Beyond the Spring Breeze: The Orchard Summer novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Petal Fall
On the last day of blossom, Lenka meets her new neighbor Abram and his daughter at the fence, offers him water from her well, and hears him laugh for the first time in over a year.
On the last day of blossom, I was walking the north rows with my kitchen windows locked behind me.
I do that every May.
The petals were coming down, and I kept my eyes on my boots.
A truck was parked at the fence line where my trees end and the old Hendry place begins.
A man stood beside it, looking at my orchard.
A little girl in a yellow raincoat stood next to him, holding a plastic jug.
"Morning," I said. "You're on my side of the wire."
"I know," he said. "I was working up to knocking."
He was tall and broad, with sandy hair going gray at the temples and a short beard.
His flannel shirt had a hole in one elbow.
"Abram Torrance," he said. "I bought the Hendry place. This is my daughter, Dessa."
"I'm nine," Dessa said. "Are your bees mean?"
"Only to people who ask rude questions."
She thought that over and nodded.
"I'm Lenka Sedlak," I said. "This is my family's orchard. I heard somebody bought that wreck."
"That's the wreck," Abram said. "I've owned it two weeks."
He lifted his chin toward the jug in Dessa's hands.
"The well pump quit on the second day. The man says a week, maybe two, to get a new one in."
"You've been hauling water?"
"From the gas station in town. Twelve miles each way."
"And you have trees to keep alive."
"Twenty acres of them. I can't tell if any are alive."
I looked past him at the Hendry orchard.
The trees were tall, gray and crowded, with branches that hadn't been cut in ten years.
Half of them were dead.
The rest still had a few late blossoms hanging on, pale and stubborn.
"The ones at the back are fine," I said. "They're just old. Give them a hard prune and they'll surprise you."
"You can tell that from here?"
"I grew up on this wire," I said. "I used to climb those trees and steal their apples."
He almost smiled.
"I'm not asking for a favor," he said. "I just wondered if you knew a well man who isn't a thief."
"I know three. They're all thieves."
I looked at the jug, and the girl, and his empty truck bed.
Then I made a decision I hadn't planned.
"My spigot is by the barn," I said. "I have a hose long enough to reach your fence."
"You can run it across until your pump is fixed."
Abram went very still.
"I can pay you for the water."
"You can bring me a loaf of bread. My mother says nobody bakes anymore."
"I can't promise good bread."
"Then bring me a bad one. She likes complaining."
He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Thank you. I mean it. I haven't had a lot of luck lately."
"Well, I have a goose that bites," I said. "So call it even."
"A goose."
"She's behind you."
He turned.
The goose was crossing the grass toward his boots with her neck out low and her wings half open.
Abram looked at her.
Dessa shrieked with joy and ran the other way.
The goose chased his left boot three steps before I got a hand on her.
"She's not usually this bad," I lied.
"She went straight for my ankle."
"She's never seen a man wear a hole in his shirt before."
He looked down at his elbow.
Then he laughed.
It came out low and rusty, like a gate that hadn't opened in years.
He put a hand over his mouth, surprised at himself.
I laughed too.
I hadn't done that in a long time, and it hurt a little.
The petals kept falling.
One landed in Dessa's braid.
I walked them to the barn, and I showed Abram the spigot and the coil of green hose.
He carried it across the grass himself.
His daughter walked backward ahead of him so she could keep an eye on the goose.
When the hose was laid along the fence, Abram thanked me once more and shook my hand.
His palm was warm and rough.
I let go first.
Dessa waited until he was at the truck.
Then she stepped close and spoke low.
"You made him laugh," she said.
"The goose did."
"He hasn't done that since the snow."
She said it plainly, the way children say things that grown people carry for years.
Then she ran after her father, and I stood alone at the wire with my hands in my pockets.
I stayed at the wire a long time after his truck had gone.
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