As darkness fell, I moved to the kitchen and made a cup of tea, carrying it to the front porch where I settled into Nicholas’s rocking chair. Above me, stars began to emerge in the clear spring sky. Below, the orchard stretched into darkness, the trees we’d planted together now mature and strong.
My phone rang—Vincent checking on me.
“I’m home,” I told him. “Brandon’s gone.”
“And you’re all right there alone?” he asked.
“I’ve been alone since Nicholas died,” I replied. “The difference is, now I know it.”
Three months later, I sat in the same chair, watching the summer sun set over an orchard heavy with ripening fruit. The harvest would be good this year—perhaps our best ever. Not that I would handle it alone. The new manager I’d hired, Martin Adams’s daughter Lisa, had already proven herself more than capable.
