Winter Garden

“I don't think men understand, though. ... They march off with their guns and their ideas and they think they know courage.”

"My granddaughters," he said quietly. Meredith could see how affected they were by the sight of him. For the whole of their lives he'd been like one of the apple trees on this property. Sturdy and dependable.

Jillian was the first to lean down and kiss him. "Hey, Grandpa."

Maddy’s eyes were damp. She reached over for her sister’s

Meredith turned to look at her sister. "You have wings.”

"Huh?"

"Maybe I'm like some ostrich or dodo bird. I stayed on the ground so long, I lost the ability to fly."

Maybe she'd thought time was more elastic, or love more forgiving.

And Vera understands. It is time for her to quit marking time and start doing something with it.

How was it that her whole life could be distilled down to that simple truth? Words mattered. Her life had been defined by things said and unsaid, and now her marriage was being undermined by silence.

But lately that kind of intimacy felt impossible. She wasn't quite sure how it had happened, or when, but distance seemed to be spreading between them like spilled ink, staining everything.

Nina didn't know until then how a word like proud could rock your world, but it rocked hers, and she understood love in a way she hadn't before, the all-consuming way of it.

At twelve, she had already discovered the empty spaces that gathered between people.