The Mulberry Tree

He didn’t say anything, and he hoped that his silence would make her talk.

“Do you know how your life can change in a minute?” she said after a while.

“Yeah,” Matt said, and his voice was full of feeling. He sure did. If he hadn’t thought he was having a heart attack . . . “I know,” he said.

“This morning, I awoke feeling . . . well, really, feeling useless. My husband left me this house and his . . . estate, I guess you’d say, cleaned it and furnished it for me. But from now on, I’m on my own. I have to support myself, but what talents do I have?”

At that Matt choked. As he was coughing and recovering himself, he pointed with his fork at his nearly empty plate.

“I know,” Bailey said, “I can cook. I’ve had some great teachers in that area, but what can I do with cooking?” She put up her hand when he started to speak. “I know, I could open a restaurant, but I can’t think of anything in the world I’d less like to do. Cooking the same thing over and over, dealing with customers and employees. Not for me.”

“So what then?” he asked as he used a bit of bread to clean his plate.

Bailey held out her half finished plate to him, silently asking if he’d like the rest of it. “Today I went to a grocery store, a big one up the road. I don’t know where I was. Took a left on the pavement.”

“Sure?” Matt asked, and when she nodded, he took her plate. “What happened at the grocery?”

“I guess, really, I had an idea. Of something that I can do, that is. I like to preserve things. Canning, you know?”

Matt nodded. Now that he was getting nearly full, he could listen to her.

“Jimmie—he was my husband—said that he thought I was trying to preserve time, make it stay where it was and not move.”

She looked at him as though she expected him to say something to that, but he was silent. He didn’t know enough about her to make a comment.

“Anyway, I was in the grocery, and I saw a display of so-called gourmet foods. There were tiny jars of jam selling for seven dollars each. I thought, I make more interesting jams than this. And that’s when it hit me: I could sell my jams and pickles.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Matt said as he finished what she hadn’t eaten. “Know anything about operating a factory?”

“Nothing, but I was thinking along smaller lines. Mail-order, maybe. Posh stores. You wouldn’t know anything about selling jam, would you?”

“Nothing whatever.”

“Mmmm,” was all she said, then leaned back to look up at the mulberry tree.

“So what was the funny thing that happened to you today?” he asked as he wiped his hands on a red-and-white checkered cloth napkin.

Bailey smiled. “I was filling my basket with bottles of vinegar for making pickles, when a woman came up to me and whispered that I shouldn’t buy it there. She said that if I was going to buy in bulk, then I should go to the Cost Club. I told her that I was new to the area and had no idea where that was, so she tore off the bottom of her grocery list and drew me a map. ‘And get your fruit at a local fruit stand,’ she said. ‘But bargain, don’t pay what they ask. Those farmers—especially the ones over near Calburn—will take everything you’ve got.’ I told her thank you very much and she said—” Bailey paused, eyes twinkling. “She patted my hand and said, ‘That’s all right, dear. I knew by your accent that you were a Yankee, and they’re always so helpless, but you looked like a nice one, so I didn’t see any harm in helping you.’ ”

They laughed together at the story.

“What’s especially funny is that I grew up in Kentucky,” she said.

“You don’t sound like it.” Matt was looking at her speculatively, but she didn’t comment further, just kept looking up at the tree. “More good teachers?” he asked in curiosity.

“The wine!” she said, then jumped up. “How rude of me. I completely forget to get anything to drink, and I have a lovely bottle of chardonnay.” Before Matt could ask another question, she’d run back inside the house.

“Interesting,” Matt said into the silence as he stood up and stretched. She’d very neatly managed to evade answering his personal question.

Minutes later she returned with two glasses of chilled white wine and handed him one. “I have peach cobbler if you want some.”

Matt’s first thought was to yell, “Yes!” but he controlled himself. Taking the glass of wine, he looked past the mulberry tree. “This place has been abandoned for years, but when my brother and I were kids, we used to spend a lot of time here. It looks different now.”

“Yes,” Bailey said, standing near him, but not too near, he noticed, and sipping her wine. “The workmen did a marvelous job. I have no idea how I’m going to maintain all of this, but until the weeds start to grow, it’s beautiful.” When she glanced up at him and saw that he was looking at her expectantly, she smiled. “Would you like the tour?”

“Very much,” he said.

“Since I’d never seen the place before two days ago, you probably know more about it than I do, but I’ll show you what I’ve seen.”