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Mom takes the pear from me and inspects it carefully, turning it over in her gloved hands. Then she presses her lips into something that almost looks like a smile. “We’re going to need to start picking soon.”

“We?”

She pats my shoulder. “I’m quite good on a tree ladder, you know.”

And I hear more pears burst clean.

It takes another week for the crystals to shed and the pears to fully ripen. By the time we’re ready to pick, the leaves have turned scarlet and the days are rapidly shortening. On our tree ladders, Val is in a quilted vest, Mom has donned a utility jacket, and I’m in overalls, having conceded to nature for the season.

“Still the weirdest shit I’ve ever seen,” Val says as she dismounts her ladder to lumber over to the bin, kicking at a huge pile of fallen leaves for emphasis. “Picking pears at the end of October. Unnatural.”

Mom is already standing over the white bin, carefully releasing her own bag in a way that somehow avoids bruising even a single piece. With uncharacteristic patience, Val waits before taking her place. I catch them glance at each other before abruptly turning apart.

It reminds me of the look they exchanged the first day of harvest, when Mom showed up to work without her wedding ring.

“I don’t want to damage the fruit,” she said primly.

But as I turned away, I saw her raise her eyes to Val.

“More unnatural than crystal pears and technicolored bunny rabbits?” I ask now, bracing my shoulder against a central bough as I reach high into a branch.

“Absolutely.” Val cups her fingers and blows into her callused hands. “None of them ever gave me frostbite.”

Mom’s lips tick like she’s considering smiling and as I pluck another perfect pear, my chest aches with pleasure that feels so familiar and yet so incomplete. That same nostalgic tug is in the whispery scrape of branches moving in a light wind, weaker without the full canopy. It’s in the drone of an occasional insect, buzzing thinner in the cooler air, a holdover as fall turns toward winter. It’s in the steady, familiar rumble of tires against gravel that carries through the leaves.

It’s everything I’ve ever wanted, only missing the one person who would make it feel whole.

Val, scaling her ladder again, tugs at her beanie and glares down at me, the look she always gets when the trees or weather do something unexpected. “Cut that out.”

I snap a pear loose. “Can’t help it.”

Mom eyes Val, who’s still gripping at her rungs.

“Take a breath or something,” Val insists.

“I’m really not doing anything this time,” I protest because the wave of longing has passed and I don’t hear the trees groaning anymore.

Mom sucks in a breath. And I follow her gaze to the trees.

Then I drop the pear clutched in my fingertips.

And my brain catches up with what my hands already knew. That familiar rumble of tires on gravel? It’s the sound of a red truck, streaking through tree trunks.

“Ali?” Mom asks.

But I’ve already dumped my picking bag. I’m already running toward the driveway.

Chapter Thirty-One

Dust rises behind the wheels of a familiar cherry-red truck rounding a corner. The entire orchard thrums—leaves quivering, the ground faintly vibrating.

The cab comes into full view as I screech to a halt.

The wheels stop. Then the engine.

Logan swings out of the cab, stepping onto concrete.

Everything goes still with me. The branches. The bird songs.