“No!” she nearly shouted. “I never thought of farming as a science...”

“It is indeed a science. Paco is not a scientist but his experience and instincts are flawless. Everything he taught me holds up scientifically. Almost everything, at any rate. It is not true that if you put a statue of Saint Isidore the Farmer in the yard you will have a good crop year.”

“Is there a statue of the saint in the garden?”

“My mother has one in the garden, yes. Also Saint Maria and the Virgin. Not overwhelming in size, but obvious. And her garden is plentiful.”

They were quiet on the phone for a moment. “Matt? Why did you really call me?”

“Peyton asked the same question.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her there was a special bonding moment when I groped you and you knocked me out...”

She laughed almost uncontrollably for a moment.

“Really,” he said. “It’s because you felt like a friend. Strange as it might feel to you, I think we somehow became friends. I hope you’re okay with that.”

She smiled. “Everyone can use a friend.”

* * *

Ray Anne had a sweet little hideaway on top of the garage, a deck. From there she had a great view of storms rolling in over the bay. Or, when it wasn’t storming, just starlight so deep and wide it was otherworldly. She and Al dragged out the bean bag chairs, he had a beer and she had a glass of wine. They reclined together, talked about their week, he told her about the boys and she reported on Ginger, who seemed to be doing better all the time. They kissed and fondled and made sneaky love under a blanket, then talked some more. It was almost eleven when Al carried down the bean bags and blanket and Ray Anne carried her glass and his bottle. They stood in the kitchen for a moment, safe in each other’s arms, reluctant to say good-night.

There was a sound in the house, a soft lilting coming from the bedroom. They both froze to listen.

“Oh, God, that’s Ginger!” Ray Anne said. “She’s crying!” She turned to go to her.

Al grabbed her hand, stopping her. “Ray,” he whispered. “Listen!”

She froze and listened. With their arms around each other’s waists, they moved closer to the bedroom door.

“She’s laughing,” Ray Anne whispered. “She’s talking on the phone and laughing!”

Al smiled down at her. “I don’t think she needs rescuing.”

“Who in the world is she talking to? Laughing with?”

“Maybe if you’re very sneaky, you can worm it out of her.”

Four

Matt had talked with Ginger for over an hour and he’d congratulated himself that he’d been right—she was a genuine person who could be a friend with no agenda to redesign him. She wasn’t a woman who wanted to sleep with him and then change him into at least a boyfriend, at best a husband. They didn’t talk about it, but it was implicitly understood they were both too vulnerable to take on new partners. Ginger, like Matt, was in recovery from her own short, extremely disappointing marriage. And yet they had so many things in common. More than Ginger realized. No doubt she thought it was just their divorces. That was enough.

But Matt, who had dated half of Portland, knew it was more. It was as though it balanced with his loss somehow. She’d wanted a family and fate had cruelly snatched it away from her. He wanted a family and hadn’t had a chance at that.

They might never talk about these things, he realized. He really didn’t want to tell her or anyone how selfish and cruel his ex-wife had been.

But here was Matt with a new friend and he felt very tender toward her. He wasn’t about to get involved, but she had already changed everything. He was going to stop fucking everything that moved, for one thing. That hadn’t worked for him and he’d probably hurt people in the process. He was going to clean up his act, show gratitude for friends and family and carry on in a much more chivalrous manner. He’d done a few insensitive, careless things himself—he wasn’t proud of that. Somehow Ginger reminded him that at his core he was a good man. He would at least behave in a way that wouldn’t shame his mother and infuriate his father.

Matt already had an idea of where he’d like to build a house, if Paco agreed. On the far side of the orchard, just within sight of his parents’ home, there was a perfect spot. From the front he would see the grove, from the back, the mountains, to the west the big house. He’d have to grade a road. He tried sketching out a floor plan. He had inherited many of his father’s ways, but living lean to the bone wasn’t one of them. He was frugal but he intended to have plenty of bathrooms in the house and an indulgently big master bedroom and bath. He’d be more than happy to extend the use of those extra bedrooms to the family who showed up at shearing and harvest to help them. Even though he didn’t watch a lot of TV, there would be at least two in his house. And they would be large.

Later in the week, he called Ginger again. “I’ve taken to sketching out a floor plan that I think I like and I’ve learned something important.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Architects are geniuses. Do you have any idea how hard it is to string a bunch of rooms and hallways together? The rooms I want to be the largest look the smallest on the drawing and vice versa. I think I took mechanical drawing in high school. How come I can’t do this?”

“Just be sure to put those sliding shelves in the kitchen,” she said.

“Huh?”

“Well, you open a lower cupboard door and pull the shelf out instead of getting down on your hands and knees and practically crawling in to find what you need. They’re so awesome!”

He was quiet for a moment. “Ginger, I’m going to live next door to my mother, who will probably cook almost every meal I eat. I won’t even be able to fill the kitchen cupboards.”

“That may not be the case forever,” she said. “I know you don’t think so now, but you might actually get over this marriage phobia and meet someone nice who wants to live on the farm. And cook. In that kitchen.”

“Highly unlikely. Will you? Get over it? Try again?”

“Sure,” she said. “When I’m fifty.”

“I might just look you up when we’re fifty,” he said. “Then if it works out, you can put in the sliding shelves.”

“That seems pretty reasonable,” she said. And they both laughed.

“What’s happening in Thunder Point?”

“A lot, as a matter of fact. Grace has been spending a lot of time at the new house so she can get her mother moved here. You know, I told you, her mother has ALS and is weakening by the day. Grace’s fiancé is helping her whenever he can because he really wants Grace to meet his family and they’re having trouble finding a time to do that. She can’t move her mother into the house and leave her to go south to meet Troy’s family. And he hasn’t told his family that Grace is pregnant because he said they will all immediately pile into cars and head this way, invited or not. So...everyone around town is putting every effort toward getting that house ready for them. Even me. That stretch of beach has taken on a life of its own—it’s like a barn raising.”