“Nothing changes,” I said. “Unless you count the conveyor we put in the barn to sort the cherries.”
He shook his head. “I don’t count that.”
“I don’t think my husband would sell,” I told him. I don’t think my husband would sell you the orchard if you offered him the entire state of California.
“Is your husband here?”
I nodded. I would have guessed it would be strange if I ever saw Duke again. I would not have guessed it would be strange in this way. Every sentence that came into my head began with the phrase,Do you remember?but clearly, he did not.
“Maybe I’ll try to find him. Would you mind if I just walk around?” His hair was shining like a Pantene ad and he raked it back with his hand. I was sure that Duke’s hair never looked like that before, but then I don’t think he used shampoo whenI knew him. I think shampoo was one of the things he didn’t believe in.
The girls were sitting on the lawn throwing handfuls of leaves in the air and then letting those leaves affix to them with jam. They were laughing like hyenas. “I don’t mind at all but seriously, can you just wait a minute? I haven’t seen you in a long time. Tell me something.”
“What do you want to know?” Suddenly he looked as tired as he claimed to be. Suddenly my mind was blank of questions.
“Is there a person in the car?” I asked. The windows were so dark it was impossible to tell but the motor was running.
Duke nodded.
“Should we invite him out?”
Duke shook his head.
Then I remembered the thing I did want to know, the person I had wondered about for years. “How’s Sebastian?”
His eyes had been wandering but they came back to me then and he smiled. “I always thought you were in love with Sebastian,” he said. “At least at the end.”
“Of course I was in love with Sebastian. Everyone was.” Pallace was, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t say her name without sounding punitive or hurt and I was neither of those things. I was the luckiest person in the world. “Is Sebastian still teaching? Is he still in East Detroit?”
“They got rid of East Detroit,” Duke said. “It’s Eastpointe now.”
“I don’t know why I can never remember that.”
“Sebastian works with me. He runs the production company. No more world history.”
“But he still plays tennis.” It wasn’t a question. Of course he played.
Duke nodded. “We play, the two of us. Sebastian is the constant. Everything is change except Sebastian.”
For a brief, horrible moment I wondered if it was Sebastianin the car, if Sebastian had driven him here, but that wasn’t possible.
He turned and looked at my girls spread out in a pile of red and gold leaves. “Do either of you know where the cemetery is?” he asked them.
Emily sprang up like puppet. “I do!”
“That’s where I want to go. Can you walk around like that?” he asked me, making reference to my stomach.
“I can.”
Duke went down the steps and into the leaves. When he leaned over, Emily held out her arms to him. “Oh, you are lovely,” he said, picking her up. Then he looked back at me. “I should get one of these.”
“Easiest thing in the world,” I said, Maisie climbing into my arms.
I didn’t walk him to the cemetery. I took him in the direction of the barn instead. “We’ll pick up Joe,” I said.
“Who’s Joe?” Duke asked Emily, his eyebrows turned down, his voice suspicious.
“Daddy!” she cried, laughing at his hilarity.
