In the evenings, Connor sat on the porch with Harold. The boy carved some sort of bird from a piece of birch with a folding knife, while Harold smoked and watched the garden in silence.
“Grandpa, Mom says only failures stay in places like this.”
“Your mother buys bread already sliced and sealed in plastic,” Harold answered calmly. “She probably thinks loaves grow somewhere beside the pasta. You know now how many buckets of water it takes to pour around a tomato plant so the fruit will set properly. A person should know how to use his hands. Then he won’t be helpless anywhere—not in the country and not in the city.”
Connor was quiet for a while. Then he took a sheet of graph paper from his pocket. It had been folded into quarters, and the creases were nearly worn through.
“I added it up,” he said. “How much we’ve eaten here. I used store prices. It’s a lot. I’ll pay you back when I’m grown.”
Harold took the paper and studied the long column of figures written in the boy’s careful handwriting. Then he handed it back.
“You already overpaid me for the firewood,” he said. “And for fixing the fence. Your grandmother and I are the ones who owe you now, Connor. So sit still and stop inventing debts.”
The boy sniffed loudly and began carving faster.
“Sometimes we run out of food before Mom gets paid,” he admitted, watching the curls of wood fall near his shoes. “There are still five days left, and the little ones get hungry. So I… well, you found it. I understand.”
“We found it,” Harold said. “But don’t hide anything anymore. In this house, bread belongs on the table, not beneath a pillow.”
At the beginning of August, the early white apples ripened, and soon the old heirloom trees began to fill with fruit as well. The orchard grew heavy beneath them; some branches bent almost to the grass.
The children picked the apples carefully, wrapping each one in newspaper before placing it in wooden crates. Connor now organized the work himself: one person on the ladder, one receiving the apples below, another carrying the crates to the shed.
Not a single apple was crushed beneath anyone’s shoes.
On August twentieth, an engine rumbled outside the gate again.
Denise arrived as noisily as before, sunburned and wearing a new dress.
“Well, my little bandits, are you alive? Did you eat enough free fruit? Nobody’s stomach burst, I hope?”
Then she stopped in the middle of the yard.
The paths had been swept. The weeds along the fence had been cut down to the roots. The fence stood straight and freshly painted with the remains of green paint Harold had kept in the shed for five years. A neat stack of firewood rose beside the wall. On the porch, the twins were scrubbing their sandals with brushes. Lily was wiping the jars that would be used for canned fruit.
Connor emerged from the orchard with a sack of apples over his shoulder. During the summer he had grown taller, broader through the shoulders, and brown as copper beneath the sun.
“Connor! What are you doing, working as a farmhand? Put that down!”
“Good afternoon, Grandma Denise,” he replied. He lowered the sack carefully onto the wooden platform. “We don’t throw the bags down. These are winter apples. If they bruise, they’ll rot before November.”
At the table, Denise was unusually quiet. She kept glancing at the grandchildren, who sat without fighting over their spoons and had wished everyone a pleasant meal before eating.
“Margaret,” she whispered, leaning toward her cousin, “what have you been giving them? At home they could destroy the whole apartment in one day.”
“Nettle tea,” Harold called from the end of the table. “Very healthy. And if you refuse to go into the garden, it bites you on the legs.”
After tea, Denise opened her large plaid bags.
“All right, then. We’ll take some berries, a few jars of preserves, and maybe three sacks of apples. I’ll give the driver a little money, and he can put everything in the trunk. It all grew for free anyway. The land belongs to everyone.”
Connor, who had been standing by the door, stepped forward until he was directly in front of the bags.
“No, Grandma Denise. Nothing here grew for free.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?”
“We spent the whole summer protecting this orchard,” Connor said, looking straight into her eyes. “We watered it every day. We carried water from the well because the pump burned out, and Grandpa had to take it apart and repair it. Grandma stayed up late sealing jars so we would have food during the winter. Grandpa gave each of us a crate of apples to take home to our mothers. But we won’t let you take everything in sacks and hand it out to someone else. We did this work.”
The kitchen fell so silent that the cricket behind the stove could be heard chirping.
Denise flushed. She drew in a deep breath, clearly preparing one of her familiar speeches about ungrateful and heartless relatives. Then she met five calm young faces watching her.
The twins stood beside Connor.
Lily held Chloe’s hand.