Page 73 of Fall is Brewing

“Well.. he usually did.”

A smile ghosts across Brooks’s mouth, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“They look happy,” I say.

“They were,” Brooks answers.

Just that. Two words. But they land with the weight of a fallen tree. Were. Past tense.

Jace leans back in his chair, turning his spoon between his fingers. “That was taken here, actually.”

I glance at him. “Here?”

“Not here here, on this land,” he says. “But here in Orchard Falls. We used to come every October when we were kids. Mom loved this town. Dad loved Hartley’s cider donuts.”

My heart gives a strange little knock.

Hartley’s.

Brooks’s gaze cuts to Jace, sharp enough that even I catch it.

Jace freezes, then winces. “Was that supposed to be a secret?”

“No,” Brooks says, but his jaw says otherwise.

Evan sighs and reaches for his cider. “We came here for years. Before any of this. Before Calder Cider was anything more than an idea our dad jotted onto a napkin.”

I look around the cabin again—the quilt, the fire, the boots by the door, the pot still warm on the stove—and suddenly the shape of this place changes. It is no longer just a rival orchard built down the road from mine. It is not only sleek branding and clever coffee and high-density planting.

It’s grief with beams and windows.

It’s memory turned into infrastructure.

It’s three brothers trying to build something solid out of the pieces their parents left behind.

My throat tightens, but I force a small smile at Brooks. “I didn’t know,” I say.

Brooks looks at me then, and something in his expression shifts. Not defensive exactly. Not embarrassed. More like he’s deciding whether to close a door or leave it cracked. “Most people don’t. We were just tourists, you know? None of the locals really remembered us.”

“But we remembered all of you,” Evan adds.

Jace, apparently allergic to silence, clears his throat. “Dad always said he’d open a cider place someday.”

Evan’s gaze drops to his bowl. “He said a lot of things.”

“He meant them,” Jace says.

“I didn’t say he didn’t,” Evan adds, gentler.

The quiet that follows is softer this time, worn around the edges.

Brooks looks over at the fireplace. “That’s them on the mantle,” he says. “When the time is right, we’ll scatter their ashes here on the property. That way they can fulfill their dream of moving to Orchard Falls and opening a cider brewhouse… at least in part.”

The words are simple, but they undo me anyway. Because I know legacy. I know what it is to inherit more than land. I know what it feels like to have other people’s dreams planted in your soil, to wake every morning and wonder if you’re watering them right.

But until this moment, I had only thought of Brooks as someone building against me. I hadn’t let myself consider that he was building toward someone else. Toward two someones who aren’t here to see it.

Rain slides down the windows in silver rivers. The fire pops softly in the other room, a tiny burst of sparks. Outside, the orchard bends beneath the storm, branches shivering, roots holding.