“All those little things I used to collect from the orchard? I was just wondering if they got packed away somewhere.”
Grandma’s mouth curved in a thoughtful frown; she didn’t reach for her pen and paper. It had been easy, once, to read Grandma’s expressions and gestures, to carry on a conversation with only the quirks of her lips as replies—or so Sorrow had thought, when she was little. Looking at her grandmother now, not knowing what she was thinking, she realized that maybe those exchanges had never been conversations in the first place. She had chattered a lot, and Grandma had smiled and nodded in response, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.
“You don’t know?” she asked, to be sure she was interpreting the frown correctly.
Grandma shook her head.
“Okay. But you do remember—”
Sorrow set the too-strong tea on the table. She didn’t know where Verity was. She couldn’t remember if her mother’s bedroom door had been open or closed—and how strange it was, to not have noticed what had once been her first warning of how a day might go.
“You do remember them, don’t you? My collection?”
Grandma nodded slowly.
Sorrow looked away, uncomfortable under her grandmother’s gaze, and embarrassed by her relief. “Okay. It’s not a big deal. I can look for them later.” She glanced around the kitchen, spotted the bowl of pancake batter, the pack of thawing bacon. “Is there anything I can do to help? Since I’m awake at this obscene hour, you might as well put me to work.”
Grandma nodded and waved for Sorrow to follow her out to the back porch. She picked up a covered bucket, handed it to Sorrow, and pointed across the lawn at the chicken coop. A soft mist rose as the morning sun burned off the night’s dew.
“Feed the chickens?” Sorrow guessed.
Grandma mimed reaching out and grabbing something.
“Collect the eggs too?”
Grandma patted her arm.
“Okay.” Sorrow peeked under the towel; the bucket was half-filled with vegetables and grain. “I think I remember how.”
The skin around Grandma’s eyes crinkled with silent laughter. Sorrow decided to take that as a vote of confidence. The dewy grass dampened her sneakers and tickled her ankles as she crossed the lawn. Unlike the house, the chicken coop looked exactly as old and shabby as she remembered: the once-white paint gray and chipped away, the entire structure sinking into the ground at one corner.
The chickens clucked and jostled, and the rooster eyed her suspiciously as she unlatched the gate. “Shoo. Back up or you don’t get anything.”
She hadn’t tended chickens since she was eight—at home all of their food came wrapped in plastic, thank you very much—and it had been her least favorite chore as a child. She had always wheedled and bartered to convince Patience to do it. But she remembered how to jam the vegetables into the wire and scatter the grain on the ground. The chickens set upon their breakfast with enthusiasm.
The sound of a car on the driveway caught her attention. Sorrow turned and watched a mud-splattered Jeep pull up and park beside Verity’s Subaru. The driver was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that were more grass stain than fabric: he had clearly come to work.
The way Verity had described her feud-breaking Abrams employee as so helpful, the most helpful person she knew, had made Sorrow picture somebody obnoxiously peppy and interfering, the kind of polo-shirt-and-combed-hair rich kid who enjoyed taking pity on women who couldn’t handle their own farm. But he just looked like a guy. About her age, maybe a year or two older, with sandy blond hair beneath a battered Red Sox hat. He was yawning and heading toward the porch when he spotted her.
“Hi,” Sorrow said, waving. “Good morning.”
He hesitated a moment, then walked across the lawn to the coop. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Sorrow said again, but she was distracted when one of the chickens began pecking at her shoe; she had dropped the feed on her own feet. “Go away, go away, go away, creature.”
When she looked up again he was smiling bemusedly, like he couldn’t quite decide if it would be rude to laugh.
Sorrow said, “You can’t turn your back on these ferocious beasts. They’re shifty.”
“You’re a lot bigger than them, you know,” he said.
“I know,” Sorrow said. “But there are more of them than there are of me, and I’ve seen Jurassic Park. I know they’re pack hunters. I don’t trust their beady little dinosaur eyes.” She nudged another hungry chicken away with her foot. “I’m Sorrow. Verity’s daughter.”
“I, uh, yeah,” the guy said. “I thought so. I’m Ethan. I help your mom and grandma around the farm.”
“She told me. She made it very clear that you’re the reason the lawn actually looks like a lawn these days and not some kind of tropical jungle.”
“Yeah, well, I try. Did you just get here?”
“Yesterday.”
“And Miss P’s already got you doing the chores she hates.”
“I knew it!” Sorrow said. The chickens clucked angrily and swarmed away from her. “I knew she was being sneaky, but she looked so innocent when she asked.”
She reached for the latch on the gate, then remembered that she was supposed to collect the eggs too. The henhouse had been stuffy and small even when she was little.
“I don’t think I’m going to fit in there quite as well as I did when I was eight.” She pulled open the henhouse door. “Wish me luck.”
“Don’t let them see the fear in your eyes,” Ethan said.
Sorrow flipped him off before she ducked inside, which earned her a laugh.
When she emerged again, fresh eggs laid carefully in the bottom of the bucket, Ethan opened the gate for her. As they walked up to the porch, he pointed to her hat. “Phillies, huh? Not Marlins or Rays?”
“Oh, come on, now,” Sorrow said. “There’s no reason to be mean, not when we’ve just met.”
“I thought you were from Florida? Morning, Miss P.”
Grandma smiled at Ethan and patted his arm.
“I am, but it’s Phillies all the way in my family. My stepmom’s family,” she said, stumbling over the clarification. “Her uncle used to play for them back in the seventies. He came over from Cuba to play.”
“Wow, really? That’s cool,” Ethan said. He took plates from the shelves and set them out on the table; it was obviously habit for him. “Anybody I’ve heard of?”
“I doubt it. He was only a second-string outfielder for a few years—’76 to ’79.”
“Still cool,” Ethan said. “So he wasn’t with them when they won the series in 1980? Won against the Royals—”
“In six games,” Sorrow finished. “I know that, trivia guy, but only because it’s family legend for me. What’s your excuse? Spend a lot of time on Wikipedia?”
“Sort of,” Ethan admitted. “My grandfather really loved it. He and I used to make a game of memorizing all the series and championships. He liked to spring random quizzes on me every time I visited. I got candy for a prize, so I was pretty motivated.”