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“I’ll have the soup first,” she said. “And coffee.”

Nora refilled her water glass, which hadn’t needed refilling, and went back to the counter.

* * *

The soup was a white bean and something. She couldn’t identify all of it, something green that she thought might be chard, something smoky underneath, the kind of soup that had been made by someone who understood that soup was not a small thing. She ate it slowly and looked out the window at the square and thought about the kids and the panels and Marcus’s color sense, which had been developing in a direction she hadn’t anticipated and was excited about, and about Sophie, who had been watching the older kids paint this afternoon with an expression that Allison recognized as the exact look of someone deciding whether something was worth the risk.

She’d crouched down beside her and said, quietly, “You don’t have to be ready. You just have to start.”

Sophie had looked at her.

Then she’d picked up a brush.

Allison ate her soup and thought about that and felt, in the way that teaching sometimes produced, like she’d done something real today.

* * *

The café had thinned to almost no one by the time Nora brought the pie.

It was a standard slice, generous, the crust golden and slightly irregular in the way of crusts that had been made by hand, the filling smelling of cinnamon and apple and something warmer underneath, something she associated with autumn in a way that went beyond the ingredients. She looked at it for a moment before picking up her fork.

“Nora,” she said.

Nora, who had turned back toward the counter, paused.

“The pie. Someone told me...” She stopped. “I’ve heard that the pie here is...”

“Good,” Nora said. “People say the pie here is good.”

“That’s not exactly what I heard.” She looked up. “I heard that the flavor means something. That it matches what the town is feeling.”

Nora regarded her with the expression Allison had been trying to decode for four weeks, the one that was simultaneously warm and opaque, that gave nothing away and somehow made you feel seen anyway.

“Who told you that?” Nora said.

“Lauren.”

“Mm.” She said it neutrally, the way she said most things, without confirming or denying. “Lauren has opinions about the pie.”

“Does Lauren have the right opinions about the pie?”

A pause. The café was very quiet. The lamp on the counter threw a small circle of warm light that didn’t reach all the way to the window tables.

“Apple,” Nora said, looking at the slice on Allison’s plate, “is nostalgic.”

“What does that mean? For the town?”

“It means someone in Merrybrook is sitting with something they used to have.” She looked at Allison with her steady eyes. “Or something they almost had. It’s a flavor of apple, on particular nights.”

Allison looked at the pie.

“That’s...” she started.

“Specific,” Nora agreed, pleasantly. “Soup was good?”

“The soup was wonderful.”

“Good.” She picked up Allison’s empty bowl. “The pie won’t disappoint.”