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Kate looked down. It was the windfall from Eileen’s tree that Penny had insisted on saving. A bruise had spread along one side, darker now than when Janice had found it a spot on the kitchen counter.
“I wanted to keep it.”
Eileen held out her hand. “Let me see.” Penny passed it over. Eileen turned the apple slowly. “It hasn’t all gone bad. It hit the ground. That part was always going to bruise.”
“Can we fix it?”
“We can cut that piece away.”
Penny considered this. “But then it won’t be my whole apple.”
“No. But you’ll still have the good part.”
Eileen got up more carefully than she had that morning and took Penny toward the farmhouse. “I’m going to find a knife and a chair,” she told Kate. “And then Penny and I are going to supervise everybody else for a while.”
Penny seemed content with this promotion. Kate watched them go. The old woman’s steps were slower now, and Penny automatically matched them. Then her mother called her name, and the harvest swallowed her again.
The afternoon passed faster. They reached what was left on Eileen’s old tree shortly after two. Nobody made an occasion of it. There was too much work to do. Eileen came back out with Penny after their rest, although this time she stayed on the ground and mostly talked while other people picked. She showed Janice where one branch tended to hold smaller fruit and warned Alan about uneven ground on the far side. Penny carried slices of her rescued apple in a little container and offered one to anyone who came close enough.
By then the wind had strengthened. Kate felt it first as a cold push through the row. Then came another gust hard enough to shake loose leaves and send several apples dropping into the grass. The mood changed. People started looking upward more often. Wes appeared from the next block with Alan and Joel.
“Ladders down from the upper rows,” Wes called. “Nobody goes back up until we see what this does.”
Nobody argued. That told Kate more than his words. The three men moved on, checking the next section, while Janice began helping lower a ladder nearby. Kate went to her. “Do you need a hand?”
“Get the other side.”
Together they carried it out of the row. Another gust moved through the orchard. Stronger. Janice looked toward the darkening sky. “We’ve done well.”
She did not sound ready to stop. “You both have,” Kate said.
By four, Wes and Alan made the call to stop. There was fruit still hanging. That hurt. Kate could see it in her father’s face when he looked toward the unfinished block. But he nodded. “All right. Everybody comes down.”
The message traveled quickly. Ladders disappeared first. Then the last full containers were loaded, trailers moved toward shelter and people began gathering gloves, jackets and half-empty coffee cups. The noise of the day slowly thinned. Gabe packed the remaining food with Mara while Joel checked who still needed to get vehicles out before the weather worsened. People hugged Alan and Janice, told them they would be back after the storm if they needed help, and left without waiting for long speeches of thanks.
Kate thought that might have been the part her father found hardest. Accepting that they had come because they wanted to. By the time the last truck pulled away, the orchard felt enormous again. The wind filled the empty spaces where voices had been.
Alan stood beside Janice, both of them muddy and exhausted. He put an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him.
Kate looked away and found Wes near his tractor. He was watching the trees. Not her. For once, she was glad. This was his life too, and somewhere beyond the boundary his own orchard was facing the same sky. Kate went to him. “How much did we get?”
“A lot.”
“That sounds carefully noncommittal.”
“It is.” He looked at her then. “Enough that your dad should feel good about today. Not enough that he won’t be out here staring at the rest of it tomorrow morning.”
“That sounds like Dad.”
Wes smiled. Another gust pushed Kate closer to him, and his hand came automatically to her waist.
“Go inside,” he said. “It’s getting colder.”
“What about you?”
“I’m heading back to Russet Hill. I want everything put away before the rain starts.”
Kate wanted to tell him to come inside with them. She didn’t. His orchard needed him. She was beginning to understand that loving Wes, if that was where this was going, would mean loving that part too.
