Twelve days after my husband died, I caught my neighbor climbing over my fence with bags full of his apples.
At first, I thought she wanted the fruit.
I had no idea she was carrying a secret my husband had kept for twenty-seven years.
My husband, Daniel, treated our apple trees like members of the family.
Every September, he’d walk through the garden with pruning shears in his back pocket, examining branches and turning apples gently in his palm as though the trees might tell him when they were ready.
That afternoon, our eight-year-old son, Ben, followed him from tree to tree with a basket.
“Not that one,” Daniel said when Ben reached for a bright red apple.
Ben frowned. “It looks ready.”
“Looks can lie. Give it a little twist.”
Ben tried.
The apple stayed firmly attached to the branch.
“See?” Daniel smiled. “When it’s ready, you won’t have to fight for it.”
I wanted to freeze that moment.
Daniel had been tired more often lately.
He thought I didn’t notice.
But I’d started watching him too carefully.
How long he rested after climbing the ladder.
Whether he finished dinner.
How often he rubbed his chest when he thought I wasn’t looking.
Eventually, he caught me staring.
“Claire, stop worrying.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You’ve been married to me for twenty-seven years. You’re terrible at lying.”
Before I could answer, a voice came from the other side of the fence.
“That’s quite a harvest this year.”
Our neighbor, Monica, stood among the branches on her side of the property.
At fifty, she was always perfectly put together, even when she claimed she’d been gardening all morning.
She’d known Daniel long before I met him.
Apparently they’d grown up around the same circles and dated briefly when they were young.
When Monica inherited her parents’ old house and moved back next door nine years earlier, Daniel had mentioned it casually.
I’d never thought much about it.
Ancient history was ancient history.
A few minutes later, a white van pulled into Monica’s driveway.
A young man climbed out carrying a toolbox.
He’d been around her house several times that summer.
“Your plumber’s back,” I said.
Monica glanced toward him.
“Old houses. There’s always something.”
The young man looked over and lifted a hand.
Daniel returned the gesture.
Then he kept watching him.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
“He just reminds me of someone.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked again.
But the young man had already disappeared inside Monica’s house.
“I don’t know.”
Then Ben called him back to the trees, and the moment passed.
Daniel rested a hand on our son’s shoulder.
He looked up through the branches.
“These trees will keep feeding you, even when I’m gone.”
My stomach tightened.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
He smiled.
“Trees live a long time.”
“Then talk about them living a long time. Not you disappearing.”
He squeezed my hand.
I didn’t know that would be the last time we stood together beneath those trees.
Twelve days later, my husband died.
The afternoon we returned from his funeral, I carried a sleeping Lily from the car while Ben walked beside me, clutching Daniel’s old baseball cap.
I barely noticed the garden.
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