That brought her back to her senses. He may as well have slapped her, the impact was the same—bracing and immobilizing. She couldn’t even manage a gasp, though her eyebrows stretched up toward her hairline. Spending time with this whelp of . . . she couldn’t even tell how old he was. Eight? Twelve? All kids looked the same to her. Dirty and noisy and annoying.
“That won’t be necessary,” she finally said. She expected her father to respond, but instead Isaac spoke up.
“No, I insist. Einars is right. Bass needs to take responsibility for his actions.”
Sanna squinted at him, not sure she’d heard correctly. He had his hands on his son’s shoulders, sturdy and guiding, making it clear where his priorities were.
“Bass? Like a fish?”
The boy snorted, then covered his mouth to hide a giggle. That wasn’t the response she had hoped for.
“His name is Sebastian, but that’s a bit of a mouthful. He responds to most fish names, don’t you, Trout?” Isaac ruffled Bass’s moppish curls, and he mumbled “Dad” as he stepped out of reach.
Isaac’s face glowed as he looked at his son, now kicking at the rocks in the orchard’s parking lot, then he shifted back to her—obviously expecting her to object again. She couldn’t work with someone who had the attention span of a gnat—but she’d make her objections clear to her father at dinner. Having spent time with her spoiled nieces, Gabby and Sarah—Anders had completely ruined those girls, they didn’t even know how to climb a tree—she didn’t want to spend any more time with Fish-Boy than she had to. She’d just lie low and her father would forget about it. Besides, he never made her do things she didn’t want to.
“Fine. I’m heading back to work.” She turned to go back to the barn without another word—avoiding making eye contact with Isaac.
“Sanna,” her father said, “don’t clean up the mess. That can be Bass’s first job.” She gave a little wave to acknowledge she had heard him and kept walking to the barn. What would she do to keep a kid busy all day—assuming she could keep it together in front of his dad? Before she opened the side door closest to the stairs, she paused to look over Idun’s Orchard. The straight lines of trees, cocooned in fresh green leaves that hid the small apples in various states of growth. She couldn’t quite see the trailer behind all the trees, the place where Isaac and Bass—what an absurd nickname—would be living while they stayed on. There was no way to avoid working with Isaac—and she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to, which bothered her—but with some strategic planning, she could avoid the kid.
Behind her, on the other side of the gravel driveway, was the Lund family home, an enormous two-story farmhouse in the shape of an L, covered in white painted wood siding. They could shelter a small village in the large home, and practically had in the past when generations of Lunds had lived there together. Now it was only the two of them.
Sanna could still hear Isaac and Einars talking from around the corner, Isaac’s loud, unbridled laughter competing with her father’s boisterous voice. She could even hear the skittering of rocks as Bass continued to kick them. While intrigued by the appearance of this undeniably handsome man, she was unsettled by all these changes in one day. Hired help before harvest? What would this do to their finely tuned routines? Was there even enough work to make the help worthwhile? All the uncertainty blocked her usual confidence and command. She sighed, letting her shoulders slump as she climbed the stairs to the loft.
The season was only five months long, she told herself bracingly, then everything would go back to normal.
? ? ? ? ?
Sanna walked up the four steps from the back door into the kitchen, the screen door slamming behind her as she reached the top. The kitchen was half of the airy great room that made up the heart of the house. A long counter hugged the wall, housing the sink, stove, and cabinets, with a window overlooking the giant oak tree, patio, and the orchard’s barn and parking lot. A massive island served as both countertop and eating spot—six inches taller than a traditional counter to accommodate the generations of tall Lunds. Separating the kitchen from the great room was an ancient farm table that could easily seat ten, worn from years of family dinners, frequent scrubbings, and dropped objects. Like with so many pieces in the house, she could recall the history in each scratch and dent. Each held a story that had been told to her by her father as she grew up, like the half-inch divot where her grandfather dropped an entire cast-iron pot on the table when his wife went into labor, or the crayon scribbles on the underside of every piece of furniture—she herself had scrawled the entire alphabet on the coffee table.
Sanna pulled off her boots and tucked them into a wooden cubby, one of many lining the wall at the top of the steps. Above the cubbies hung the range of all-weather gear she and her dad needed—raincoats and pants, wide-brimmed hats, thick leather gloves, and warm winter jackets. Weather didn’t stop work on a farm. She slipped into her indoor clogs made of boiled wool and lined with soft lamb’s wool and strode across the bright room to the bathroom she shared with Einars.
Since it was just the two of them, they only used a small part of the sprawling house. They had converted the office and den near the great room into bedrooms, leaving the rest of the house closed off to conserve energy. The closed-off wing contained bedrooms full of sheet-covered furniture—it was where Sanna had spent her early years, when her grandparents were still alive and the Donor and Anders had rounded out their family, but she preferred the central part of the house now. She loved that instead of building a traditional second floor, they had left the loft open, amplifying the airiness of the space. A spiral staircase of pale-gray painted wood led to the large open room. On one side of the loft, she could look down on the activity in the great room and kitchen, or she could sit on one of the squashy couches or chairs that faced the large windows overlooking the northern side of the orchard. From up there, she could see her favorite tree—one of the oldest in the orchard—a meandering Rambo with sweeping arched branches that sat in the center of the Looms, rising above all the other trees. When she was a child, it was her favorite to climb. She could scramble higher because its center limb was never trimmed back but allowed to grow straight. From its branches, she could see over the tops of all the other trees, the way she towered over the other kids at school.
Perhaps she’d read in the loft tonight, but for now she needed to clean up for the dinner her dad would have on the table at six fifteen sharp. With efficient movements, she showered and swapped her sturdy work clothes for comfortable cotton men’s pajama pants and a soft, worn T-shirt. As she went through the familiar motions, she pondered how to bring up the issue of the new residents with Einars. With her hair still wet and sending a few errant drops down the back of her neck, she joined her dad in the kitchen with five minutes to spare.