Mom, please. It’s been months. Can we talk? – M.
I deleted it without replying, just as I deleted the twelve before it. Melissa had begun reaching out after the scandal broke, after her creditors took her car, her condo, everything she owned to cover debts she’d accumulated, expecting the windfall from the orchard sale. Brandon never contacted me at all, though Vincent heard he’d been asked to resign from his firm when his connection to the fraud investigation came to light.
My children were learning the hardest lesson—that some bridges, once burned, can never be rebuilt. Some betrayals cut too deep for forgiveness.
As darkness settled over the orchard, I rocked gently, listening to the night sounds: crickets chirping, a distant owl, the creak of the chair against weathered boards. In my lap lay a notebook where I’d begun sketching plans for Canton Family Orchards’ future—a farm-to-table restaurant in the old barn, educational programs for local schools, expansion of our organic practices. Nicholas would have loved these ideas. We’d discussed similar dreams before his illness consumed our conversations with treatments and pain management.
