Page 13 of Keepsake
“I will.”
We hung up, and I checked my texts. Sure enough, there was another stack of messages from my ex.I need to see you. When is a good time?
How does “never”work for you, Gilman?
Ugh. He was the only one I didn’t have to feel guilty for avoiding. He dumpedme, damn it. My guess was that he regretted it. And then when I went missing, he felt like a big old ass for behaving the way he had.
Funny how a brush with death will make old friends love you again.
But Gilman was not on the list of people I felt obligated to comfort. So I powered my phone all the way down. In the country, a phone’s battery drained faster. It had something to do with the device always searching in vain for a better cellular signal.
Still, I promised myself I’d call home again tomorrow, just to put Mom’s mind at ease.
I was an only child, the daughter of two university professors. My father wrote long, intellectual papers about the ins and outs of first-amendment protections. My mother spent her days studying cells in a laboratory. They liked their books and their scientific abstracts. Neither one of them had understood when I’d announced I would be roughing it in Guatemala for a year, for very little pay. They’d hated the idea right from the beginning.
“That part of the world isn’t very stable,” my mother had worried.
“It isn’t Honduras!” I’d argued, rejecting their concerns. But the joke was on me.
Once when I was nine, I overheard my mother talking to her sister on the phone. It was the same week I’d managed to break my arm falling off the monkey bars. “You know, when we heard we were having a baby girl, we were so relieved,” she’d confided while I hid behind the dining room door. “Max isn’t into sports or camping or anything dirty, and I wouldn’t know what to do with a fishing rod. But God laughs at plans, doesn’t he? I got the scrappiest, most adventurous girl in the world. Each new gray hair I find has her name on it.”
My mother had a fine, full head of silver hair now. Each one of them my fault.
When I went to find Griff, he said we’d start the day with a quick tour of the farm. I’d been here before, but if I was going to be a contributing employee, I’d need him to clue me in on the operation.
The first stop was the dairy barn, where two dozen cows were milked twice a day. But now it was midmorning, so the stalls were empty. The Shipley cows were grass fed, so they were out munching in the meadow.
The barn was shady and cool, and it smelled of hay and manure. “Don’t worry, you won’t be working in here,” Griffin said.
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said truthfully. “There are scarier things in the world than cow shit.”
“That is true, Wild Child,” he said gently. “But I need you for the farmers’ markets. And it’s not just working the table, it’s the load-up, the setup, selling and breaking down. Then we make a crude inventory of how much was sold, with notes about the weather and traffic. I’ll show you all of that a little later.”
“Cool.”
Before we left the dairy barn, Griffin pointed at a yellow box affixed to the wall. “Just in case it’s ever necessary, that’s where we keep the defibrillator.”
“Ah.” How sad. The late Mr. Shipley—Griffin’s father—had died very suddenly from a massive heart attack. There was probably nothing that could have been done for him. Yet this device was a new addition to the barn. “Okay. Good to know.”
“There’s a fire extinguisher in every building, too.” He pointed at the red canister on the wall.
“Gotcha. Good idea.”
We walked out into the September sunlight again. Beyond the dairy barn lay the cider house. I followed Griffin along a well-worn path between the buildings. He stopped beside a giant pallet where apple crates were stacked. “Part of the fun of working here is learning to spot all the apple varietals at ten paces.”
“Okay.”
“What do you think these are?” He reached into a crate and held up an apple.
“No fucking idea.”
Griffin threw his head back and laughed. “Okay, the first clue is the date. It’s still August. Most of our apples aren’t pickable until October. These are Paula Reds, and they ripen early.” He took a bite. Then he handed it to me. “Tell me what you taste.”
I took a bite and chewed.Wow. There was nothing like a real fall apple. The ones from the grocery store just couldn’t compete. “Excellent, snappy texture,” I said. It was juicy, too. “High acid. Medium sugar. Not a ton of interesting flavors.”
Griffin’s eyes widened. “Well done, girl. That’s all true. Paulas aren’t the most interesting apple, but they kick off the season for us. I can’t make award-winning cider from them, though. This is a farmers’ market apple.”
“What do you make the good stuff with, then?”
