“They’re mad because the post office closes?” Sorrow asked.
“Because it closes too early for the smelly trail crowd to hitchhike their way into town for their resupply runs,” Kavita said. “This happens at least twice a week. Somebody doesn’t read the message boards and sends their stuff to General Delivery, and then they get here and realize Grumpy McAsshole over there has locked up already. Right now he’s trying to tell them their phones have the wrong time. Look, they’re pulling them out to compare.”
“This is so exciting I don’t think I can stand it,” Sorrow said, and went back to her book.
She was midway through a page about wild trillium when her phone beeped. The incoming text was from her stepsister, Andi.
Hey, what’s up, vermonster?
A burst of surprise, followed by a twinge of guilt. Sorrow hadn’t texted Andi since she’d landed. She had been telling herself—for three days—that she would definitely get around to it before Andi noticed. Too late for that now. Sorrow stared at the words for a moment, then put her phone away without answering.
“Once the show is over, you can probably knock off,” Kavita said. “The moms won’t care. It’s always slow once the day-trippers are gone for the night.”
“I was hoping to get a ride home after close.”
“That works too. Oh, look.” The argument outside the post office was ending with the two hikers storming away and the postmaster victoriously watching their retreat. Kavita twisted her long black hair up off her neck. “It always ends the same way. Postal goblin, one; Appalachian Trail hopefuls, zero. They never win. We tell them they should send their resupplies here instead, but there are always a few who don’t listen.”
“Sucks for them,” Sorrow said, disinterested, and she went back to her wildflower book. She had picked it off the store’s rack when the flow of customers slowed in late afternoon, thinking only that she wanted to remember, a half-formed idea telling her that if she could fill the hollow spaces in her mind where she had once kept the names of flowers and trees, the patterns of the weather and the rhythm of the seasons, the rest would come back too. Maybe not all at once, in a flash of revelation, but she had to start somewhere.
Kavita wasn’t quiet for long. “Oh, hey, it’s Mrs. Eyebrows.”
Sorrow looked up again. There was an elderly woman standing outside the store, her crown of tight gray curls just visible above an array of North Face and Marmot decals on the glass. She moved a couple of inches to the side, revealing her face and the high-arched eyebrows that were more pencil line than hair.
“That’s Mrs. Roche,” Sorrow said. She would recognize those eyebrows anywhere. “She used to live down the road from us.”
Kavita rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I know. Everybody still calls that place the Roche place, even though that couple from Texas owns it now. Same way they still call our place the Radcliffe place. It’s like nobody in this town has ever heard of property changing hands.”
Sorrow’s phone beeped. Another text from Andi: Give me a call when you get a chance. We need to talk about the shit going on at home.
She once again put it away without answering. “They called it the Radcliffe place even when the Johnsons lived there. It would be easier if you just changed your name. Is she going to stand there all night?”
“Who knows? The only time she’s ever come in was for our grand opening. She wanted to meet ‘those nice lesbians from New York.’ I doubt she—ooh, she is.”
Mrs. Roche pulled open the door and stepped inside, and she looked around for a moment before her gaze settled on the counter.
“Sorrow Lovegood!” she exclaimed. “As I live and breathe!”
Sorrow smiled. “Hi, Mrs. Roche. It’s good to see you again.”
“Look at you,” Mrs. Roche said. She looked a lot older than Sorrow remembered: her steel-gray hair was thinner, her skin sagging around her face, her shoulders stooped. She came forward with her hands held out but dropped them when Sorrow didn’t move from behind the counter. “You look just like your sister.”
The words struck Sorrow like a blow in the chest.
She had been expecting people to recognize her. Mrs. Abrams in the parking lot, others around town. She had been expecting you’re the Lovegood girl, the looks and the whispers, the leading questions about why she had come back.
But she hadn’t been expecting this. She wasn’t prepared for somebody to look at her and see Patience.
“Thank you,” she managed, and her smile was frozen on her face, brittle and tight. “How’s Mr. Roche?”
“He passed a few years ago,” Mrs. Roche said. “You’re so kind to ask.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Sorrow only remembered Mr. Roche as a cardigan sweater and a puff of pipe tobacco; he had rarely joined his wife when she visited the Lovegoods.
“Is there something we can help you find, Mrs. Roche?” Kavita asked.
Mrs. Roche adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “Oh, no, I just wanted to stop in and say hello to Sorrow. We worried she might have forgotten all about us.” She lowered her voice and leaned forward slightly. “You know about the fire, of course. It was a terrible tragedy.”
Kavita glanced at Sorrow, as though confirming that Sorrow was, in fact, still standing right there and could hear Mrs. Roche just fine. She twitched one shoulder in an apologetic shrug. “Yeah, I’ve heard about it.”
“Patience was just the sweetest girl,” Mrs. Roche said. “I think about her every day. You must miss her so much.”
“I do,” Sorrow said, because what else could she say? I think about her every day was what people said about someone they hadn’t thought about in years.
“It’ll do your mom a world of good to have you around,” Mrs. Roche said. “There’s too much sadness in that old orchard. Maybe you’ll even convince her and your grandma to come out for the battle this year.”
Sorrow blinked. “The battle?”
“You know. The battle. You must remember.” Mrs. Roche gave Sorrow a concerned look, and Sorrow’s heart began to beat faster. It was bad enough to think Verity might notice gaps in her memory, but this was Mrs. Roche. If Mrs. Roche noticed, the whole town would be discussing Sorrow’s post-traumatic amnesia by tomorrow. “We do it every year, right there in the park,” Mrs. Roche went on, waving toward the store’s front windows. “It’s our best festival. Well, not as good as the harvest, but every town has a harvest.”