At last, her mother opens the box. The Apache Tear sits black and brilliant against the velvet lining. As her mother lifts the necklace from its box the slender silver chain seems to cascade from her hand like something liquid. “I don’t think you’ve ever given me jewelry before,” she says, bringing the tear closer to her face. “I mean, except for my engagement ring—but, Wil!” she says, looking up at him. “This is beautiful!” Isabelle’s breath quivers with satisfaction and delight at the expressions on both her parents’ faces, her mother’s one of wonder, her father’s one of pride, both of them happy.

“It’s called a—What is it, Belle?”

“An Apache Tear,” she says, because she can.

Both her parents look at her, quiet for a moment. “That’s right,” her father says. “An Apache Tear.”

Isabelle has shoveled the path to the woodpile wide enough that there is room for her and Wilson to pass each other on their ways to and from the apple tree. Between the two of them, they are making quick work of the stack of limbs.

He carries a piece of wood under each arm and tosses them one at a time onto the pile. They make a dull thunk as they land. He passes his sleeve beneath his nose. Come spring, he’ll have a lot of firewood to split for the next winter, to chop and stack neatly on the rack. He’ll get a new ax for the job. Either that, or they could just set fire to it all. He likes the idea; it seems somehow a more fitting fate for the apple tree.

A small log hits the pile. He looks down. Isabelle is beside him, her breath puffing white and quick.

“It’d make some bonfire, huh?” he says. They gaze into the pile, at the thick, firm pieces of lower limbs and then the jagged branches that stick up every which way. “Remember that bonfire we had? When the decade changed?” He doesn’t look at her for a response. There had been no snow that year, and he’d constructed a small rock wall around the woodpile to keep the fire contained. No snow, but it had been cold, and they sang “Lord of the Dance” as they danced around the fire to keep warm. “A spark burned a hole in your mitten,” he says. He sighs. “Well,” he says.

He pauses, then he turns and trudges back toward the stump. There are only a few more loads to haul, then they’ll be done. “Dance, dance, wherever you may be,” he sings as he goes.