Instead, she determined to bake a pie for the young couple inhabiting her late sister’s house the last three days. Baking always settled her nerves. Thanks to the four mature apple trees in her backyard, she didn’t need to fire up the old Camaro and make a trip to the grocery store either. Both the Pink Lady and McIntosh varieties were crisp, delicious, and ripe for picking. Under the watchful eye of Mr. Longtail—he came to visit every day—she used the handle of her broom to knock down apples until she had a basketful.
The girl, a tall, pretty blond, had been coming and going for the last eight months, feeding Mr. Longtail per her late sister’s directions, when it would’ve been so much easier for Ida to do it. Of course, this was as Sabrina had instructed in her will, and Ida knew to leave well enough alone when it came to Sabrina’s wishes.
Ida had meant to introduce herself to the girl long ago, but nothing seemed to happen fast at her age. The first several months she’d been reeling from the loss of her sister, and then there’d been the whole high-blood-pressure scare. In the scheme of things, today seemed like as good a time as any. A young man was staying in the house now too, it seemed. She’d caught a few glimpses of him working late into the evening the last two nights. If her trifocals weren’t deceiving her, he was as fine as young men were back before the world grew so complicated and soft at the same time.
She’d seen the report on Channel 3 and had put two and two together. She’d known they were bringing those mistreated dogs here before the vans had pulled up. But she hadn’t been prepared to see so many crates being unloaded. Her sister’s quiet house was being packed full of dogs. And not just any dogs. The dogs Channel 3 flashed across the television screen were intimidating, to say the least.
But the pie making sent Ida’s worries away. The girl who’d been feeding Mr. Longtail was competent enough. In all these months, she’d never forgotten to take care of him. And hopefully, that shelter Sabrina had been so fond of knew what it was committing to.
Ida lost track of the afternoon as she readied the crust. There was nothing quite like dusting the countertop in flour and rolling out a fresh, buttery crust or hearing the thin, fine scrape of the sugar and cinnamon as she mixed them with the apples. And of course there was the smell. Few things on earth smelled better than an apple pie baking in the oven.
When it was done, she let the pie cool as the sun sank low on the horizon. She watched the protesters pack up from their second day of protesting. Thank heavens they were leaving. The idea of people picketing outside Sabrina’s house was disturbing. Ida hoped they had realized how quiet the street was and determined to take their picketing elsewhere. Or, better yet, abandoned it entirely. That was more consistent with the benefit-everyone way of thinking her holistic practitioner had been trying to teach her.
When the ceramic pie dish was cool enough to carry, she covered the pie with her best dishcloth and slipped a small flashlight into her pocket. If the young couple was the welcoming type, she might well be walking home after dark. Mr. Longtail met her halfway between their two houses. He meowed and beelined in front of her, nearly causing her to trip and send the pie sailing, which would have been a shame. It had turned out lovely.
The young man answered the door, looking both more guarded and more handsome than he had from far away. “Can I help you?” he asked, eyeing the heavy pie that was growing heavier by the second.
“I’m Ida Greene, your neighbor. And you can be a dear and relieve me of this pie.”
He took it off her hands and cocked an eyebrow. “If I do, I may not give it back. It smells incredible.”
“That’s good to hear. I baked it for you. It only seemed right that you get more of a welcome than those protesters have offered you.”
He smiled and shifted the pie to the flat of one hand as he extended the other in her direction. “Kurt Crawford. Nice to meet you, Ms. Greene.”
He was enough of a gentleman to impress her. And he had remarkably strong hands. After the introduction, Ida craned her neck to look into the parlors flanking the entryway. Rather than studying the crates, she took in the condition of the walls and light fixtures. “It’s funny, but my memory of the house as it was twenty years ago is more vivid than that of how it looks now. And look what that crotchety cat has done to the beautiful old wallpaper!”
Kurt followed her gaze to the strips of wallpaper that the cat had clawed away. “You know this house?”
“Yes, very well. Sabrina was my year-younger sister.” She pointed toward her house. “I moved next door after my husband died twenty-one years ago. Sabrina lived here much longer, nearly sixty years in fact.”
Kurt’s eyebrows arched upward. “Would you like to come in?”
Ida’s thin fingers closed around the doorframe for support. She could almost see her sister, decades ago, barefoot and in a cornflower-blue summer dress, carrying a basket of laundry down the stairs, singing as she went. “I very much would, Mr. Crawford. I very much would.”
* * *
If it wasn’t for Ida taking a seat at the kitchen table after touring the house, Kurt doubted he would have remembered his dream from last night, his second night in the house. As it was, only snippets came to mind. It had taken place here in the kitchen. He remembered the soft, yellow light pouring into the kitchen from the window behind the sink, making the god-awful
