Chapter 11: The Finish Line

I drove home with both hands tight on the wheel and the radio off.

I didn't go inside.

I went to the third row of Cortlands, where my husband had died.

I sat down in the grass between two trees.

The sun was setting.

The apples had swelled to the size of eggs, green with a first blush of red, and the branches bent under them.

I stayed there until my eyes were dry.

I heard his boots a long way off, crunching through the grass.

He stopped at the end of the row.

"I looked at the truck," Abram said. "The engine's not running."

"I know."

"It's the oldest excuse I've ever heard."

"It was the best I had."

He came closer and stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets.

"Dessa's with her grandmother and your mother," he said. "They're sorting out a pie. I told them I'd be an hour."

"Good."

"May I sit?"

"It's an orchard. Sit wherever you like."

He sat down in the grass across from me.

He looked at his boots for a while.

"I said it wrong," he said.

"You said what we agreed."

"I said it like it was a door that closes. That's not how I feel."

"You don't have to feel anything. That's the point of the rule."

"Lenka."

"I wrote the rule," I said. "I'm the one who wrote it. You were being honest, and I got upset because you were."

"Why?"

I picked a blade of grass and tore it in half.

"Because I wrote it from fear," I said.

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