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Barrett set Molly carefully on her feet. “Show me.”

She caught two of his fingers in her hand and led him around the side of the building. I followed, trying not to stare at the sight of her tiny hand wrapped around his.

Agnes turned out to be an apple tree. She stood in a small patch of grass behind the hardware store, old enough that her trunk had split into two heavy leaders. One side was thick with leaves. The other had yellowed badly.

Molly let go of Barrett and ran ahead. “See?”

Barrett crouched beside the trunk, and Molly immediately crouched beside him. “What do you think?” he asked her.

She frowned at the tree. “I don’t know.”

“Look.”

“I am looking.”

“Look lower.”

Molly leaned so far forward she nearly put her nose against the bark. Barrett waited. He didn’t tell her, even though he could have diagnosed the problem in seconds. I knew because I’d watched him do exactly that all week.

Instead, he let her find it.

“There!” Molly pointed. “A hole.”

“Good.”

She beamed.

Barrett leaned closer. “What else?”

Molly put both hands on her knees and studied the trunk with fierce concentration.

I moved around the other side and spotted a patch of darkened bark near the base and a faint line of sawdust caught in one of the crevices. I reached toward it.

“Don’t,” Barrett said without looking at me.

My hand stopped an inch from the bark. Six days ago, I would have bristled. Now I tucked it behind my back. “Wasn’t going to.”

His eyes lifted to mine. He knew I was lying.

Molly gasped. “Bugs!”

“Probably,” Barrett said.

“Are they eating her?”

“Little bit.”

Her face fell.

Barrett’s voice softened. “Doesn’t mean we can’t help.”

The we brought her straight back. Molly shuffled closer to the trunk. “What do we do?”

He explained without using the falsely cheerful voice adults often reserved for children, showing her where the insects had entered, what he would remove, and what she needed to watch for afterward.

She listened to every word.

So did I.