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"Spray paint. Cheap stuff. It'll scrape."

"I'll bring a scraper tomorrow."

"I'll do it myself." She tilts her head. "I'm going to paint it white. The whole door."

"Nell would've used red."

"Nell would've used red and a ladder and a very rude word." She laughs. The laugh cracks in the middle. She presses the back of her wrist to her mouth for a moment. When she lowers it her eyes are bright and steady. "I don't want to sell it to them, Ethan."

"I figured."

"I haven't decided anything else. I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'm not selling to someone who painted my barn."

"That seems like a sound policy."

"It's the only one I've got." She turns away from the doors. "Show me the trees."

I know the orchard by heart. I take her through it the way I'd take anyone I wanted to remember it: not by the road, but through the rows, up the hill, past the trees I could name in my sleep.

The grass is dry and crunchy underfoot. The sun comes down between the branches in long gold bars.

Partway up the third row, under the oldest tree, I stop.

The Northern Spy stands where it always has, huge and crooked, with limbs as thick as my waist. From the lowest one, on two weathered ropes, hangs a plank swing.

"Oh," Carolina says.

She says it softly. I watch her face. She's looking at the swing, and her mouth has gone slightly open.

"She hung that for you. The summer you were seven. Nell told me once. She said you'd gotten into the habit of sitting under that tree, and she thought you'd be happier with a seat."

"May I?"

"May you what?"

"Check the ropes." I walk over, take hold of the left rope in both hands, and hang my full weight on it. It holds. I do the right one. "They're twenty years old, give or take. I'd rather find out now."

"You'd do that for anyone."

"I do it for Faith every single time." I let go and brush rope fibers off my palms. "Go on."

She sits. The plank takes her weight without a sound. She wraps her hands around the ropes and looks up at me with a tentative, wondering smile, a smile that belongs to the girl who'd sat here at seven. I move behind her and put my palms against the small of her back, and push.

The swing goes out slowly. Her hair, escaping the clip, lifts around her face. She leans her head back and closes her eyes. The sun on her cheekbones and the line of her throat makes it hard to keep my hands steady. Each time the swing comes back to me I catch it, and give it one gentle shove, and let it go.

"What are you afraid of?" she says, with her eyes shut.

I don't answer right away. The swing carries her out and back again. I catch the ropes, and hold them still. She opens her eyes and turns to look at me over her shoulder.

"That I'll want it enough to be stupid with it."

"Stupid how?"

"I'd put you in front of her before it was right. I'd tell her something I couldn't promise. I've been so careful for so long that I don't trust my own judgment about being happy." My throat is tight. I make myself finish. "The first night, I thought it was the best night I'd had in years. Last night I sat on my own staircase and couldn't stop wanting you to stay. I've never wanted anything that much, and I know exactly what it costs when the person leaves."

She says nothing. She puts one foot flat on the ground and turns the swing to face me, the ropes twisting in her hands, until she's looking up at me from the plank with her knees almost touching my hips.

"I'm leaving tomorrow."