?”

Wes hesitated. Kate knew that hesitation. He was deciding how literal to be with a four-year-old. “A tree takes time.”

“How much?”

“A few years before we’d expect apples.”

Penny stared at him. “Years?”

“Yes.”

“That’s too long.”

Eileen burst out laughing.

Wes regarded Penny gravely. “I can’t make it grow faster.”

“Why not?”

“Because trees don’t work like that.”

Penny looked thoroughly unimpressed by the limitations of horticulture.

Kate crouched beside her. “You’ll get to watch it grow.”

“But I want apples.”

“We have plenty of those.”

Penny looked toward the orchard. That was difficult to argue with. “All right.”

Wes handed her the label. “Your turn.”

Penny knelt beside the rootstock and carefully looped the label where Wes showed her. Kate had written Eileen’s Tree across it earlier in thick black marker because Penny had wanted the words to be “big enough for the tree to read.” Wes tied it securely.

Penny stood back. “Now it knows what it is.”

Penny went to Eileen and took her hand. “Do you want to see?”

“I’ve been watching the whole time.”

“You need to come closer.”

Eileen allowed herself to be pulled forward. She looked down at the small rootstock for a long moment. Then she glanced toward the damaged old tree behind it. “He’d have liked this,” she said quietly. No one asked who she meant.

Janice was approaching from the farmhouse carrying a thermos and a stack of cups. Alan followed with a basket tucked against one hip.