Nisi
The surveyor had run a white string through the orchard, peg to peg, low enough to step over.
She stood on her side of it, her solicitor beside her. On the other side there were only trees.
The young man came up between the rows without hurrying, as though the grass already knew his weight. He carried a folded paper, soft at the creases.
‘From him,’ he said.
‘Family?’ asked the solicitor.
‘Near enough.’
The surveyor looked at the sky, then at his watch.
The young man did not unfold the paper.
‘The first time I saw you, you were lying in the stubble behind the mill, counting aloud between the lightning and the thunder. Your jumper was on inside out, every seam showing.
‘You reached seven, the sky answered, and you laughed at it as if it had lost a wager.
‘I made a bargain then: if you reached ten on the next flash, I would speak to you. If not, I would never forgive the sky.
‘You reached eleven.
‘Later, in the river, with the water at our knees, you said it into my collar, so the current heard it before I did.
‘For years I lay there like a stone, the whole river going over me. Nothing could move me.
‘Then I grew heavy in another way. I lost the path back to the mill. I counted the dry years. I called the drought by your name.
‘I know you have come to divide the trees. I would rather you did not.
‘So I am going to stop counting.’
The solicitor uncapped his pen and held it out.
‘Where is he?’ she asked.
‘Late,’ said the young man, and went back down between the rows.
Beyond the river, the sky split white.
The pegs were still in the ground. She asked that they stay a while. Before anyone could answer, she closed her eyes. Her lips moved.
One.