litlinks 2025

A Widow’s Orchard

by Charly Ayres, Hawker College

The trees were burdened by Autumn.

The orchard, once planted in straight and reverent rows by her husband’s careful hand, now curved like old bones under the weight of fruit not picked. Apples had fallen and bruised where they landed, turning soft in the dirt. Crows picked at them indifferently, slick-eyed and bold.

Margaret stepped over them as she walked the familiar path to the shed, her skirt brushing the damp grass. She carried a bundle of papers beneath one arm; a soft-edged stack of faded pages that had long ago lost their ink’s brilliance. Her husband had called them his field notes; poems scribbled in the orchard, between pruning and dreaming.

She called them kindling.

Inside the shed, the stove crackled gently, a domestic heart beating against the cold. She stooped, opened the door, and fed the fire another poem. The edges curled before the centre caught, ink rising as smoke.

The orchard was her task now. She had never asked for it, but she tended it because things die faster when neglected. He had always loved it for what it symbolised. She, on the other hand, loved it only for what it yielded: apples enough to stew, bark enough to burn.

She remembered the first time he planted a tree, hands soft, unused to tools. He’d declared the land sacred, kissed her soil-streaked fingers like they were relics. She’d laughed then. He’d written a poem about it later, but left out the part where she finished digging alone.

A knock echoed from the front of the house, startling her.

She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped out. At the gate stood a young man, hair unbrushed, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder. He smiled when he saw her and removed his cap.

“Mrs. Whitcombe?”

She nodded, wary but polite.

“I hope I’m not intruding. I… I’ve come from Bath. I read your husband’s work. I’m something of an admirer. I wondered if you might spare a moment.”

She regarded him for a beat too long. Then, softly, “Come in. The kettle’s on.”

Inside, the cottage wore its years honestly: wooden floors worn smooth, wallpaper faded to an indistinct blush. He sat at her small table, fidgeting politely while she poured the tea. The china didn’t match; the cups chipped. Her husband had called it charm. She called it enough.

“I read Ode to the Hollow Tree,” the young man began, eyes wide, “and The Orchard Divine. The way he writes of nature, as if it breathes with us. It was… revelatory.”

She nodded and passed him his cup.

“Forgive me,” he continued, colouring slightly, “I know I must sound naïve. But your husband’s writing — it made me believe there’s still purity in the world. Beauty, even in grief. It gave me hope.”

She stirred her tea without drinking. “Did you know him?”

“No, ma’am. He passed before I’d ever read a word. But I’ve made a study of his work. I suppose…” He hesitated. “I wanted to ask… Are there unpublished poems? A manuscript? Something that the world hasn’t yet seen?”

Her gaze moved to the hearth.

“No,” she said simply. “Nothing left worth binding.”

He looked disappointed, but tried not to show it.

“It must’ve been incredible,” he said, “to live surrounded by beauty. To be part of something eternal.”

She didn’t answer. There were words for it, yes. Just not the ones he wanted.

“He saw nature so clearly,” he offered again, “as if it were a mirror to the soul.”

She smiled, gently, distantly. “Yes,” she said. “He looked for reflections. But he never saw the soil beneath.”

He tilted his head, confused.

“He would come out in the mornings,” she said, voice low, “with his journal and his pipe. Sit beneath the third apple tree and write about the wind through the leaves, the song of the sparrow, the ‘sacred ache of beauty’.” She quoted the phrase with a faint shrug. “And I would be inside, boiling water to wash the nappies, scraping the mould from last winter’s preserves, burying the cat.”

He flushed. “I suppose… he was a man of vision.”

She looked at him then; not cruelly, but clearly. “He was a man of escape.”

Silence unfolded between them. The fire crackled. Outside, wind shivered through the leaves, rustling a language only the orchard seemed to understand.

Margaret stood, reaching for a shallow basket. “Walk with me,” she said.

They stepped outside. The light was fading now, bruising toward dusk. She led him through the orchard, careful where she placed her boots. He followed wordlessly, eyes darting over the trees as if expecting revelation.

“They look different up close,” he murmured.

“They always do.”

She knelt beneath a tree and picked up an apple, its skin split and weeping. “Beauty has its costs,” she said. “You keep trees too long without pruning, they fruit themselves to death.”

He looked at her, as if seeing her properly for the first time.

“My husband believed the orchard would grow wild and free, and still feed us. He said nature was wiser than man. But he never asked who would harvest it. Who would boil the rot into cider. Who would clean the worms from the cores.”

She placed the apple in the basket and straightened.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly.

She shook her head. “No need. He gave the world words. I gave our children supper.”

They walked back in silence.

At the threshold, he paused. “Would you mind… if I wrote about this? About today? You?”

She looked at him: young, idealistic, trying to honour what he could not understand.

“Write what you like,” she said. “But don’t mistake this for a fable. There’s no redemption here. Just frost and firewood.”

Inside, as he left, she knelt by the hearth. The last of the pages sat on the floor beside her — a poem he’d written in spring, titled When the Blossoms Speak.

She fed the pages into the flames, watching the words blister and darken. Not in anger, not regret, only release.

He had written the orchard into legend. She had kept it alive.

Now, it could rest.

Outside, a crow called.

And the orchard, indifferent, dropped another apple.