Beyond the Spring Breeze: The Orchard Summer novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: Beyond the Spring Breeze
On the fourteenth of May, I woke before the birds.
The room was gray, and Abram's side of the bed was empty.
A note lay on his pillow in his square handwriting.
It said, "Gone to the row early. No hurry. I'll wait."
I held it against my chest for a minute.
Then I got up, put on my jeans and my husband's red and black flannel over my shirt, and went downstairs.
The kitchen was dim and cool.
The latch on the window over the sink was cold under my fingers.
I looked at it for a while.
It was a plain brass latch, painted over twice.
I'd turned it every first of May for two years, and I'd never once asked myself what I was keeping out.
I knew now.
I'd been keeping out the smell, and the light, and the sound of the trees, because they were the last things he'd had.
I thought that if I let them in, I'd lose the last of him.
But I was standing in his flannel, with a note in my pocket from the man who loved me.
Nothing I had kept shut had kept my husband.
He was in the drawer by the sink, and the rows, and the shape of my hands on a ladder.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Beyond the Spring Breeze: The Orchard Summer are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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