Chapter 14
Stevie leads us through a latched gate that opens to the garden.
It’s not big, but not small either. It probably feeds more than just the people in this household, but I can tell it’s not a part of the farm.
The orchard spreads out for acres and acres beyond with a red barn in the distance.
When we pulled down the long drive, Stevie took a turn that led us to the house, but there was another that led to what I imagine is other parts of the expansive orchard.
“Should we go in and see your family first?” I ask as Stevie picks a bed and squats down beside it. We stopped by a shed for gloves and tools, and she wastes no time before slipping the gloves on and digging in.
“Oh, no,” she answers, autumn sunlight pouring onto her skin. “If we go inside now, this will never get done. As it is, we probably only have fifteen minutes before they realize we’re here.”
I glance back at the house. Music drifts through one of the open windows. “Okay, let’s do this.”
We work mostly in silence for the next fifteen minutes, Stevie showing me where to go next and the bucket to throw the weeds in.
I assume the garden was probably full during the summer, but now there’s only a few raised beds with produce—pumpkins and sweet potatoes, root vegetables, and leafy greens.
The trees in the orchard are beginning to look bare, too, as apple season comes to a close.
It’s like the whole farm is going into hibernation.
She was right, though, and after only twenty minutes, a door on the back porch opens and a woman who looks nothing like Stevie stands there in an outfit remarkably similar to the one Stevie is wearing—cropped army green pants and a thick oat-colored sweater.
“Stevie Jane, what are you doing?”
Stevie stands from where she was hunched over a bed, unbothered by the dirt covering her gloves as she lifts one hand to her forehead to block the sun and plants the other on her hip. “Baking a cake.”
“Don’t be a smartass, young lady. I am your mother.”
A laugh huffs out of Stevie. “Weeding your garden.”
“You could have at least come in first to say hello to your only parents.”
I catch Stevie’s eye roll, but I don’t think her mom does, because I have a feeling she wouldn’t be the type to let that go. “No, or it would have never gotten done.”
Stevie’s mom waves her hand like what her daughter said is irrelevant. “Come inside for some tea.”
“We’re weeding the garden.”
“We?”
I stand up from where I was pulling out another weed, realizing I was likely hidden.
Before I can introduce myself, Stevie says, “Jebediah and I.”
“Jack Sullivan,” I interrupt. Stevie’s mom’s face lights up when she sees me, a smile that looks like sunshine.
“Perfect,” she says. “So glad to see you again, Jack. Why don’t you both come in for tea?”
She doesn’t pose it as a question, and Stevie must know this, too, because she sighs and wipes her hands on her pants before heading toward the gate. Her mom disappears into the house, and I follow after Stevie. She glances behind us as she latches the gate, surveying the garden.
“Well, we got some of it done.”
“We can come back if we need to.”
She lifts a single brow. “We?”
“I’m not a quitter.”
This loosens a surprised laugh out of her, and I’m not able to suppress a smile at the sound of it. “Come on, or my mom will be back out here.”
The house smells like lavender when we walk in, but not like cheap lavender candles my mom used to burn in our apartment. This smells fresher, less synthetic. Still, it reminds me of her, and I get that ache in my chest that always accompanies it.
Wallpaper lines the walls, and beside the back door are a neat line of work boots and gardening gloves, a floppy wicker sunhat hanging on weathered wooden hooks on the wall.
The floors are what I imagine is the original wood, scarred and worn from years of use.
There are faint muddy footprints on the thin planks and a stack of mail on a vintage wooden table that makes the place feel lived in.
Stevie kicks off her shoes, so I follow suit then trail after her down the hall.
There are voices at the end of it in what looks like the kitchen.
When we enter, there’s a man sitting at a table in a breakfast nook, a heating pad pressed to his back and plugged into an outlet in the wall beside him.
While Stevie’s mom didn’t look anything like her, this man, who I assume is her father, is a more masculine image of her.
Same thick eyebrows framing hazel eyes and dark, heavy lashes.
Same cascade of deep brown hair, although his is peppered with gray and pushed back from his forehead and falling over his ears in a surprisingly stylish cut for his age.
He’s also got her freckles and straight nose. Same smile, too, as he spots us.
But when I look at Stevie, she’s not reflecting it. Her brows are pinched together, twin half-moons forming between them. She’s staring at his arm, and when I take another look at him, I notice the white hospital bracelet wrapped around it. “You went to the hospital?”
