Bea

She was already there when the first guests arrived. No one saw her come in.

Bea wanders the New England woods looking for a husband lost in the war. She uses the word missing, present tense, deliberately. No one has pushed on this. She makes excellent jam. She plays the violin. There is some disagreement about that second part.

She wears a man's cable-knit sweater with elbow patches that smells of cedar. She calls it her missing husband's. The apple jam label on her pantry shelves is dated in a careful hand. The orchard she keeps produces a variety called Sunset Cedar — nobody outside the valley has heard of it, and she has never explained where the trees came from.

The orchard-cozy world with one cold draft running through it.

She watches the wisteria. She does not speak. She is sincere. She never explains the unsettling parts.