The Orange Tree's Last Summer

Eleanor sat on the screened porch, watching the morning light play across the water. The pool—her husband Arthur's pride and joy—had grown quiet in the fifteen years since his passing. At eighty-five, she no longer swam laps, but she still came here each morning, wrapped in his old cardigan.

Her fingers worked at an orange from the tree Arthur had planted beside the pool deck their first summer in this house. "Something sweet for our sweet life," he'd said, digging the hole with their toddler son watching. The tree had outlasted them both.

A scratching sound at the screen door made her jump. A small dog—some sort of terrier mix—stood on the other side, tail wagging hopefully. Eleanor hadn't owned a dog since childhood, but there was something about this one's gentle eyes.

"Well now," she said, opening the door. "And where did you come from?"

The dog padded in, circled three times near her favorite chair, and curled up with a sigh. A faded tag hung from its collar: "Buster."

Buster, as it turned out, had a peculiar fondness for oranges. Eleanor learned this when she peeled her morning fruit the next day, and a wet nose nudged her knee. She shared a section, then another, and soon they'd established a routine: breakfast together on the porch, watching the pool's surface catch the morning sun.

Her daughter Margaret came by that weekend. "Mother, whose dog is this? You can't just—"

"He's company, Margaret. Your father always said a house needs laughter."

Buster sat at Eleanor's feet, thumping his tail against the floorboards. Margaret's expression softened.

"Arthur did say that, didn't he?"

Three weeks later, Buster's owner appeared—a young woman moving into the neighborhood. But by then, Eleanor had made her decision.

"You know," Eleanor told her daughter over tea that afternoon, "I was thinking about what your father said when we planted this tree. About sweetness." She placed a hand on Buster's head, and the dog leaned into her touch. "Some sweetness plants itself."

Margaret smiled. "He would have loved this, you know. A dog who eats oranges."

"Exactly," Eleanor said, peeling another fruit. "Exactly."