Every spring, the orchard would bloom.

The petals would fall like soft snow, dressing the ground in pale pink and ivory, and the wind would hum lullabies through the branches. Children once played there, their laughter carried like a birdsong across the hills. But now, it belonged only to her.

Evelyn visited each morning, a wicker basket in hand, gathering apples from the same trees she had planted with her husband many years ago. She would hum as she walked always the same melody, slow and sweet the one he had written in a napkin the day they met.

She spoke to the trees as though they listened, recounting small stories, forgotten birthdays, dreams she had the night before. And every afternoon, she would sit beneath the old pear tree at the orchards centre, lay out a faded checkered cloth, and pour two cups of tea.

One for her,

One for him.

The townsfolk called it romantic. They said Evelyn had kept love alive where time could not. And how lucky she was, to have such devotion rooted in her bones. But they didn’t ask why she never left the orchard, or why she always returned before the sun torched the hills.

They didn’t know about the cellar beneath the pear tree, or the earth she had turned with trembling hands that first autumn.

No, they only saw the blossoms.