Daniel had been horrified.

He insisted on driving me to the hospital himself, stayed until the doctors released me, drove me home, and returned the next morning carrying coffee and another apology.

Over the years, it became our private joke.

One terrible red light had somehow given us twenty-seven years together.

We told people the general story of how we’d met.

But Daniel had always hated admitting that he had actually run the light.

That detail stayed between us.

At least, I thought it had.

Yet Monica knew.

That night, I tried to convince myself that Daniel must have told her after she moved next door.

Maybe it meant nothing.

I was too exhausted to keep thinking about it.

Before sunrise the following morning, Ben shook my shoulder.

“Mom, come outside. I heard something scary.”

I put on my robe and followed him.

The second I stepped onto the patio, I froze.

Every fruit tree was bare.

Not partly picked.

Completely stripped.

Broken twigs covered the lawn.

Leaves had been crushed into the grass.

Daniel’s wooden ladder lay on its side near the fence.

I walked toward the nearest apple tree and touched a branch that had been covered in fruit less than twenty-four hours earlier.

Something inside me broke.

I turned toward Monica’s house.

Her kitchen light was already on.