Chapter 10: County Fair

Dessa's grandmother arrived on Friday night in a rental car, and by Saturday noon she had been polite to everyone in Larch Harbor.

She was sixty-two, slim and straight-backed, with a silver bob and pearl earrings.

She wore a linen blouse that had never met an orchard.

She hugged Dessa for a full minute without a word.

Then she shook my hand, firmly and briefly, and said, "Lenka. Abram has mentioned you."

"All good, I hope."

"He mentions you often," she said, which wasn't an answer.

The county fair filled a field outside town with fried dough, tractor pulls and a hundred stalls of jam.

We walked it as a group.

Abram carried Dessa on his shoulders, and my mother held the grandmother's arm.

I came two steps behind.

The woman from the post office saw us from forty yards away and began waving both arms.

"Don't," I said, under my breath.

"She can't hear you," Abram said.

"She doesn't need to."

The grandmother looked from the woman to me and back again.

She said nothing, but I saw her file it away.

We ended up in the pie tent.

Dessa had entered a pie.

It was a peach pie with a lattice top.

She had made it with my mother over three evenings, while Abram was kept out of the kitchen for safety.

It sat on a long table among forty others, with a blue ribbon pinned beside it.

Dessa screamed.

I had never heard anyone so happy.

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