Page 6 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

“Exactly right,” Val says, dropping the fruit to the base of the tree and dusting off her hands.

I look back at her, considering this. Fruit turns in stages on any orchard, including ours, depending primarily on the rows’ exposure to heat and sunlight, and the age of the trees. Those schedules should be predictable, though. Trees that get more sunlight one year will pretty much be the same as the next.

“That’s strange, isn’t it?” I ask.

Val lifts a shoulder. “Weird microclimates around here. Makes things unpredictable.”

It’s something I’ve heard her say a thousand times to explain all manner of oddities, including why my orchard remains the sole pear farm in a valley filled with apples. Or why our picking season always starts on September 30—a date that is both later and more clockwork precise than it should be.

Before I can ask about it, though, Val says, “You knew that because of the color?”

“Yeah.”

She arches an eyebrow.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she mumbles, stooping to hoist the ladder onto her shoulder and starting back down the row. “It’s just subtle, that’s all. Hard to see with the naked eye. That’s why we use the gauge.”

“Val. Did you just tell me you’re impressed?”

She spins, but she’s not laughing. “It’s something Martin would’ve noticed.”

And this time the compliment is loud and clear.

My throat tightens. “He taught me everything I know.”

Or, rather, everything I feel.

The weight he placed on feeling, not knowledge, is the reason Uncle Martin never showed me how to use a pressure gauge—much to Val’s chagrin—opting instead to get me to compare the fruit to fennel and zucchini blossoms. It’s why, when I was in eighth grade, he taught me to prune by running my hand along the branch, feeling where the growth was thin or crowded and instinctively finding the right place to cut. Feeling is how I knew last summer, when I came to visit right after he told me about his diagnosis, that a new disease had taken root on the north side. There wasn’t anything visible, really. It’s just that the branches seemed tired.

When I pointed it out, Martin clapped me on the back and said, “Ali, my dear, you’re going to make one remarkable orchardist.”

I only grimaced, not ready to hear it. I was convinced he’d pull through and farm this land for decades more. I was sure the pancreatic cancer wouldn’t—couldn’t—take him.

A few months later, he admitted he was starting hospice. I scrambled onto the next flight from Miami to Portland, a foolhardy attempt to convince him to keep fighting. But when I saw him, hollowed out and frailer than I could have imagined, I finally started to accept the truths I’d been railing against for too long.

I was going to lose the only adult who ever made me feel safe.

I was going to be the next owner of this land.

We—me and the trees—were going to have to face the world without him.

Over the next few months, these ideas turned from abstract concepts to practical inevitability. I told Mom I’d be moving onto the orchard and was met with a silence even sharper than usual. I gave notice at my consulting firm in Florida and transitioned my contracts and clients to another project manager. My uncle and I signed deeds and probate orders and transfers of water rights. Then, in a whirlwind, I packed all my belongings and rented what I hoped would be my last U-Haul.

Only, when I returned, I wasn’t alone.

My uncle’s farmhouse—so recently consumed by stillness—filled with new kinds of sounds. Tape ripped off boxes. Voices drifting between rooms. Glasses clinked, toasting what had been and what remained. I went to the hardware store to have three sets of keys made, all with matching heart-shaped fobs. At that time, just about everything came in threes: laptops on the kitchen table, mugs of coffee with cream, pairs of work boots by the front door.

But that was a month ago. Now there’s only one.

One laptop.

One mug.

One pair of boots.

And a new kind of silence. At least I still have the trees.