At 10:30, Sarah stepped away from the booth and headed toward the market restroom.
Margaret stood before she had fully decided to.
“What are you doing?” Jon hissed.
“This may be the only chance.”
She crossed the market quickly, reached the restroom building just as Sarah was coming out, and for one breathless second they stood face to face in the mist.
Up close, there was no room left for denial.
The scar on Sarah’s chin sat small and pale where her childhood bicycle accident had left it. Margaret remembered cleaning that cut in their kitchen while Sarah cried more from indignation than pain. The shape of her eyes, the angle of her mouth, the way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other when uncertain—all of it was unbearably familiar.
“Oh,” Sarah said. “You’re the woman from last week. The one who dropped the strawberries.”
“Yes,” Margaret said. “Margaret Harper.”
“And you’re Sarah.”
“That’s right.”
Sarah looked tired beneath the politeness, as if even ordinary conversation required more effort than it should. Margaret began carefully, talking about strawberries, gardening, companion planting. Sarah responded easily enough at first. When Margaret mentioned basil helping repel aphids and spider mites, Sarah brightened.
“Dad taught us that too,” she said.
There was the slightest hesitation before the word dad.
Margaret’s heart pounded louder.
“Has he been farming long?” she asked.
Sarah’s expression tightened.
“Since I was little. Since we were little, I mean. My sisters and I.”
“You must have grown up on the farm.”
“Yes.”
She glanced toward the market.
“We should probably get back. Sophie worries when any of us is away too long.”
Margaret knew she should let her go.
She didn’t.
“Sarah,” she said softly, “do you ever think about your life before the farm?”
The young woman went still.
“What do you mean?”
“Any memories. From when you were very small. Before you lived with your father.”
Sarah’s face changed instantly. Not just surprise. Fear.
“I don’t—why are you asking me that?”
