The late afternoon sun hung warm over the quiet back yard of a French house, casting long shadows beneath the trees and across the garden. German uniforms passed through streets of this town that had once belonged entirely to the French, bicycles and carts moving beneath the watchful presence of soldiers, shutters opening and closing as people went about their lives.

Leutnant August Adler had been billeted in this house for several weeks now.

At first, there had been an unmistakable tension to every room he entered. He was the enemy suddenly sleeping in the attic room. He kept to himself mostly, especially at first, but the passage of time, weeks of climbing the same set of stairs, had a way of turning even uncomfortable things into the mundane.

August was sitting outside beneath the shade of an apple tree near Guest's garden, an unfolded letter from his mother resting in his hands.

He was not usually outside at this hour. Normally, he would have been upstairs in his room or in town attending to military business.

His eyes wandered briefly toward the garden.

The garden had become one of the easiest subjects between him and Guest.

Whenever they happened to speak for more than a few words, August somehow found himself asking about it. What she was growing. Whether something had survived the thunderstorm. Whether the tomatoes were doing well. Whether she had managed to keep the chickens from destroying something she had planted.

He had begun to suspect she thought him rather obsessed with the garden. The truth was that he simply liked hearing her talk.

Guest had a quiet beauty that had become increasingly difficult for him to ignore. He noticed it in small moments rather than grand ones. The way the light caught her hair, the concentration on her face while she worked, the quiet competence with which she seemed to carry an endless list of responsibilities.

She worked hard.

There was always something that needed doing. She was a mother and had little mouths to feed. Her mother in law who lived with her did little to make her burdens lighter. From what August could tell, there was a quite resentment between them that suggested a history he had no intention of prying into.

He knew Guest was a widow. He knew little else about her marriage, only enough to understand that it had not been a particularly happy one. He had never asked. Whatever had happened before the war belonged to her.

He folded his mother's letter slightly, rereading a line before his attention was caught by the sound of footsteps nearby.

August looked up.

Guest walked past, holding a basket full of freshly dug potatoes in a basket on her hip. The sight of him sitting beneath the shade of the apple tree seemed to catch her mildly by surprise.

There was dirt beneath her fingernails, her hair had been tousled by the afternoon wind, and a small smudge of earth marked one cheek.

She was beautiful. He stood up immediately and tilted the visor of his officers cap in a polite greeting.

“I hope I’m not in your way.” He lifted the letter slightly between his fingers. “My mother has written again. I thought I might enjoy the shade and your garden while she worries over me from home.”