Part 4 — What I Found From Twenty-Seven Years Ago
Initially, I searched local markets.
Monica had claimed she wanted to sell the fruit, so I looked for places where she might take it.
Within twenty minutes, I found her name connected to a weekend community market.
That should have satisfied me.
It didn’t.
Her comment about the traffic light kept circling in my head.
So I typed Daniel’s name into the search bar.
Then Monica’s.
Then the name of the town where they had grown up.
Old reunion pages appeared.
Archived photographs.
Community newsletters.
Most were useless.
Then I opened one photograph dated twenty-seven years earlier.
Daniel stood near the center.
Younger.
Thinner.
Smiling in the careless way young people smile when they still believe time is endless.
Monica stood beside him.
Not casually.
Her arm was linked through his.
I found another image.
Then another.
They hadn’t simply gone out “a few times.”
At least, that wasn’t how it looked.
By lunchtime, I had several photographs printed across my kitchen table.
My anger returned.
Not because Daniel had dated someone before me.
That part didn’t matter.
What bothered me was the feeling that there was a chapter of his life I had never been allowed to read.
Then I remembered the young man with the toolbox.
The one Daniel said looked familiar.
I stared at the photograph of young Daniel again.
A thought tried to form.
I pushed it away.
It seemed ridiculous.
Instead, I concentrated on Monica.
If she wanted attention for taking Daniel’s harvest, I decided I would give her more attention than she could possibly want.
That afternoon, I printed photographs of the empty trees.
I enlarged one of the old pictures of her standing beside Daniel.
Then I made a sign.
A very large sign.
By late afternoon, I was standing in Monica’s front yard arranging everything.
When her door finally opened, her scream echoed down the street.
Neighbors immediately began appearing on porches.
Monica rushed outside.
“What have you done?”
I stepped aside so she could see the display properly.
In the center of her lawn stood my sign:
MONICA’S HARVEST
She spent years wanting what belonged to my family.
Now, twelve days after my husband’s death, she took the fruit he left behind.
Monica’s face turned scarlet.
“Take that down!”
“You wanted to sell the apples,” I said calmly. “I thought I’d help with the advertising.”
She lunged toward the sign.
I grabbed the opposite side.
“Give me back my harvest.”
“You’ve completely lost your mind.”
“Return what you took.”
Neighbors were gathering along the sidewalk now.
Monica noticed.
Her anger shifted into embarrassment.
Then her eyes landed on the enlarged photograph of herself and Daniel.
Something in her expression changed.
Not shame.
Pain.
She looked at me.
“You still don’t understand anything, do you?”
I tightened my grip on the sign.
“Then explain it.”
“Twenty-seven years,” she said bitterly. “You had him for twenty-seven years, and you never noticed what was right in front of you.”
My heart started pounding.
I looked at the photograph.
Then at Monica.
There was only one conclusion my grief-stricken mind could reach.
“Were you having an affair with my husband?”
Her face hardened instantly.
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then tell me how you knew about the red light.”
Monica’s jaw tightened.
Finally, she said:
“Because Daniel was on his way to meet me that night.”
Everything around us seemed to disappear.
“What?”
“We were dating.”
I stared at her.
“He was supposed to meet me that evening. He never arrived. Later, I learned he’d hit some woman in a crosswalk and taken her to the hospital.”
Some woman.
Me.
I suddenly understood.
Daniel hadn’t told Monica about our private joke.
She had known from the beginning.
“You were still together when we met?”
“Yes.”
“And after?”
“He ended things with me.”
Monica looked away.
I should have felt victorious.
I didn’t.
Because her explanation answered only one question.
It didn’t explain the obsession.
The years of watching us.
The stolen fruit.
The rage.
I stepped closer.
“So you weren’t his mistress. Fine. Then why did you move back here and spend nine years watching my husband raise his children? Why take everything from his garden after he died?”
Monica didn’t answer.
Her eyes flickered toward her front door.
It happened so quickly she probably thought I hadn’t noticed.
I followed her gaze.
The screen door opened.
And the young man with the toolbox stepped outside.
