« If only I were twenty years younger, » I blurted out, looking at the apple pie she had just placed on my railing.
Margaret Hale did not laugh.
She remained motionless on my porch, her eyes fixed on mine, with that tranquility that always forced me to stop hiding behind my clumsy sentences.
My name is Thomas Callaway. I am fifty years old, and I own a cattle ranch of just over two hundred acres, just outside a small town in Virginia.
The land has belonged to my family for three generations.
Today, I run it with a mix of old habits and modern machines: tractors equipped with GPS, an automatic irrigation system, cameras in the barns, and software that tracks the health of each cow.
But no matter what technology I add, the days always begin before sunrise and never end until the last animal has been checked.
I had long believed that I would grow old here with my wife, Eleanor.
We got married when I was twenty-eight years old.
She wasn’t just my wife. She was the one who helped me rebuild this place after difficult years.
She kept the accounts, managed the small farm shop we had opened by the roadside, and succeeded in making that large empty house a home.
Three years earlier, she had died after almost a year-long battle with cancer.
We had had time to prepare, but knowing that something is coming doesn’t make an empty house any easier to walk through.
The morning after the funeral, I went straight to the barn.
It wasn’t because I was strong.
It was because I simply didn’t know what else to do.
I woke up at the same time, drank the same coffee, put on the same work clothes, and then went out as if nothing had changed.
As if keeping every routine intact could mean that Eleanor was still somewhere in the house, just out of sight for a while.
She never came back.
Her clothes remained in the closet.
Her favorite mug remained in the cupboard.
The room to the east, where she dealt with paperwork, remained locked.
I couldn’t open that door.
Every time I passed by, I imagined her sitting at her desk, glasses on her nose, reminding me not to forget to have lunch.
The only person who regularly crossed the field between our two properties was Margaret Hale, my neighbor of twenty-five years.
His family had owned the farm to the south for years.
I had known her as a child, but it was only after she returned from university with a degree in agricultural management that I began to see her as an adult woman.
Her parents had moved to Richmond to be closer to their other daughter and their grandchildren.
Margaret, however, had stayed and managed her sixty acres alone.
She raised dairy goats, maintained two greenhouses filled with organic vegetables, and sold cheese and jams online.
She didn’t need to be saved by anyone.
She repaired fences, drove tractors, cared for sick animals, and negotiated prices with distributors.
She even used social media to sell her products, something I had always considered unnecessary until the day she showed me how to take pre-orders for the shop and almost doubled our holiday business.
Two weeks after Eleanor’s funeral, Margaret appeared on my porch with a pot of soup.
She handed it to me.
— I made too much. Can you help me eat it?
I knew it was just an excuse not to give the impression of being pitied.
I took the pot.
— You didn’t have to.
– I know.
After that, she brought something almost every Tuesday morning.
Sometimes bread.
Sometimes a stew.
Sometimes fresh vegetables.
Sometimes only two coffees.
Each time, I told her she didn’t need to do that.
Each time, she replied:
– I know.
Those Tuesday mornings have slowly become a part of my week.
I never asked her if she was coming, but I made extra coffee and tried to finish the work closest to home before nine o’clock.
Margaret would sit on the porch for about half an hour.
She would talk to me about livestock, problems in her greenhouses, or ask for my opinion on a new machine she was considering buying.
She knew how to remain silent without making the silence oppressive.
I had tucked it away in a safe place in my mind.
A kind neighbor.
A young friend.
The daughter of people I had known for a long time.
I didn’t allow myself to see her any other way.
One Tuesday morning, towards the end of September, Margaret walked across the field with a still-warm apple pie.
She was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt, her hair tied back.
A trace of flour still marred his cheek.
I was sitting on the porch with my coffee when she placed the pie on the railing.
The scent of cinnamon and baked apples spread through the fresh morning air.
« Apples from the southern trees, » she said. « The first harvest is sweet this year. »
I looked at the pie, then at her.
For three years, she brought me food without ever asking for anything in return.
Without thinking, I smiled and said the first thing that came to mind.
— If only I were twenty years younger.
I thought she would laugh, shake her head and change the subject, as she always did when I said something awkward.
She didn’t do it.
Margaret remained perfectly still.
Her eyes never left mine.
Calm.
Fixed.
There was neither embarrassment nor mockery in his gaze.
It was the kind of look that takes away any certainty you have about what to do next.
After a few seconds, she placed the pie on the railing and took a small step back.
— Twenty years would change absolutely nothing.
I frowned.
— What do you mean by that?
She didn’t answer right away.
She simply looked at me, as if she were deciding how far she could go.
Then she turned towards the porch steps.
« I need to check the greenhouses, » she called over her shoulder.
I watched her cross the field.
Even when she disappeared behind the tree line, I stayed there.
His words still lingered between us.
Twenty years would change absolutely nothing.
