“The fruit business is dying,” he blurted out. “Dad was too stubborn to understand that. Too attached to outdated methods.”
“That plan would have enriched you,” I concluded for him, “while destroying everything your father held precious. Everything I held precious. You could have enjoyed a comfortable retirement, a condo in Florida, with no worries other than living with the knowledge that you’d allowed my husband’s inheritance to be razed to make way for vacation homes.”
Brandon shook his head as if I were the unreasonable one. He still didn’t understand.
“Take the letter and go,” I said. “Read it or don’t, but either way, this will be the last time you set foot in this house.”
He grabbed the envelope and pushed me away without a word. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs, the slam of the front door, the roar of his rental car. Only when the sound had completely faded did I allow myself to sit on the edge of the bed, surrounded by the remains of Brandon’s latest violation.
I didn’t cry. I hadn’t cried since that moment on County Road 27, when I realized my children had become strangers. Instead, I began tidying up the room, folding Nicholas’s flannel shirts that still smelled faintly of him, gathering up the scattered photographs, restoring order to the chaos my son had left behind.
As darkness fell, I moved to the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea, which I then took to the porch, where I settled into Nicholas’s rocking chair. Above me, the stars were beginning to appear in the clear spring sky. Below, the orchard stretched out into the darkness, the trees we’d planted together now mature and robust.
My phone rang: it was Vincent wanting to know how I was.