“It was no big deal,” he says with a flick of his wrist. “I just needed to get a steroid shot so I could get some work done. Things were falling behind.”
“You could have asked me to help,” Stevie says, sounding exasperated.
“You have a job, honey. Really, I’m fine.”
“You had to go to the hospital.”
“Stevie,” a voice says from the other side of the kitchen, and I turn to see Stevie’s mom entering through another doorway, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. “Everything is fine. You don’t need to worry.”
I look at Stevie and watch as her expression changes from concerned to annoyed to resigned in just a handful of seconds, watch as she stuffs it all away, her shoulders rising and falling as she exhales through her nose.
Finally, she looks at her mom and asks, “Do you need help with the tea?” Her voice is almost unrecognizable, distant and softer than I’ve heard before, but if her parents notice, they don’t comment on it.
“No,” her mom says. “You two sit down and keep your dad company.”
We do as we’re told, and Stevie’s mom moves around the kitchen, pulling out glasses from a cupboard and a pitcher from the fridge.
“So who do we have here?” Stevie’s dad asks, voice booming in the small kitchen.
My attention snaps to him, and I extend my hand, shaking off whatever observations I made from the entire exchange. None of them seem to want to continue it. “Jack Sullivan, sir. I’m Stevie’s roommate.”
“Ah,” he says, shaking my hand in his firm, callused grip.
“Anthony Lynch, Stevie’s dad.” He says this proudly, like out of all the titles he has, this one is his favorite, and it endears me to him as well as sends a pang of envy through me.
My father wasn’t interested in sticking around when he found out my mom was pregnant with Evan and me, so I’ve never experienced that look of pride on Stevie’s dad’s face, and I’ve always wondered what it must feel like.
“I hear you’re the nurse who saved my daughter’s life.”
I let out a surprised chuckle. “Not quite that dramatic,” I assure him. “But she was one of my patients the night of her concussion.”
“Well, thank you for taking care of her. I’m grateful.”
“Yes, thank you, Jack,” Stevie’s mom says, bustling around the island to the breakfast nook with a tray of glasses and fruit. “I’m Jamie, by the way. I know we’ve met, but I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself.”
“Nice to meet you,” I tell them both as she places the tray on the table and sits down in the seat next to her husband.
“You like fruit tea?” she asks, setting a crystal glass in front of me.
“This one is made with some apple juice that we make on the farm. And of course, we’ve got some apples.
” She gestures to the bowl of fruit on the table—mostly apples with a few peaches and strawberries, drizzled with what looks like honey.
“Hope you like apples, or you might be in the wrong place,” she says with a laugh.
It’s deep and husky, just like Stevie’s.
“Love apples,” I say. “Haven’t had fruit tea though.”
Beside me, Stevie reaches for a fork and stabs a peach slice. She asks, “Really? In all the places you’ve been, you’ve never tried fruit tea?”
“You a traveler?” Anthony asks, lifting his glass to his lips.
“Yes, sir. I’m a travel nurse, so I’ve been all over.”
“Wow, can’t say I’ve met one of those. Must get lonely never staying in one place,” he says.
I reach for my own glass and take a sip. The flavors burst on my tongue, ripe and sweet. “This is amazing,” I tell Jamie, and she flashes me a smile. Turning my attention back to Anthony, I say, “It’s not too bad. I like exploring.”
“Stevie does, too,” he says, that note of pride in his voice again.
“I’ve gathered that,” I say. “But she says she hasn’t traveled much.”
He shakes his head, looking a little disappointed. “No, we don’t get much time to travel with running the farm. There’s always something that needs doing.”
There’s a noise coming from the doorway that Jamie came through and when I look, I see an older woman with a remarkable resemblance to Stevie and Anthony.
Her hair is gray, but she has their same bone structure and build.
She’s a little hunched over, and she seems agitated as she moves into the kitchen and pulls open a drawer.
“What are you looking for, Mom?” Anthony asks, pushing up slowly to his feet. I don’t miss the wince he tries to hide as he straightens his back, or the way he hobbles forward before taking a steadier step.
“My checkbook,” the woman, Stevie’s grandma, says. “I just remembered I need to pay the electric bill, and I can’t find it in my purse.”
Stevie and her mom exchange a look before Jamie stands, too, following after her husband.
“I already paid the electric bill,” Anthony says, voice steady and calm. I get the sense that this isn’t the first time they’ve had conversations like this.