By nine the next morning, I was retrieving my empty green trash bin from the curb when Ashley, Tyler’s wife, stepped across the damp grass toward me.

She was holding a shallow wicker basket filled with heavy, dark red tomatoes, their skins dusty with soil.

“The heat is turning them all at once,” Ashley said, her voice dropping to a near whisper as she held the basket out.

“I cannot use them fast enough.”

I took the basket, its wooden handle rough against my palm.

The tomatoes smelled of warm vines and split earth, reminding me of the garden my mother used to keep behind her house in Toledo.

“Thank you, Ashley,” I said, adjusting my glasses on my bridge.