“Alright, you probably know what you’re doing,” Noelle conceded. She crossed her arms, her face screwed up. She looked like it was physically painful to admit Miriam might have skills. If she didn’t want Miriam doing this, why had she brought it up?

Then, she surprised Miriam by asking, “Do you need an assistant?”

“Aren’t you busy growing trees?” she asked skeptically, both terrified of anyone witnessing her painting and desperate for Noelle to stay.

“The trees are pretty much growing themselves,” Noelle said, her smirk back.

Miriam was ready to say no, but she kind of did need an assistant if she wanted to be done priming and sketching by nightfall.

Which was how she ended up on top of a ladder, directing Noelle. When Noelle looked up at her, the sun turned her auburn hair bronze, throwing the shadow of long eyelashes onto her cheeks.

Miriam waved at a roller brush and a bucket of paint. “The part I marked out down there needs to be filled in with white. I assume you know how to paint the side of a barn white?” she asked, turning Noelle’s earlier question around.

“I think I can manage it.” Noelle laughed and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt to prep. Miriam turned her eyes purposefully away from the exposed forearms and tried to remember what she’d been working on. Out here, you could see the whole farm, and the mountains rising beyond it. Every time she looked out, the sight took her breath away.

“I’ve never been here in fall before,” she said, to distract herself from her nerves. “I didn’t expect”—she gestured at the shocking reds and yellows splashed against the crystal blue sky—“all of this.”

“You’ve never been here for Rosh Hashanah?” Noelle asked.

Miriam shook her head. “We didn’t do High Holy Days with the Rosensteins. I wish we had.”

“Why don’t you as an adult?” Noelle asked. “Hell, they even invite me.”

“Wait, you go to Rosh Hashanah with my family?” Miriam’s heart hurt with jealousy.

Noelle shrugged like it was no big deal. “Hannah invited me the last couple of years. I’m a sucker for kugel. She was going through a miserable breakup with Levi, and she needed me to run interference with any overly nosy family members.”

“Which is all of them,” Miriam laughed. She looked down at the top of Noelle’s head, watching her brushstrokes for a moment. “You really take care of her. Of Hannah.”

“She’s my person,” Noelle said, glancing back up and meeting Miriam’s eye, “and someone has to. She’s always taking care of everyone else.”

“And we all left.” Miriam finished the part Noelle didn’t say. She was glad Noelle was here, being Hannah’s person, and yet so sad she couldn’t breathe.

“That’s not what I meant, Miriam,” Noelle grumbled. “I wasn’t judging you. This time.”