Cliff and I started working right after breakfast, at about a quarter to six, and started up right where we left off: pulling weeds and breaking up the rocks. By ten o'clock, both of us were shirtless; I sent Cliff into town to buy some more turnip and potato seeds. At about twelve-thirty, the redheaded woman showed up with a picnic basket, waving. Cliff waved back and tossed down the hoe.

"Ann?" I asked. He just grinned at me.

She skipped up to us with more enthusiasm than I think I've ever been able to muster. After looking at us half-naked men for a few moments, she held out the basket. "I brought food!" she announced.

We all moved up to the porch to sit under some shade while we ate the sandwiches and rice balls that Ann had brought. She listened to Cliff talk about my plans for the farm, before finally interrupting. "Do you want a horse, Jack?"

The question came completely out of the blue, and caught me by surprise. "A horse?" I asked, my mind bringing up images of all the things a horse could help me do on the farm. "I can't afford to buy one."

Ann popped the last piece of a rice ball into her mouth. "You wouldn't need to pay for it," she told me. "We have a colt that was born a couple of seasons ago, but we don't have any room for it on the ranch anymore. Dad wanted me to offer it to you."

I shrugged. "Sure," I answered around a mouthful of food. A glance at my watch told me that it was almost one-thirty. "Come on, Cliff. I'll help weed, and we'll get those potato and turnip seeds planted before we quit at four."

Cliff's love interest sat on the porch watching us work for a while, but eventually offered to lend a hand. Between the three of us, we managed to plant and water the handful of bags of potato and turnip seeds that Cliff had bought earlier in the morning; we finished with the days chores at just after four o'clock. We hurried to put the tools away, and I rushed through my shower so that I could be at the dock when the ferry arrived at four forty-five with my father and daughter.

When I started heading down to the beach, I was a little early. The ferry was still a barely recognizable dot on the horizon. I started looking around while I waited and smoked, and noticed a young woman sitting with her back up against the cliff at the rear of the beach. After thinking for a moment, I recognized her as one of the women who had greeted Cliff when we had arrived the day before.

Her brunette hair was long enough that it fell to just below her shoulders, but the hair framing her face was a shocking white color. She was wearing blue jeans and sneakers and, although she was hugging her knees to her chest, I could see that she was wearing a white blouse underneath her purple vest. From where I was standing, she looked rather sad. As I watched her in silence for a handful of minutes, I lit myself a cigarette.

I noticed the ferry pulling up to the dock, and headed over towards it, passing the brunette woman. "Who are you?" she demanded, her rich voice laced with emotions. "I don't recognize you."

"I'm Jack, I'm—"

"So you're the guy taking over the farm," she cut me off sharply. "Well, you won't be here long. No one ever is."

"I-"

She got up abruptly as the ferry pulled up to the dock and began walking towards the other end of the beach. "Leave me alone. Don't talk to me so much."

Left standing there with a confused frown, I couldn't help but chuckle. This woman, it seemed, was in about as good of a mood as I usually was. I found myself wondering what was wrong with her when my attention was pulled away by a clomping sound. I finished my cigarette and put it out before I turned around.

"Daddy!" Kairi shrieked as she ran/stomped down the length of the dock. As I swept my daughter up in my arms, I could see the woman at the other end of the beach turn around to look at us.

I planted a kiss on my dark-haired daughter's head. "Hello, baby," I said, holding her close. Ever since my wife, Erin, had died I could hardly stand to be without Kairi. That feeling had been almost as strong as my grief ever since I had heard about Grandpa's death and left home.

A high pitched bark pulled my attention away from my daughter to the animal on the leash that my father was holding. There was my floppy eared pet and companion: my dog Spatz, with his tongue hanging out. Spatz held a special place in my heart, having been bought and named by my late wife when she gave him to me as a birthday gift.

My father was a lawyer in his late forties, and considerably shorter than I was. His brown hair was thinning, and he peered at everything through a pair of thick black glasses. He wore his typical business suit: a drab brown colored blazer and slacks. Behind him, a couple of sailors from the ferry were carrying boxes and suitcases.

"How long are you here for?" I asked my father.

"Just long enough to take a quick look at the farm, and visit Dad's grave," he answered. "The ferry is going to wait for me, and take me home when I'm done."

I hiked Kairi up onto my shoulders and led the way back to the farm. Dad paid close attention to the amount of work that had been accomplished, and to the general look and layout of the land. When he was finished looking around, he handed me a bag full of coins, saying that it was the sum of my final paycheck. With that he shook my hand, telling me that he was going to visit Grandpa and leave, and that he would be back in two years.

I took Kairi into the house and introduced her to Cliff, and started to bring in the handful of boxes and two suitcases. By this time it was almost eight o'clock, so I unpacked Kairi's stuff and made up her bed in the third bedroom so that she could go to sleep. She fell asleep at the end of a short bedtime story, and I started unpacking everything else. While I was pawing through the boxes of stuff that my father had packed up for me, I was surprised to find that he had bought two cartons of cigarettes for me that he had then packed in with the rest of my belongings.

