Chapter 14

Talking, At Last

Saturday Afternoon

The jars had cooled. Lisa had cleaned them and put them on the sideboard in the dining room. Later, she would give them to her cousins.

She knew she could find Ari in the orchard. He was down by the creek, where he used to chase frogs as a boy.

He could hear her crunching as she approached.

“I want to show you something,” he said, and leaned down and pushed through the grass. The soil he picked up crumbled between his fingers. “It’s not just the fruit, Lisa. Water costs money. So does security. Last year one of my workers found a camp of hippies who’d parked on the back lawn. They broke down the fence. We had to chase them away.”

“You keep talking about how much everything costs, but there is something here you can’t put a price on,” said Lisa. “Something I’m willing to fight for.”

“This isn’t only about the money. Land needs to be worked.”

“What if we leased the orchard?”

“Look, even you don’t have time anymore. You show up once a year to make jam. You can buy it in the shop!”

“It’s not the jam. It’s the making it that counts. Picking the fruit, harvesting it, keeping it. It’s all a link to Anna, from her to us to our children. Do we have a right to break that link?”

“Well, your daughter is the oldest grandchild. She agrees with me.”

Lisa felt a sharp pain under her ribs.

“How do you know that?”

“She told me. She can tell you herself. She’s arriving soon. With her Turkish boyfriend.”

It was like a relapse after you think you have recovered. Once again, Lisa lost her head to rage.

“Do you know how many messages I’ve left her? I’ve tried to reach her a hundred times a day and she won’t call me back, but somehow you know everything! She’s my daughter, Ari! My daughter!”

Her voice rose to a screech. The wind caught it and flung it higher. Lisa wanted to run. Where could she go? She needed to be alone.

She turned her back to Ari. She headed toward her ridge. Ari called, but she did not turn around.

Her brother, John, found her on a rock, curled over with her head on her knees. He was a good listener, for a surgeon. He waited while she cried. Then he made her laugh.

Finally, she told him the story of her fights with Anya and Ari.

“I see,” her brother said quietly, like a doctor thinking of his diagnosis.

“I don’t even really care that he’s a Turk.”

“His parents are Turkish. He’s an American.”

“I know. I know.”

“What do you think really upset you?”

John was the father of twin girls, both at college on the East Coast. He knew how to talk to women: to ask questions and to wait for the answers.

“It was the way she sprang it on me.” Lisa took a small stone she had been holding in her palm and threw it. “Anya’s never had a serious boyfriend before. I always thought she would tell me everything. The first date. The first kiss. But I don’t hear a word until it’s already, ‘We’re in love. We want to meet each other’s families.’”

“So you overreacted.”

“I reacted! Okay, I overreacted.”

“You’ve always had a temper.”

“I have?”

“Yes. You terrified me as a kid. You still scare me a bit.”

Lisa laughed. “But I’m such a softie! Just because I don’t like to admit I’m wrong . . .”

Lisa wiped her hands on her jeans and continued. “John, let me ask you: am I wrong this time? I can’t tell you how much I hate the thought of losing this place. All our connections. I hate change.”

“Everything comes to an end, Lisa. Good things and bad.”

They sat together quietly for a few minutes before John put his hand on her back. “You can keep making jam for everyone,” he said.

“No, this will be the last time. I can keep telling stories. You don’t need an orchard for that.”