Cherry Wren's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Saturday came fast. Cherry sat in her car outside the canning class building, gripping a blank notebook she'd grabbed off her shelf that morning. Pressed leaves stuck out from the cover. She had decided she would not just learn jars and lids today. After class, she would drive straight to the woman's place and watch. Really watch. Because she still didn't know what a homestead day actually looked like, and guessing was getting her nowhere. Canning class went by in a blur of steam and sealed lids. Cherry left with two warm jars of strawberry jam and drove out past the split rail fences. She parked at the gate and stepped through with her jars and her journal pressed to her chest. The woman was already moving. She didn't stop to greet Cherry, just nodded toward the garden and kept walking. Cherry followed and started writing. Rain barrels, hooked to hoses, feeding each bed. A handle worn smooth. Mud on the spigot from this morning. Cherry wrote it all down in small, fast letters. They worked for three hours. Cherry weeded a row and watched. The woman checked every plant, snipped, tied, muttered. She walked to a long wooden table on the porch and sorted what she'd picked into baskets. Herbs hung drying above it in tight bundles. Cherry counted the baskets. Eleven. She wrote that down too. She wrote how the woman's hands never stopped, even when she was talking. She wrote how nothing on this place looked decorative. Every object had a job. Driving home, Cherry's journal sat open on the passenger seat, full of notes that weren't pretty. Bug damage. Sore knees. A list of chores that started before sunrise. The dream cottage in her head had always looked soft, like pink clouds floating in a blue sky. What she'd seen today was harder than that. Dirtier. Slower. And she had liked it. She had liked it more than the daydream. She set the jam jars on her kitchen counter next to the journal. The fantasy was gone. Something real had taken its place, and it fit her better than she expected.