Cliff offered to lend a hand, and started standing framed photos up on the fireplace's mantle while I started hanging some pictures on the wall. "Who's the woman standing next to you in these pictures?" he asked, standing back to look at the row of photos he had put up.

"My wife," I answered, not pausing in what I was doing. I picked up that last picture frame from inside the box in front of me and noticed a small photo that had been stuck on the back of the frame. Looking up at me from the photo was a couple of kids.

That is essentially what we were when we started dating, Erin and I: kids. I stared in silence at the photo, drinking in the details of her dark brown hair and blue eyes that seemed to shine with an inner light. The picture had been taken in a photo booth, and I found myself remembering when we had taken it. We had been on our first real date, and for a split second, I could feel her arms around my neck just like they had been in the photo. I tucked the picture into the breast pocket of my shirt, and turned my attention back to hanging the framed photo I had pulled out of the box.

Cliff started to sound embarrassed. "If I'd known you were going to have a wife and a kid moving in here with you, I wouldn't have asked to stay here."

Now I stopped hanging pictures. "The wife isn't coming."

I could feel him looking at me intently, but I didn't meet his eyes as I moved over to start piling books on the bookshelf. "Divorced?" he asked.

"No."

For a couple of minutes, the house was so quiet that I could have heard a dust bunny hit the floor. "I'm sorry," Cliff ventured eventually. "I sort of know how it feels, since my parents and sister died, so if you want to talk sometime just let me know."

"What happened?" I asked quickly, glad to get the subject changed to something other than Erin.

"It happened about ten years ago, so about the time I turned seventeen. A typhoon had hit Mineral Town, and I went out in it to try to get some firewood out of the shed. While I was outside a lightning bolt hit the house, and it lit up like dry cedar shavings," he explained. "I tried to get in, but it was too hot. So, I ran to get help. By the time I could get anyone out of their house to help me, our house had nearly burnt to the ground."

"I'm sorry," I told him quietly. I looked up to see him staring at me expectantly. "I married Erin five years ago, just after the two of us turned twenty-one. A year after we got married, she found out she was pregnant. Nine months after that, she died in the delivery room."

We were both quiet for another couple of minutes. "Well," Cliff spoke up, "you're only what . . . 26? I know you've probably heard it before, but you'll find someone else."

"It'll just take time," we finished together. I laughed sardonically. All of a sudden, I felt like I really needed a drink. "You're right. I've heard it too often to count. Grandpa was still saying it just six months ago when he was telling me that there was a woman here I'd get along with."

That's the point at which someone knocked on the door, startling both of us. "That should be Ann," Cliff told me. "I forgot to warn you: we were going to do some stargazing here on the farm tonight."

"If you're going to stay here, do you think you can keep an eye on Kairi?" I asked. "I'm going to hit the bar."

Cliff nodded as he pulled the door open to reveal an impatient Ann. "Sure. Do you know where it's at?"

I thought for a moment. "No."

Ann had come into the middle of the conversation, but it seemed as though she heard enough through the door to be able to help. "I can show you there then come back here to hang out with Cliff," she offered. "Just let me warm up my hands."

I grabbed my jacket off of the back of a chair and stepped towards the door. "Go ahead. Just come on outside when you're ready."

As soon as my feet hit the new gravel in the walkway, I was pulling a pack of cigarettes out of one of my pockets and lighting one. By the time Ann came through the door, I was stubbing that cigarette out on the lid of the trashcan next to the mailbox and throwing the butt in the garbage. She gave me a disapproving frown, so I frowned back at her; this caused her to laugh. "You know, you would probably get along pretty well with a friend of mine."

"I'm just looking forward to getting along with a glass of whiskey," I returned, lighting up another smoke and following her down the path to town.

We walked in silence until we reached the edges of Flowerbud Village. "You have a very pretty little girl," Ann quietly complimented me.

"Thanks."

"I hope one day I can have a kid too," she continued. "Where's her mother?" I didn't say anything; instead, I focused on my cigarette. Ann was obviously confused about my reaction, but thankfully didn't push the subject.

We stopped in front of a building with a sign that said "Duke's Bar." Ann waved at the door. "Here you go. I'm gonna head back to Cliff. Can you make it back on your own?"

I waved my hand at her. "Yeah." As soon as she left, I threw my cigarette butt on the ground and put it out with my heel. Taking a deep breath, I pushed the double doors open.

The bar was nearly empty. At one table, there was a giant man staring into a glass of wine; at another table I could see Hal from Greene Ranch sitting with his son, Gray, and at a third table I could see Harris—the mailman/constable—sitting with a young, dark skinned man wearing a purple bandana. I opted to sit at one of the empty tables, and dropped into a chair.

"What do you want?"

I recognized the voice, and looked up to see the young woman I had met earlier on the beach. "Fix me up with a glass of whiskey," I told her.

