Chapter 19: Cortland Apples

I burned the toast again the next morning, and this time I laughed until I had to hold the counter.

It was a real laugh, loud and ugly, and it went on too long.

"Make it stop," Martha said, not meaning it.

"I can't. It's the toast."

"It's always the toast."

"I've never been so happy about a piece of toast in my life."

I wiped my eyes with a dish towel and looked out the window over the sink.

The orchard was rust and gold under a clear sky.

I could feel every inch of it.

I felt the cold glass under my wrists, and the fond, stupid ache I had for the old trees.

Under that was a steady low hum of something I was not ready to look at.

It was there anyway.

It had been there for nine years.

"He's been up since five," Martha said.

"Who?"

"Don't be coy. You've got your face on."

Orson was in the third row, on a ladder, picking Cortlands into a canvas bag.

He had slept in the barn loft, on the pickers' cot, with the roof patched.

I had said he could, and nothing else, and he had said thank you and nothing else.

He came in at seven and stood on the mat with his boots in his hand.

"I'm not asking for breakfast," he said.

"There's toast."

"It's burned."

"I know," I said. "Sit."

He sat at the far end of the table.

Martha poured him coffee and put three eggs in front of him.

"Eat," she said, and he did.

"How's the heart?" I said.

"Quiet." He pressed his palm to his chest, and looked startled. "I'd forgotten it could be."

"And the rest of it?"

"There's a lot of room in here," he said slowly. "I keep reaching for you and you're not there."

My own chest did something I felt all the way to my toes.

"That's mine, now," I said.

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