“You know what’s wonderful? How excited they are when I come to school to pick them up,” Adie said while Nora readied her children to go home. “The teachers say the girls do very well—they eat well and nap well and seem to love being there.”
Almost more important than the added income, her girls needed to be around loving adults and other children in a safe environment. “Is Ellie Kincaid there sometimes?” Nora asked.
“I see her every morning. I think she’s some kind of official sponsor of the day care and preschool,” Adie said. “She welcomes the children and makes a big fuss over them every day. I’m volunteering to help with milk and cookie time and watching over nap time.”
“Oh, Adie, you’re priceless.”
“Why not? I have the time. And I love the children.”
Nora didn’t see Tom Cavanaugh much that first week and when she did, they didn’t speak or make eye contact, not even when she arrived early enough to be sure his coffee was made. This suited her fine. She wasn’t prepared to have him judge her weakness by her wounded hands or her slow movements and winces due to muscle pain. She saw him talking to other harvesters from time to time, saw him using the forklift to move full bins, saw him in the cider press area. But they didn’t work together nor chitchat. Why would they?
He never complained about the coffee again. And he had remembered the cream and sugar every morning.
By the end of the week she was so tired she believed she could fall down and sleep for a month. Mr. Cavanaugh told the harvesters it was their choice whether to work or take time off on the weekend; they weren’t in a critical harvesting situation like over-ripening or an impending freeze. He paid overtime, so even though Nora could hardly bend her fingers from the tightness or lift her right arm, her picking arm, she signed on and hoped she could get a little help from Adie and Martha with the kids, or maybe Ellie Kincaid or one of the local teenage babysitters. Overtime, that was juicy.
On her walk home, alone on that long uphill trek on a Friday night, she allowed herself to fall apart a little bit. She hurt all over and faced another long seven days of work. It was hard for her to hold her little girls; she ached when she lifted them and there were a couple of spots on her hands that bled if she didn’t wrap them in bandages. If Adie and Martha hadn’t managed the bathing before she got home, Nora didn’t know how she would. For her own daily shower, soap and water stung so badly tears rolled down her cheeks. And she was going to have to beg the use of someone’s washer and dryer during an evening soon—the laundry was piling up and they didn’t have much wardrobe.
Because no one could see her, she did something she hadn’t done in so long—she let herself cry for the first time in months. She told herself this was good work and she was lucky to have it, her hands would heal and callus, her arms and legs would build muscle and get stronger—all she needed was courage and time. She hadn’t taken the job because it was easy.
She heard the engine of a vehicle and had no idea who it might be. She was always the last of her crew to leave so no one would notice she walked home. It was a matter of pride; she knew she was destitute and the charity she had to take for the sake of her girls was hard enough. Nora quickly wiped the tears off her cheeks and stuffed her sore hands into the center pocket of her hoodie. Looking at the ground, she stayed to the side of the road and made tracks. And the truck passed.
But then it slowed to a stop. And backed up. Tom. Because luck hadn’t exactly been her friend lately. Like in twenty-three years.
Of course it was a new, huge, expensive pickup. It probably cost more than the house she lived in. She’d seen it before, of course. It said Cavanaugh Apples on the side and had an extended cab with lots of apple crates in the bed. She kept her eyes cast down. She sniffed back her tears and hoped there were no tracks on her cheeks. She was far too self-conscious to be caught sniveling in self-pity, especially by him.
He lowered the window on the passenger side. “Nora?” he called.
She stopped walking and looked up. “Yes?”
“Um, sore?”
“A little,” she said with a shrug. Oh, the shrug hurt. “It’s my first time,” she added, as if an explanation were necessary. “I’ll develop muscle.”
He looked away just so briefly, then back quickly. “Let’s see your hands.”
“Why?”
“Let me see,” he commanded. “Come on.” She pulled her hands out of her pockets and splayed her fingers but kept them palms down. He rolled his eyes impatiently. “Flip ’em over, Nora,” he said.
“What for?”
“I bet you stuffed ’em in your pockets because you have cuts or blisters or something. Come on, flip ’em.”
She groaned in irritation and looked away as she turned her hands over.
Then the voice came a bit more softly. “Raise your right arm for me,” he said.
Driven purely by pride, she lifted it high.
“Come on,” he said. “Get in.”
Her eyes jerked back. “What?”
“Get in. I know what to do about that,” he said. “You think that’s the first time I’ve seen that? All you’ve been doing is changing diapers. Your hands and shoulders weren’t ready for the trees, the bins, the ladders and heavy sacks. Your rotator cuff is strained from picking and hauling. Get in, I’ll get you fixed up. You should’ve told me.”
She was reluctant, but just the suggestion that he could make this pain go away, that was enough for her. She opened the heavy truck door, which hurt like a demon, and hoisted herself up and in.
Tom Cavanaugh made a difficult U-turn on the narrow drive, heading back toward the house and office. He looked over at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She stared straight ahead. “You didn’t want to hire me. Your grandmother made you. And you weren’t all that friendly. I figured you’d just fire me.”
“For hurt hands and sore muscles? Jesus. Do I really seem like that kind of brute?”
“You said you didn’t think I was up to the job. I didn’t want to prove you right.”
“Listen to me—you got the job and I can see that you do your best.” She shot him a glare. “Okay, you do pretty well,” he added. “But it’s dangerous to walk around a farm or orchard with injuries that go untended. You have to pay attention to that. You’re a mother, right? You wouldn’t let your child walk around with a wound that could get infected if left untreated. Would you?”
“I know medical people in town,” she said. “If I thought there was an infection, I would have talked to someone.”
“At that point, you might’ve waited too long. That would be bad for both of us. Now let’s agree, you and I, that from now on you’ll let me know when you have a problem.”
That would be very hard to do, she acknowledged privately. But to him she said, “Okay.”
He pulled up to his back porch. “Come into the kitchen,” he said, not waiting for her to follow. He was up the porch steps and into the house before she was even out of the truck. By the time she joined him in the kitchen, he had opened a cupboard and was emptying supplies onto the counter. “Just sit at the table, right there.”
She took a seat and waited tensely.
Tom filled a silver mixing bowl with warm, soapy water. He spread a towel over her lap, put the basin on her knees and said, “I know it stings, but I want you to soak your hands for a minute, get them very clean. Just grit your teeth and do it, please.”
She’d be damned if she’d let an ounce of discomfort show on her face. She plunged her hands into the water and bit her lower lip against