“Anyway,” Sylvie says, “Thomas wants context, like what I was like as a child.”

Wess takes a glass from beside the sink, fills it with tap water, and drinks it down in three gulps. “Sylvie was a good kid—never a lick of trouble. Loved being outside, climbing trees, riding in the truck, helping at harvest time. She had a knack—with plants, animals, people, too.”

“Huh. You grow pears?”

“Yes.”

I say, “Hard work.”

Wess meets my gaze and says, “Honest work.”

Sylvie’s chin pebbles then goes smooth. This visit is taking a visible toll. I know what it feels like to never be good enough, though my mom hasn’t expressed her opinion aloud. Why the hell did Sylvie agree to bring me here?

“Wess, go on and take a shower. Dinner in fifteen,” Hana says.

Sylvie stands in the middle of the kitchen. To get to the front hall and upstairs, Wess has to pass by. At the last second she steps back. Six years and he didn’t hug his daughter. Even my mother wouldn’t do that. “Mind showing me around the yard?” I ask Sylvie and twine our fingers together. At the door she looks down at our hands, waits for me to let go so we can grab jackets. She pulls wool hats out of a wicker bin and we tug them on.

The sun has dropped behind the hills, twilight rapidly fading. It must be around forty degrees, air dense with currents of freshly mown grass, flowers, and dirt. We wander down the drive. To both sides are symmetrical rows of pear trees that stretch farther than I can see. “Your orchard is big?”

Sylvie says, “We have two hundred and eighty acres of irrigated land.”

“Is that a lot?”

“Typical orchards only have about seventy acres. Ours is a combination of winter pears, medium-density pears, and Bartlett pears.”

I ask, “What goes into growing them?”

“Lots of labor—pruning, spraying, irrigation, thinning, picking. Operational costs include workers’ comp, insurance, and overhead expenses.” She faces me. “But you don’t care about any of that. You want to know if my mom was always a bitch and why my dad didn’t hug me.”

“Did you expect more?”

She twirls a silver earring in the shape of a teardrop. “I don’t know what I expected, exactly. I call for Christmas.”

“Do they call you?”

“No.”

I think of my own mother, who only calls when she’s short on cash. It’s becoming clear that once Sylvie left, she was no longer useful to her parents.

Sylvie continues down the drive, boots scuffing along the packed dirt. Moose trails like her shadow. “Mom wasn’t always this . . . mean. She was tough, sometimes distant, but there was love beneath it. She taught me to cook, how to take and develop photos, plant a garden. She made Halloween costumes.”

“And your dad?”

“As long as I followed in his footsteps we were fine . . . better than fine. We were buddies. They’re both really disappointed.” Her eyes shine. Quickly, she deflects. “Watch out or they’ll toss Chris in the barn when you’re not looking.”