Sandy plucks another cherry from the pile and pops the stem off. “Thanks, and yes, it’s starting to feel like home. It’s just beautiful up here. Great to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city.” Cleaving the cherry in half with her teeth before picking the pit out, she makes a guttural mmmm sound and gives her fingertips a chef’s kiss. “Seriously, you should try one. They’re out of this world.”
“Aye, you there! No free samples!” Ethan booms into the produce section, wagging one of his meaty fingers as he approaches. Sandy’s face goes ashen, but Tova smiles and shakes her head. Ethan’s eyes are sparkling.
He gently nudges poor Sandy on the shoulder. “I’m just pullin’ your chain. Won’t no one be the wiser if you help yourself to a few. Brilliant season for cherries this year, innit?”
Sandy releases a nervous laugh. “Whew. I thought I was about to get banished from the town’s only grocery store.”
“A’course not. We’re a welcoming lot here, aren’t we, Tova?”
Tova inclines her head. “I should say so.”
Ethan chuckles and hooks his thumbs into his apron straps. “Well, I’ll leave you ladies to your shopping and sampling. Gimme a shout when you’re ready to check out.” With a cheery nod, he turns and lumbers over to a nearby cantaloupe display, where he busies himself straightening the mountain of melons.
“This town sure has its characters, doesn’t it?” Sandy muses, watching him. “Adam always tried to describe Sowell Bay’s . . . well, uniqueness. But I must admit, I didn’t understand until I came here myself.”
“Yes, well.” Tova studies the tile. She’s probably included as one of the town characters.
“You know, I never thought I’d live in a small town. Everyone’s so friendly, but also so . . . I don’t know. Up in everyone else’s business?”
“We prefer to say we care for one another.”
A tight, thin laugh escapes Sandy’s coral-colored lips as she lofts a bag of cherries onto a nearby produce scale. “Adam insists I’ll get used to it.”
“I’m sure Adam is correct.” Tova forces a smile. What do people gab about at Charter Village? Will she be a character there, too? Perhaps she’ll meet someone who was friendly with Lars. Would that be a good thing or a bad thing?
“Speaking of Adam.” Sandy leans in and shifts in her jeweled sandals, as if, suddenly, she’d rather not be in the produce section of the town’s only grocery store right now. “I feel like I should apologize for his behavior at the chophouse. Drinking like that, at noon! But he’s been under so much stress, with the move, and at work, and—”
Tova cuts in, “It’s quite all right, dear.” She means it.
“Right.” Sandy still looks deeply abashed. “But there’s one other thing. About that . . . conversation.”
Tova waits for her to continue, uncomfortably aware of her heart’s increased pace.
“He remembered her name. The girl your son was seeing, I mean.”
The piles of cherries blur into a swirling sea, pink and red. Tova leans on a produce scale, bracing herself against this sudden dizziness, her brain now running mad circles now around the words The girl has a name.
“Mrs. Sullivan? Are you okay?”
“Quite,” Tova hears herself rasp.
“Okay.” Sandy hesitates, sounding unconvinced. “Adam didn’t think I should say anything, but I just figured if I were in your shoes . . . I mean, if I had lost my child and there was bit of information I hadn’t known, even something small . . .”
You would want to know. Tova allows her eyelids to squeeze shut, trying to slow the spinning.
“Anyway, her name was Daphne, or so Adam said. He couldn’t remember her last name, but he did say she went to his high school.”
“Daphne,” Tova repeats. The name is thick and lumpy on her tongue, like an old piece of chewing gum.
A long moment passes. Finally, Sandy murmurs, “Well, now you know, I guess.”
Tova watches her pick up her grocery basket. The skin is pulled tight around the woman’s watering eyes. “Thank you, Sandy.”
With an awkward nod and a quick touch on Tova’s arm, Sandy ducks away toward the front register. From the corner of her eye, Tova catches Ethan staring at her.
He closes the gap between them, still holding a cantaloupe in each hand. “What was that Sandy Hewitt just said to you?”
Tova frowns, suddenly feeling like a rosebud under a cold dark sky. Pinched shut. “It was nothing.”