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She sat down on the top step and drew her knees up under the flannel. Her mouth curved as she sipped. “You read my labels.”

“Couldn’t help it.” The way her lips wrapped around the mug was going to be a problem all morning. “They’re everywhere.”

She laughed, and the sound scattered a pair of jays from the oak by the fence line. I watched them resettle. Then I watched her—the early light in the mess of her hair, one bare foot tucked beneath her, both hands wrapped around the mug the way they’d cradled me the night before.

She stretched one bare foot out into the strip of light on the step and wiggled her toes. “You know the deck boards need re-oiling.”

“They do.”

“When were you planning to do that?”

“After the rain.”

“When’s the rain?”

“Tomorrow. Late.”

She looked at me over the mug. “You just know things.”

“Some things.”

The corner of her mouth lifted. She had a smear of soil on her jaw from where she’d rubbed it half-asleep, and she didn’t know it was there. I’d noticed it and hadn’t told her. It’d stay on her all morning until she caught it in a mirror, and by then she’d remember whose dirt it was.

I wasn’t going to be the one to wipe it off.

Five days.

The comfrey needed water. I reached for the can.

A moment passed. Then another. She hadn’t moved. The mug was still at her lips, but I couldn’t hear her drinking.

The wren that had been arguing with itself in the elder tree had gone quiet. I didn’t know when.

Her phone buzzed against the boards beside her. She glanced at the screen, and her eyebrows drew together. Her thumb hovered for a second before she picked it up.

“I should take this.”

She was already moving toward the cabin. The door closed behind her. A moment later, the window did too.

It didn’t matter.

With bear hearing, I could catch her through a closed window and a cabin wall whether I wanted to or not. Her voice came muffled but clear enough, pitched in a register I hadn’t heard her use in days. The professional tone.

I went back to the soil. The spade hit a rock. I dug it out, set it on the pile, drove the blade in again.

“...yes, I received the email…”

I drove it in again.

“...the timeline—actually, it’s—sorry, say that again?”

Rock. Dirt. The rasp of steel on stone.

“...tenure-track—you’re absolutely sure?”

Something in me went very quiet.

“...permanent?”