"That'll be six hundred gold," she warned me, her tone only slightly warmer than ice.

"I want one anyways." She turned to leave, and I found myself watching her as she walked away. This young woman was definitely one of the more attractive women I had seen in a while, and I found myself wondering what had happened to make her so cold and harsh.

She came back and set the glass down in front of me, and must have seen me watching her. "Are you stalking me now?" she demanded, holding out her hand for the money I now owed her.

I frowned up at her. "Stalking you? I don't even know your name." I dropped three gold coins in her hand and turned my attention to my drink. Without even thinking, I fished the picture of myself and my wife out of my pocket and dropped it down on the table in front of me. After staring at the photo for a moment, I downed the entire glass in one swallow.

"How much is a bottle?" I demanded.

"One thousand gold," she answered cautiously, her eyes fixed on the photo I had been looking at.

Nineteen hundred gold in coins found themselves clattering on the table. "I'll take a bottle and another glass," I ordered.

"You gave me three hundred extra-"

I threw a glare at her that said, "I know how much I gave you." For the first time, she flashed me a small smile that lit up her green eyes as she pocketed the tip and hurried away to get my drinks.

A half full glass of beer plopped down in front of me, and I looked up to see Harris sitting down across the table. "It's been a while since we've seen you," he commented in his deep voice. "Welcome back, John."

"It's Jack now."

Harris took a long drink of his beer before nodding. "Okay, Jack it is. How long has it been since I've seen you? I think the last time I got to talk to you was about three and a half, four years back wasn't it? At your wife's fu—"

"Yeah." I had to cut him off. Erin's funeral has always been a sore topic for me.

Harris focused on his beer during the awkward silence, but the young man with the bandana came over and sat down next to him. "My name's Kai," he introduced himself. The bags under his eyes and stress lines in his skin caught my attention, warning me that even at this young age Kai drank far more than was healthy. His voice cracked. "I work at the vineyard for Master Gotz over there." He jerked his thumb towards the big man sitting in the corner and offered his hand to shake.

I ignored him and focused on the waitress, who was heading back in my direction, but the mailman/town constable spoke up for me. "This is Jack. He's the guy taking over the farm."

Kai nodded knowingly. "Ah, so you're the old man's grandson. It was a loss for everyone when he died." The waitress started setting the full glass and the bottle in front of me. "You know, drunkenness is sort of frowned upon around here."

I shot him a withering glare. "I don't need a lecture on this town's policies from you," I snapped, swallowing half of the glass of whiskey. I knew from talking to Grandpa that this Kai fellow was at least two years younger than me. "I was visiting this town before you were even born. Anyways, I'm not here to get drunk. If I was, I would have ordered the bottle first." I downed the rest of the glass of alcohol and stood up abruptly, grabbing the full bottle and my jacket off of the chair next to where I had been sitting. "Harris," I nodded my head at the man to say a goodbye. Out of everyone in the town, Harris and the Mayor were the only ones who knew me. When I had visited Grandpa, I had staid pretty reclusive on the farm, and those two men were the only ones who made a habit of visiting my grandfather on a nearly daily basis. Then, when Erin had died and Grandpa was forced to come to the city to attend the funeral, Harris and the Mayor both went along with him to make sure he would be okay.

As I started through the double doors I could hear the bartender's deep voice behind me. "You might as well head home, now. It's a slow night, and I can handle the rest of it myself."

Walking between buildings on my way back to the path to the farm, I lit up another cigarette. "Wait up," I heard the waitress from the bar call out from behind me. "You left this at your table," she told me, holding the photo out to me.

She wisely didn't comment on my wife, though she was obviously curious after seeing the picture. "Can I bum one of those off of you?" she asked, waving at my cigarette.

I handed one to her and lit a match; I couldn't help but see her shiver in the night air under her vest. "Here," I told her, pulling off my jacket. "Wear it."

She pulled it over her shoulders and gave me another small smile before blowing a cloud of smoke. "Thank you. I live at the vineyard, so do you mind if I walk that far with you?"

I shrugged, and we started walking.

"I'm sorry," she said as we neared the edge of town. "For how rude I was earlier. You were just trying to be nice. I had just gotten in a fight with my father," she explained.

"No problem."

She giggled, a sound that seemed out of place considering the omnipresent bad attitude she seemed to have. "You're not very talkative right now, are you? You remind me of me." She was quiet for another few moments as we walked. "By the way, was that your daughter earlier?"

"Yeah."

"In the picture, was that her—"

"Don't ask," I cut her off. While part of me wanted to explain my harsh words to this woman, the other part of me raged against the need to talk about Erin. The latter won.

We eventually came up on the spot where the path split to head either to the vineyard, or my farm and Green Ranch. "You can get the jacket back to me tomorrow or something," I told the young brunette woman. "Don't sweat it." I turned to head down to my farm.

"It's Karen." Once again, her voice called me to a halt.

"What?"

She smiled at me and hugged the jacket closed. "My name is Karen. It was nice to meet you, Jack."