“Don’t just stand there staring at each other.” June flicked at him and Rand with a towel. “Go pick some more apples.”

Mitch followed his father as he went back out the door. It would be easier to have this conversation away from his mom, anyway.

He watched Dad take each porch step carefully, setting his left leg firmly on the next step before heaving his right leg down with a grunt. Mitch couldn’t remember him ever moving so slowly. Had he been going downhill recently? Or had it been this bad for a while, and Mitch hadn’t noticed?

He picked up an empty bucket at the bottom of the steps. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, Dad?”

Rand looked straight ahead and lumbered toward the three apple trees on the north side of the house. Mitch walked silently alongside, knowing his father would not be rushed. Rand wore his usual long-sleeved plaid pearl snap and faded jeans despite the sunshine, his wiry frame only managing to hold the pants up with the help of a worn leather belt embossed with his name.

When they reached the trees, Mitch plucked a low-hanging apple and bit into it. “Kind of tart.”

“Yeah.” Rand reached for an apple of his own and set it in the bucket. “I would’ve waited another week or two, but your mother insisted.”

Mitch frowned. She’d always had a knack for knowing exactly when the apples were ready. “What are all the pies for? Something happening at church?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then what are they for?”

Rand let out a long sigh and shrugged. “Your mother hasn’t been herself lately, son.”

Mitch’s stomach dropped. Here it came. The bad news. “Has she been to the doctor? Is it bad?”

“No, no. No doctor. She won’t go nowhere. Just fritters around the house.”

Mitch’s forehead crinkled. “Isn’t that what she usually does?”

“Well.” Rand paused with an apple in each hand. “I suppose so.”

What was going on here? His mother was her usual busy self, and if they hadn’t been to the doctor, there was no diagnosis. Mitch watched his father wince as he reached for an apple above his head and wondered which parent he was actually supposed to be worried about right now.

“Why don’t you take a break, Dad.” He gestured toward the house. “I’ll finish this up.”

Mitch carried two pies into his house, one for him—like he could eat an entire pie—and one for “that sweet little neighbor of yours,” as his mother put it. As if bringing five-foot-nothing Marge a pie wasn’t the last thing in the world he needed. He set them on the table. What on earth was he going to do with two whole pies?