It has crossed my mind, too, that I’m leaning into my father’s overprotection, dating someone he would have classified as safe, as if to commemorate him. Mostly, though, Gavin is an antidote. The constant edge of anger rumbling inside me abates around him, almost dissipates entirely.

I kiss Gavin’s knuckles. “Let’s just get there, okay? Then I can sort through all my feelings.” Gavin nods and begins to drive, never pushing me to open up about how I feel in the moment.

When we pull up at the cidery, it’s pitch-black, the new moon hiding its eye from us. We park across the street, near the orchard, its bare branches outlined by the car’s headlights, and make our way over to the vast field in which the cidery, a farm store, and an adjoining pizza oven sit. Bright lights are strung across the property, suspended above fire pits and stacks of chopped wood. A husky, geriatric yellow Lab bounds over to us as we make our way to the tasting room. It’s so picturesque, even cloaked in darkness, that I want to draw it, a kitschy little framed picture to keep just for myself.

The tasting room is empty, save for a dad and daughter and two men embracing each other by the bar. And Georgia, who I notice right away. My breath catches in my throat because, with her bobbed hair, her pert nose and small ears, the way she studies the menu earnestly, she looks like my mother. Gavin squeezes my hand.

She looks up even before we get to the table, as if she can sense me, and puts her hand to her mouth. And soon, neither of us can hold back, and we’re in each other’s arms, our sticky sobs wetting each other’s sweaters as Gavin steps back to give us space.

“My God.” She grips my face with her hands. “You’re like the perfect combination of the two of them. It’s uncanny. Your mother’s eyes. Your father’s nose. It’s like someone drew you into being after seeing a photograph of them. My God.” And she’s urging me to sit next to her, never letting me go.

She and Gavin say hi, and then we talk and talk and talk. She tells me about her family, her two boys, Elias and Adam, one who loves anything visual (“Wonder where he got that from”), fashion specifically, and the other who can’t sit still for a second, always needs to be on the ground running, baseball, soccer, you name it. Her husband, Rex, who owns an auto parts business. Even their dog, a collie-spaniel mix named T-Bone, who is sadly on his last legs and may have to be put down soon.