Chapter 4: Pear Soup and Broken Promises

The midnight market wound down as the sky bled from black to pewter. I slung my basket of carrots and chard over one shoulder and trudged home, sneakers crunching over frost-laced grass. From a distance, I saw our front door hanging open, a rectangle of pale porch light spilling out into the early morning gloom.

Caleb was there, sleeves rolled up on an old green flannel, sweeping the porch with a battered broom. He looked up when he saw me, a lopsided grin breaking across his face, eyes creasing at the corners with a familiar warmth.

"Honey, you’re back."

His voice was soft, tinged with a note of concern. He set the broom aside, hustled over to take the basket from my hands, then wrapped my chilled fingers in his own, pressing them between his palms like he could will the cold away.

"Your hand’s freezing. Come on inside, let’s get you warm. I made your favorite—stewed pear soup."

I stared at him, dazed. This was the Caleb I knew, or thought I knew—the man who worried over my coughs, who brushed hair from my forehead, who called me "darlin’" in a half-teasing, half-tender way.

Women in my family, once we turned sixteen, were sent out into the world—out to the woods, to the hills, seeking rare insects and learning the old ways. That’s where I met Caleb, hiking through the forests of northern Idaho, both of us a little lost.

He and his college friends had wandered off the path. I found him tangled in blackberry brambles, scratched up and grateful. After that, he trailed after me like a loyal dog, always turning up where I least expected.

Later, we stood under the sky at a tiny clapboard church in Maple Heights, saying our vows before a handful of witnesses and the wind. Women in my family don’t care for big weddings—if you love someone, you marry them. No fuss, no diamonds, just promises.

Caleb always said he had no parents, just a tangle of distant relatives in towns I’d never seen. I followed him here, to this old house with peeling paint just outside town, hoping for a life as steady as the river.

He swore that after he passed his exams, he’d introduce me to his family. Seven days from now, he’d sit for that test.

"What are you thinking?" Caleb’s voice broke through my reverie. He reached out, tapped me gently on the nose, smiling the way he did when he wanted to draw me back from my thoughts. "Are you tired?"