Beneath the Orange Tree

Eleanor sat in her wicker chair, the old orange tree casting dappled shadows across her weathered hands. Barnaby — the family's ancient tabby cat — purred loudly in her lap, his rumble like a small engine content to idle forever.

She remembered running through these very groves as a girl, bare feet flying over sun-warmed earth, her brother William chasing her with stolen oranges tucked in his shirt. Fifty years had dissolved like sugar in tea since those afternoons. William was gone now, but the tree remained.

"Grandma?" Sarah's voice drifted from the patio. Her sixteen-year-old granddaughter sat cross-legged in the sun, fingers dancing across her iPhone like she was conducting an invisible orchestra. Eleanor couldn't understand half the things the girl did on that glowing rectangle — called it her "zombie mode," how Sarah could stare at it for hours, entranced.

But then, hadn't Eleanor's own mother clucked disapprovingly at the television? At the telephone? At every new thing that threatened to steal away the young?

Sarah looked up, catching Eleanor's gentle smile. The girl tucked the phone into her pocket and wandered over, settling on the grass beside the chair.

"What were you thinking about?" Sarah asked.

Eleanor reached toward the lowest branch, plucking a small orange. She peeled it slowly, the citrus scent rising like prayer incense. "About how your great-uncle William and I used to race through this orchard. How we thought we'd run forever."

She pressed a segment into Sarah's palm. "Time has a way of catching up to us, my love. But it also leaves behind these —" she gestured to the tree, the cat, the sunlight "— these beautiful things that outlast us all."

Sarah ate the orange, thoughtfully. "Is that why you never seem sad about getting old?"

Eleanor laughed softly, Barnaby stirring at the vibration. "Oh, I have my moments. But then I remember: I'm not disappearing. I'm becoming part of everything I've loved." She nodded toward the tree's gnarled trunk. "Someday, you'll sit in this chair. You'll tell someone about me. And that's how a heart truly beats forever."