“Wexford?”
“Named after the county, looks like. Commercial listings go back to at least 1898.”
“Is it rare?”
Another pause.
“As far as the state records show, there isn’t another documented mature tree of it in three counties.”
Sadie said nothing.
Hank continued.
“There may be one somewhere in somebody’s backyard nobody has recorded. So I’m not going to tell you it’s the last tree on Earth.”
“Okay.”
“But what you have is important.”
“How important?”
“You may have kept a local variety from disappearing entirely.”
Sadie looked through the kitchen window toward the barn.
The sentence felt too large.
Too formal.
Too much for four little trees behind a weathered building.
Hank said:
“You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“You did good.”
Sadie looked down at her boots.
“Okay.”
That was all she could think to say.
The old tree fruited heavily that summer.
Perhaps because Sadie had cleared competing vines from around it.
Perhaps because the weather cooperated.
Perhaps because it had simply decided to give them one more good year.
By late August, the fruits had turned yellow.
Their smell filled the kitchen when Sadie brought them inside.
Raw quince was hard.
Sour.
Almost impossible to enjoy straight from the tree.
Cooking changed it.
Sadie found old recipes through a historical society two towns over.
Quince jelly.
Quince butter.
Quince paste.
Walter recognized one of the recipes immediately.
“Your grandmother made something like this.”
“You remember?”
“I remember the smell.”
They worked the fruit together.
Peeling.
Cutting.
Simmering.
The pale flesh slowly changed color as it cooked.
Pink first.
Then deeper.
The jelly became amber.
Walter tasted the first spoonful.
He stood quiet.
Sadie waited.
“Well?”
He swallowed.
“Haven’t tasted that since I was a boy.”
That mattered to her more than Hank’s lab report.
“What’s it like?”
Walter tasted again.
“Like I remember.”
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he turned away toward the stove.
Sadie pretended not to notice him wiping his eyes.
They made forty-one small jars.
Walter suggested the county fair.
Sadie said no immediately.
“Why?”
“People will think it’s weird.”
“People already think you’re weird.”
“Thanks.”
“Figured we settled that.”
She looked at the jars.
“What if nobody buys it?”
Walter shrugged.
“Then we eat jelly until Christmas.”
That was difficult to argue with.
So the Callahans took a table.
The Wexford County Fair opened on a Saturday morning under a bright September sky.
Sadie arranged the jars in three rows.
Beside them she placed a small card.
WEXFORD GOLD QUINCE
GROWN FROM A SURVIVING CALLAHAN ORCHARD TREE
REGIONAL VARIETY DATING TO THE 1800s
Walter read it.
“You write that?”
“Hank helped.”
“Sounds official.”
“Supposed to.”
At first, people only looked.
“What’s a kweence?”
“Quince.”
“What’s it taste like?”
“Try it.”
Sadie had a sample jar.
A woman tasted some on a cracker.
Then bought two jars.
A man from the livestock barn bought one.
Then came Ruth Ann Corwin, who kept bees near the county line.
She tasted it slowly.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Oh.”
Sadie waited.
“I remember this.”
“You do?”
“My mother made quince jelly.”
Ruth took another cracker.
“Not this exact one maybe. But close.”
She bought three.
Then she began telling people.
That helped.
By ten-thirty, half the jars were gone.
By eleven, there was a line.
By noon, Sadie had one jar left.
That was when Dale and Roy Hargrove appeared.
Sadie saw them before they reached the table.
Dale looked at the sign.
Then at her.
Then at the jars.
“You made this?”
Sadie nodded.
“From that dead old tree?”
“It wasn’t dead.”
Roy looked away.
Dale picked up the final jar.
He turned it over.
Read the label.
Then read it again.
“How much?”
“Four dollars.”
He handed her a five.
“Keep it.”
Sadie stared at him.
“You want the jar?”
Dale looked almost offended.
“Wouldn’t pay five dollars not to.”
Roy laughed once.
Not at Sadie.
At Dale.
Then Roy noticed the sample jar.
“Got any left to taste?”
“No.”
“Dale?”
Dale tightened his grip around the jar.
“No.”
That was as close to justice as Sadie needed.
She smiled.
The table was empty by twelve-oh-seven.
Forty-one jars.
Gone.
Dale walked away carrying the last one.
Roy followed him.
Neither looked back.
Walter sat behind the table with his arms crossed.
He said nothing for a while.
Then:
“You realize we’ve got a problem.”
Sadie turned.
“What?”
“No jelly left.”
She laughed.
“Terrible.”
“Could’ve eaten that all winter.”
More people came after the jars were gone.