Page 97 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

“We talked, mostly,” Lydia says. “Martin was such a good listener. But, also, the land went still for us. For me. Suddenly, it was as if I had the space and the quiet to see things for how they were. It was like…I opened my eyes for the first time in years and, my god, I was thirty-seven. I was thirty-seven—the middle of my life—and where had it all gone? I’d sacrificed all those years so that my husband could avoid his own. I’d been trapped inside a vicious, unhealthy cycle. It had to stop. I told Martin all of that. Everything I was feeling. And on that last day…the day we finished the barn, we—he and I—we kissed.”

My shoulders tense.

Logan’s jaw is clenched tight, but he doesn’t otherwise react.

Lydia takes another breath. Releases it slowly. “Something snapped. Or maybe everything snapped. It was like I had all these tiny threads holding my life together. For months, they frayed, and that last day, they came loose. I knew I had to leave.

“Was that the orchard? The magic?” She pauses, then nods. “Maybe it was. It showed me the truth of my life, my strengths and my flaws. It let me see everything in a way I hadn’t allowed before. It changed me by revealing what was already true.”

Logan’s leg bounces once, then again. His thoughts are too complicated for me to guess, but I can imagine some of it, maybe. I lay my hand lightly against his thigh, and he stills, restless energy folding into my touch. Before I pull away, his hand covers mine, and he squeezes my fingers.

Are you telling me,” Logan says slowly, “you left us because Dad left you first?”

She grimaces. “He didn’t just leave—he was always leaving me. It’s so much worse. I knew that if I turned that around on him, he would finally have to step up. It was his turn to show up.”

“He didn’t.”

Her eyebrows pinch a fraction. “He did. He said—”

“You were in touch with him?” Logan asks so sharply that Lydia startles backward.

“Briefly. He told me to stop calling, but I—It was enough for me to know that everything was okay. He insisted. He said…he said that I was right. He said you were better off without me. He said not to come back.”

Logan’s fist clenches so hard it’s shaking. I tighten my grip on his leg.

“I see,” he says coldly. “Except none of that was true.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but Logan plows forward. “Andrew started third grade right after you left. And I thought, he should just go to school. Be as normal as possible. Problem was, none of his teachers could get him to do anything but stare out a window. Dad was—How did you say it? Outrunning his feelings? Certainly not around for parent-teacher conferences. So, I went instead. I was eighteen when Andrew’s teachers started telling me that I was failing at home. And you were choosing not to be there.”

I chance a glance at Lydia. The color has drained from her rose-tipped cheeks.

“Mason,” Logan continues firmly. “Mason was six. He’d wake up at night screaming, drenched in sweat. Inconsolable. It got so bad he was afraid to go to sleep at all. I’d lie on the floor in his bedroom, every night, listening to him cry. And you were choosing not to be there.”

“I—” Tears hover in Lydia’s eyes. She blinks them back as her voice trembles. “You have to understand. It was impossible to come back.”

Logan’s eyes flash. “Difficult.”

Her red-rimmed eyes lift to him in question.

“It would have been difficult,” he clarifies, “to come back. Maybe you would have had to file for divorce and figure out joint custody or weekend visits. You would have needed to sit down your kids and explain. Maybe pay child support. There would have been awkward conversations with judgmental teachers and nosy neighbors. But none of that was impossible.”

Lydia winds and unwinds her fingers together and apart, clenching at her knuckles intermittently as tears leave tracks along her cheeks. She’s watching Logan with the air of someone inflicting pain on themselves. “I didn’t—I couldn’t come back. It was something I couldn’t control. The decision had been made. Or maybe it was the influence of the land or—”

And for the first time since we stepped inside this storefront, Logan loses the tight grip he’s held on his emotions. He pounds a fist against the table. Lydia jumps. “No. Maybe that felt like one choice or two. Influenced by the land or some shit Dad said on a phone call. But it wasn’t. It was a thousand choices. A million. You made a choice every minute of every day that you stayed away.”

Lydia’s mouth drops open, but Logan stands abruptly, sending his metal stool screeching. I immediately follow suit. He puts out his hand and I take it, letting my fingers collapse under his iron grip.

We forge toward the exit, but when Logan reaches the knob, he pauses. Angles his face backward.

“I’m glad I came here. I appreciate that you were willing to talk to me and that you explained as much as you could. But I don’t forgive you. And you don’t get to blame anyone but yourself for what you did.”

With that, he jerks open the door.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Logan sags into the driver’s seat of his truck and I climb in through the other door, tucking my leg so I’m facing him. Brown leaves cling to the windshield, wet and paper-thin, their stems trembling in a cold breeze. Logan twists the key and the wipers drag against the glass, smearing water and leaves and filling the cab with a rasping sound. Still, he doesn’t shift the truck into drive. Instead, his clenched hands roll over the steering wheel, back and forth, as he takes deep, even breaths.

“Logan.”