The Apple Orchard

She chuckled. “Every day. Doesn’t it show?”

“Sense of humor,” he said. “That’s not on the list, but it can’t hurt.”

She inadvertently took a sip of her tea and nearly gagged. “This stuff can’t possibly be on the list.”

“Here you go—foods to avoid.” He turned the page toward her.

“Let me guess—refined sugars, alcohol, caffeine....”

“Good guess.”

“Those are my major food groups.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I’m not going to do any of that stuff. It’s just not me.”

“Look, I don’t know you,” he said. “But I’m going to take a wild guess—if you do what the doctors say, it might help.”

She heard an inner echo of the doctor’s dire warning about her blood pressure and stress on her heart. You’re too young to put yourself at risk. You need to take it easy.... Parking her elbows on the table, she regarded him through eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Why do I get the feeling you’re experienced with doctors and hospitals?”

He shrugged. “Must be your uncanny insight. Here.” He placed the information in front of her. “Start small. Pick one thing on the list and commit to it.”

His baritone voice and whiskey-brown eyes drew her in, more persuasive by far than the geeky resident in the ER. Dominic Rossi. Who had a right to be that good-looking? It almost distracted her from the fact that he hadn’t answered her question about doctors and hospitals.

“So much to choose from,” she said with exaggerated drama, perusing the list. Diet, lifestyle, breathing, yoga, cardio... “Tell you what. You pick one.” She pushed the notes back at him.

“You mean I get to pick something, and you’ll do it?”

She folded her arms on the table and regarded him steadily. “I’m a woman of my word.”

“Excellent. Quit smoking.”

“I love smoking.”

“You’re a woman of your word. And excuse me for saying this, but you are way too beautiful to smoke.”

His words had a ridiculous effect on her. “Wow. You are good.”

When they left the coffee shop, he asked, “Shall I call you a cab?”

“No, thanks. I can walk from here. The walk’ll do me good, right?” She still felt unsettled by the crazy day.

“I’ll walk with you. Make sure you get home okay.”

“It’s not necessary. I know my way around. Besides, don’t you have something to do? Like...banking?”

“I have backup.”

She adjusted the strap of her handbag. “Suit yourself. You’re not, like, an ax murderer or anything, right?”

“Not an ax murderer.”

“Cool.” They walked along through the rushing traffic, along Hyde Street, the shop windows flashing their reflection. The two of them looked like a couple, she caught herself thinking. He was in his thirties, she guessed. Tall and good-looking, he moved with a certain confidence that garnered glances from passing women and even a few guys.

“You all right?” Dominic asked.

“Fine.”

“You were looking at me funny.”

“I was just wondering what he’s like,” she said, her gaze skirting away. “Magnus Johansen, I mean.”

“Kind,” Dominic said immediately. “Steady. He takes care of people. Any of his friends and neighbors would tell you that.”

“And how do you know him?”

“I barely remember a time when I didn’t know him. My parents emigrated to the United States from Italy. They were seasonal workers when they first arrived in Archangel, and Magnus gave them a place to stay.”

Migrant workers, she thought. His parents had been migrant workers. Suddenly she had to rearrange her image of Dominic Rossi as a spoiled, overprivileged finance major. “So Bella Vista is a working farm?”

“Orchards,” he said. “Best apples in the county. I met Magnus when I was maybe seven or eight years old, when he caught me working at Bella Vista.”

“What do you mean, he caught you?”

“He didn’t want to be in violation of child labor laws. Anyway, to make a long story short, he took my sister and me under his wing. Helped us with everything from our parents’ green cards to getting us into college.”

“My grandfather sounds like a saint.” She turned into her neighborhood of brickwork sidewalks lined with wrought iron fences and trees with their leaves just beginning to turn dry and crisp around the edges.

“I don’t know about sainthood. When you come to see him—”

Her heart surged, a frightening reminder of the trauma that had landed her in the ER. “I’m not going. This has nothing to do with me.”

“Sorry to argue, but it’s got plenty to do with you.”

“Am I expected to just drop everything and go haring off to Archangel to do what? There’s nothing for me to do. And if there was, he’s got another granddaughter. Did Isabel...? Does she live with her grandfather?”

“Yep. She grew up at Bella Vista. Magnus and Eva—his late wife—raised her.”

“Then Magnus doesn’t need me,” Tess said, feeling a strange sense of hurt swirl through her like poisoned tendrils. “Seriously, this situation is awful, but I simply can’t get involved.”

“I understand. It’s a lot to digest.” He had the most amazing eyes. She felt an urge to keep talking to him, but she had no business doing that. “Here’s my number.” He handed her a card. “Call me if you change your mind.”

* * *

“Her name is Isabel,” Tess said to her mother’s voice mail. “Did you know I had a sister? Not to mention a grandfather? And if you did, why the hell did you never bother to tell me? For Pete’s sake, Mom, call me the minute you get this message. I don’t care what time it is. Just call me.”

Tess set the phone aside and looked around her apartment, filled with her old things, Nana’s desk in the middle like a slumbering giant. Was it only this morning she had put herself together, racing into work to meet Mr. Sheffield? She felt as though she’d been away on a long trip.

Although the doctor’s orders were for her to relax, she had paced up and down, worried and fretted. She’d searched Dominic on Google, as well as Isabel, Magnus, everyone he’d mentioned, to no avail, uncovering only frustrating bits and pieces about them, nothing helpful. There were things only her mother could answer. Her mother had never been good about answering hard questions.

The phone rang and she leaped for it, but the call was from Neelie. “I’m coming over,” she said without preamble.