Her mother nodded.
“Yes.”
“What if I'm an idiot?”
“Possible.”
The girl looked horrified.
Her mother sat beside her.
“You wanted honesty.”
“I wanted comfort.”
“Wrong family.”
They both laughed.
Then her mother leaned against the cabinet.
“You didn't say no forever.”
“You said no before you knew enough.”
“That is different.”
Again.
Time.
The orchard gave her time.
Spring brought blossoms.
The first bloom changed public interest more than any newspaper article.
Twenty-nine old trees produced flowers.
White.
Pink.
Deep rose.
Different shapes.
Different timing.
Researchers tagged each tree.
Bee activity was recorded.
Scionwood collected.
Backup grafts made at the university.
The young woman learned to graft too.
Her first attempts were terrible.
The specialist looked at one crooked union.
“What did you do?”
“Grafted.”
“You assaulted it.”
The girl glared.
The specialist laughed.
By her sixth attempt, the cambium aligned properly.
By the twelfth, her cuts became cleaner.
Weeks later, the first bud opened on a graft she had made herself.
She stared at the tiny leaf.
The older farmer found her.
“You've been looking at that stick for ten minutes.”
“It lived.”
“So?”
“I made it.”
“You attached one stick to another.”
She looked at him.
He smiled.
“I know.”
“Pretty good, isn't it?”
She smiled back.
“Yeah.”
Fruit appeared unevenly that summer.
Some trees dropped everything.
Others set only two or three.
Seventeen carried enough for identification.
The girl guarded them like gold.
Bags.
Tags.
Notes.
Tree numbers.
Dates.
She stopped goats from entering fruiting blocks.
Her brother complained that the goats were becoming second-class citizens on the property they had discovered.
She told him to organize a union.
He claimed they already had.
The leader was the oldest doe.
Harvest began in late August.
Not commercially.
Scientifically.
One fruit at a time.
The university hosted a tasting and identification day.
Fruit historians attended.
Nursery specialists.
Local elders.
Cider makers.
The girl felt absurd carrying apples into a room like evidence.
In a sense, they were.
Tree 14 produced a small yellow-green apple with russeting.
Tree 22, striped red.
Tree 31, nearly purple.
Tree 5, ugly enough that the girl apologized before anyone tasted it.
Tree 5 tasted excellent.
The specialist laughed.
“There's your lesson.”
“What?”
“Fruit doesn't read beauty standards.”
An elderly local woman attended with her daughter.
She was ninety-two.
The historian placed a slice of Tree 18's fruit before her.
Yellow skin.
Pink blush.
Firm white flesh.
The woman smelled it.
Her hand stopped.
She looked at the historian.
“Where did you get this?”
The room became quiet.
He pointed toward the girl.
“Her orchard.”
The elderly woman took a bite.
She chewed slowly.
Then tears appeared.
The young woman stepped closer.