I hung the phone on its hook, made small talk with my mother, and ate a fresh tomato sandwich. Then I wandered to the creek to watch where a tributary came in, thinking about the scientist who claimed that time could branch, that it could contain two futures at once. All I’d ever seen was the opposite: two rivers blending into one, then another joining from elsewhere, the current deeper, mightier. One stream formed from many: that was time for me. And the present, my present, held multiple, powerful pasts.

“You look stronger every day,” my mother commented to me when I came in, muddy and mosquito bitten. She stood at our kitchen counter, graying blond hair lit by sun, her fists deep in bread dough. “Does your side still hurt a lot?”

“No,” I said, flipping through the mail, letters and bills, none of them for me.

“There’s a cider festival this weekend in town,” she said. “Might be fun.”

I didn’t want to go to a cider festival in town, but I knew that saying this aloud would come out wrong. “I do feel stronger,” I told her sincerely. “I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me.”

My mother gathered the edges of the dough, thumped it, and pushed into it again.

“We’re glad to have you home,” she said. “Does it feel like home?”

“Sometimes.” My voice caught in my throat. “It feels familiar.”

“You still miss California,” she said.

I nodded.

“Do you miss someone in particular?” She kept her eyes on her kneading, but her voice circled me gently.

“No,” I said. I wasn’t lying. The same person had kept materializing in my mind that day, but we weren’t friends. I didn’t miss her. I had no right, no claim of personal relationship. Instead, Janis Rocque was an icon to me, brimming with power and influence. Yet we’d struck up an odd correspondence over the summer, and her last message, this morning, was the most strange and compelling of all.

“How can I help out today?” I asked to distract myself. “Give me a job.”

My mother stopped kneading and regarded me. I could tell she wanted to probe more, but I kept my expression blank and friendly, and she gave in. “You could pick up the drops,” she said, gesturing out the window with a floury hand. “Around the pear tree. I can’t keep up with them.”