“We’re staying right here,” I said.

“We have our rooms upstairs, and I have my work set up in the machine shed.”

Grace patted my wrist, her fingers resting on the silver band of my watch.

“Eat your supper, Nora,” Grace said.

“We have sixty more crates to pick at dawn.”

By eight o’clock, the evening air had cooled, carrying the sharp smell of damp soil and sweet corn silk from the fields.

Carl came up the back porch steps carrying a freshly repaired wooden crate, its planed pine slats pale against the gray paint.