The wind kept up all afternoon. Sydney and Claire had to tie the ends of the tablecloth to the legs of the table, and they couldn’t use candles because the wind blew out the flames. In lieu of candles, Claire brought out sheer bags in amber and raspberry and pale green, and she put the battery-powered lanterns from the storeroom in them, which made them look like gifts of light set around the table and tree. The tree didn’t like them and kept knocking over the ones nearest it when no one was looking, so Bay was in charge of keeping the tree in line.

Birds and flying bugs were never a problem in the garden—the honeysuckle swallowed them—so a garden dinner was a fine idea, really. Sydney wondered why no one in their family had ever done it before, then thought of the tree and realized why. It tried so hard to be a part of the family when no one wanted it to be.

She thought back to the night before, when she couldn’t sleep and went to check on Bay. Claire was over at Tyler’s, and it was quite possibly the first time Sydney had ever spent a night alone in the house, responsible for everything.

She found Bay sleeping peacefully. Sydney bent to kiss her, and when she straightened, she noticed two small pink apples resting in the folds of the quilt Bay had pushed to the bottom of her bed in her sleep. Sydney picked them up and went to the open window. There was a trail of three apples on the floor leading to it. She picked those up as well.

She looked out the window and saw some movement down in the garden. The apple tree was stretching its branches as far as they would extend toward the table Tyler had helped them move into the garden that day. The tree had actually gotten a branch wrapped around one of the table legs and was trying to pull it nearer.

“Psst,” she whispered into the night. “Stop that!”

The table stopped moving and the tree’s branches bounced back into place. It stilled immediately, as if to say, I wasn’t doing anything.

Evanelle was the first to arrive that evening at what Sydney was affectionately calling Claire’s Celebration of Her Deflowering.

Claire made her promise not to call it that in front of other people.

“Hi, Evanelle. Where is Fred?” Sydney asked when Evanelle walked into the kitchen.

“He couldn’t come. He has a date.” Evanelle set her tote bag on the table. “Mad as a fire ant about it too.”

Claire looked up from checking the tenderness of the corn on the cob boiling on the stove. “Fred’s dating someone?”

“Sort of. A culinary instructor at Orion asked Fred to join a class he was teaching. Fred thinks the class tonight is a date.”

“Why is he mad about it?”