I ENJOYED THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED—the feeling of working hard, learning to harvest, the soreness in my legs from all the crouching and kneeling. The farm’s blackberry thickets and ocean views, whirring sprinklers, clusters of yarrow, and sweet peas climbing free over the fences. Soft grass under my feet.

Midweek, in the strawberry rows, a small gray cat took a liking to me, rubbed her strong little head against my legs.

“Meet Tulip,” Julia said. “Every farm needs its cats to keep away the gophers.”

On Thursday, Terry showed me how to nestle the summer squash into crates and the strawberry flats into boxes. Before night fell he sent me into the flower tunnel, Julia’s domain. Rows and rows of flowers, in every color—muted and vibrant, subtle and showy—reached up from the earth. My breath caught at the beauty of it all. I had never seen flowers like these. Tiny green petals with bloodred centers. Blossoms of bright yellow and gold. Under the white, tentlike walls, Julia’s hair glowed even whiter than usual. She held pruning shears in her gloved hands.

“I’m sorry, my loves,” she said, and then she snipped the stems of the most beautiful flowers I had ever seen. All of them the colors of bruises. Anemones, she’d later tell me.

Night after night, when darkness fell, my heart quickened. But no new memories surfaced, nothing awaited me outside my door. The ghosts kept their distance and my relief was tinged with disappointment, as strange as that was to me. And again, I lay still under the skylight, awake and trembling. They were only memories, I told myself. I slept fitfully and was glad when morning came.

____________

I crossed the field, nervous and eager, on the early evening of my first dinner shift. The sooner I learned how everything worked, the sooner I could feel truly a part of the rest of them. During the school day, when Lee had been doing some writing, I’d caught myself staring into the middle distance, imagining myself striding into the kitchen as though I belonged in it, cutting bread the way Liz did.

But now, I let myself in quietly through the mudroom door and peeked around the corner to see if anyone was there. Liz looked up from the kitchen table and waved, and I felt foolish to have hesitated. I wasn’t even inside, and already my confidence was shaken.

Still, I knew how to cook. Maybe not the way they did, but enough to get by. I would not be so nervous over nothing, I resolved. And I stepped in.

“Come see what we’re making,” Liz said, so I joined her at the table.