His voice was so low she barely made out the words. “Rebecca?”

A nearly simultaneous blaze of lightning and crack of thunder shattered the sky.

“My wife.”

Her heart launched like a firework into her throat and exploded, raining pinprick sparks in her chest. She formed the word oh with her lips, but no sound came out.

“She was beautiful.” One corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly. “She was an angel.”

The rain fell harder, overflowing the gutters and pouring from the roof. Yet, their little refuge grew quiet. She ran a nail under a peeling strip of paint on the arm of the swing. “What was her name?”

“Elizabeth. She liked gardening, too. Sunflowers. Sweet peas.”

She risked a glance at him. “Sweet peas are hard to grow.”

His hands were clasped loosely in his lap. His gaze was far away.

“But they smell like heaven,” she added.

“They do.”

In shared silence, she rocked beside him until the rain let up as quickly as it began, and the wind shook drops from the crabapples in spattering spurts.

“Are you in love with that man?”

His voice was gentle and without judgment. In spite of the now-chilly air, she felt her cheeks flame. “I don’t know.” The cuffs of her sleeves slid over her hands. Shrouded in mist, she could almost believe they floated in one of the low-lying clouds that kissed the ridgetops.

“What is his profession?” he asked.

“He’s a doctor. A very fine doctor.”

He nodded. “That’s good.”

How long she sat, his thigh warm against hers, she didn’t know. Nor, when she lay on the couch that night, could she recall a single concrete detail from the drive back to the farm. Her eyelids were so heavy. The soft flannel shirt caressed her cheek. Far off thunder rolled over the ridges. Sometime later, her cell rang, jarring her from sleep. The clock on the DVR glowed eleven twenty-two. She ran a hand over the end table, finally snagging her phone. “Hello?”

“Sweetheart, I changed my flight. I’m coming home tomorrow.”

“Richard?” She heaved upright, and the shirt puddled on the floor.

“I woke you. I’m sorry. Listen, darling, this Saturday I’m stealing you for the whole day. Just the two of us. I’ll pick you up at nine in the morning, all right?”

Panic surged from her toes to her fingertips. Flailing for the end table light, she whacked a stack of coasters, and they clattered to the floor. “What? No!”

“Sweetheart, I haven’t seen you for two weeks—”

“I mean—I can’t.” She groped behind the table for the coasters. They were gone.

“You can’t?”

Even half asleep, she couldn’t miss the note of annoyance in his tone. She scrambled for an explanation. “I’ll…be in New York this Saturday—visiting Jenn. I’m so sorry.”

“Seriously? Can’t you go next weekend?”