Ben woke me before dawn.
“Mom.”
I opened my eyes to find him standing beside the bed.
His hair was sticking up on one side. He was holding Daniel’s cap again.
“I heard something outside.”
“What kind of something?”
He shook his head. “Like someone breaking wood.”
I was out of bed before he finished speaking.
“Stay upstairs.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“But—”
“Ben, please.”
Something in my voice made him stop.
I pulled on a robe and went downstairs.
The house was still dark. I unlocked the patio door and stepped outside.
Then I froze.
Every tree was bare.
Not partly stripped.
Not harvested.
Bare.
I stared at the apple trees, unable to understand what I was seeing.
The branches that had been heavy with fruit the previous afternoon were almost completely empty. Leaves had been trampled into the soil. Small twigs littered the grass. One of Daniel’s ladders lay on its side near the fence, one leg resting against the flower bed.
I walked farther into the garden.
There were broken stems everywhere.
Someone had not simply picked the fruit.
They had rushed.
My hand went to the nearest branch. I touched the place where several apples had grown only a day earlier.
The bark was freshly scraped.
I looked toward Monica’s house.
Her kitchen light was already on.
Ben appeared behind the patio door.
“Mom?”
I turned.
“Go inside.”
“But what happened?”
“Just go inside for me.”
He obeyed, though reluctantly.
I walked the perimeter of the garden, photographing everything with my phone. The fallen ladder. The broken branches. Footprints in the damp soil. The fence where someone had climbed over.
I photographed the empty trees too.
There was something almost obscene about seeing them like that.
Daniel had talked about those trees as if they were part of the family.
A few months earlier, our eight-year-old son had followed him around with a basket. Daniel had shown Ben how to test an apple without pulling it from the branch.
“When it’s ready,” he had said, “you won't have to fight for it.”
Ben had laughed.
Daniel had smiled.
Then Daniel had looked at me.
At the time, I thought he was simply tired.
Now I remembered all the small things I had dismissed.
How often he rested.
How he sometimes rubbed his chest when he thought I wasn't watching.
How he had told me not to worry.
How he had said the trees would still feed Ben when he was gone.
I had scolded him for talking that way.
I wished I could hear him say it again.
I crouched beside the ladder.
There was mud on one rung.
Not from the previous afternoon.
The soil was darker and still damp.
Someone had been here during the night.
And they had taken almost everything.
I went back inside and closed the patio door.
Ben was sitting at the kitchen table.
“Did Monica do it?”
I hesitated.
“I don't know.”
He looked toward the garden.
“You know.”
I sat opposite him.
“I think she came back.”
His face tightened.
“Why?”
“I don't know yet.”
He lowered his eyes to Daniel’s cap.
“She shouldn't have.”
“No.”
“She was mean to you.”
“Yes.”
Ben rubbed his thumb over the worn stitching.
“Dad would've told her to leave.”
That nearly broke me.
“He would have.”
I waited until Ben went upstairs before opening my laptop.
I began with the simplest question.
Where would someone sell that much fruit?
I searched local markets, roadside stands, neighborhood produce sellers and weekend vendors. Within twenty minutes, I found something that made me sit upright.
A community market page listed Monica's name.
She had apparently reserved a Saturday stall.
I stared at the screen.
Then I looked at the date.
She had planned this.
Or at least she had planned to sell produce.
But that still didn't explain the red light.
I opened another browser window.
Monica and Daniel.
Then their surnames.
Then the name of the town where Daniel had grown up.
Most of the results were useless.
Old community notices.
School events.
A scanned newspaper page.
Then I found a photograph.
It was so old that the edges had gone yellow.
I clicked it.
My breath caught.
Monica stood beside Daniel.
They were both young.
Much younger than I had ever seen them.
Daniel had one arm resting behind her. Monica was smiling directly at the camera.
I enlarged the image.
There was something written on the back in faded handwriting.
A date.
Twenty-seven years earlier.
I sat back slowly.
The date was from the same period when Daniel and I had first met.
I kept scrolling.
Another photograph.
Then another.
Monica appeared beside Daniel again.
And again.
Not casually.
Not as distant childhood acquaintances.
They had known each other intimately.
I stared at the photographs until my eyes hurt.
Then I remembered something Daniel had said years ago.
He had told me Monica had been someone he knew before me.
He had never said much more.
I had never asked.
Why would I?
We had been married for twenty-seven years.
We had children.
We had built a life.
I had trusted the history between us.
Now I was looking at an old photograph and realizing there were pieces of that history I had never been given.
I printed the photographs.
Then I searched for Monica's name again.
This time, I found a reference that stopped me.
A birth announcement.
The name was partially obscured.
But the date was right.
A child had been born to Monica twenty-seven years ago.
I read it twice.
Then I heard the printer finish behind me.
I looked at the stack of photographs.
My hands had started shaking.
There was another explanation.
There had to be.
But every answer I imagined led back to the same question.
Why had Monica spent nine years living next door while watching my husband from across the fence?
I called the market listed on the page.
The organizer confirmed that Monica had reserved a stall.
I asked whether she had already paid.
“Yes,” the woman said. “She called yesterday to confirm.”
Yesterday.
Before Daniel’s funeral.
Before she climbed over my fence.
Before she returned in the night.
I hung up.
Something had changed.
This was no longer about fruit.
I went into the shed and found the old garden shears Daniel had used every September.
I carried them inside.
Then I found the box where we kept old photographs, receipts, letters and documents.
I didn't know exactly what I was looking for.
I only knew I needed to understand what Monica knew.
By noon, I had made several calls.
By one, I had enlarged the photograph of Monica and Daniel.
By two, I had printed another copy of the picture of my empty garden.
And by three, I was standing across the street from Monica’s house with a stack of boards, a marker and an idea that was beginning to take shape.
I wasn't going to knock on her door.
Not yet.
I was going to let her explain herself in front of witnesses.
I carried the first board onto her lawn.
Then another.
Then another.
When I finished, I stepped back and looked at what I had made.
The front door opened.
Monica walked onto the porch.
She saw the sign.
Her face went white.
Then she screamed.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Put the Harvest She Wanted on Display, but Monica’s Reaction to One Old Photograph Changed the Question Entirely
Twelve Days After Daniel Died, I Found My Neighbor on the Wrong Side of Our Fence With Bags Full of Fruit
Part 2 of 12
