Part 5 – The House in the Orchard
The girl still hadn’t spoken by the time they reached the orchard.
She sat quietly in the passenger seat, clutching a stuffed dog Alicia had picked up at a church rummage sale that morning. Reggie rode in back, ears pricked, eyes watchful, tail thumping only when Alicia glanced at him in the mirror.
They were following a whisper of a lead.
An old address scribbled on the back of the plastic insulin tag—so faded Alicia hadn’t noticed it at first. But under sunlight, and with a little coaxing from the corner of a dull butter knife, the ink had reappeared like a ghost:
314 Bartlett Road – Wheatland
The girl’s eyes had widened when Alicia read it aloud. That was all the confirmation she needed.
Bartlett Road wasn’t even on most GPS systems anymore.
Alicia had to rely on paper maps and muscle memory from her nursing days, weaving down gravel paths lined with broken fencing and skeletal peach trees that hadn’t seen water in years. The orchard looked like it had been abandoned during the last drought and never recovered. Dead limbs reached like brittle hands toward the cloudless sky.
And at the end of the long, weed-choked drive sat a crumbling farmhouse.
Its roof sagged like an exhale. The porch was half-collapsed. But there were signs of life—a curtain twitching in a window, a tire swing still hanging from an ancient oak, creaking faintly in the breeze.
The girl pressed her forehead to the window and didn’t blink.
Alicia parked and looked back at Reggie.
“You ready for whatever this is?”
He stood.
Always ready.
They approached the house slowly.
Reggie took the lead, nose twitching. Alicia kept one hand near her bag—just in case. The girl walked silently between them, holding Alicia’s fingers with one hand, the stuffed dog in the other.
Half the steps to the porch were gone, but Alicia found a way around, stepping lightly on the boards that looked least likely to give. She knocked gently.
Nothing.
She knocked again—louder.
Still nothing.
Just as she reached for the knob, a voice rasped from inside.
“Don’t come closer. I got a gun.”
Alicia froze.
“It’s okay,” she called. “I’m a nurse. We’re not here to cause trouble. There’s a little girl with me—”
The door creaked open.
And behind it stood a man in a wheelchair.
He looked about seventy. Gaunt, unshaven, one pant leg pinned up where his knee had once been. His T-shirt was stained. His eyes bloodshot. But what struck Alicia most was the way he looked at the girl.
Not confused.
Not startled.
But broken.
Like someone watching a memory materialize out of thin air.
He dropped the wrench he’d been holding.
“Daisy?” he whispered.
The girl didn’t speak. But she stepped forward.
Alicia placed a hand on her shoulder. “Is that your name, sweetheart?”
No answer.
But the man answered for her.
“Her name’s Daisy Mae Rucker. She’s my granddaughter.”
The story unraveled slowly.
The man’s name was Vernon Rucker. He’d lost his leg three years ago to an untreated infection, then lost his daughter—Daisy’s mother—to an overdose two summers back. Child Services had taken Daisy soon after. He was deemed unfit to care for her.
“She was placed with a family in Plumas Lake,” Vernon said, voice raw. “That’s what they told me. I called every week for a year. Then one day, the number was disconnected.”
He rubbed his temples, breathing hard. “I thought she was gone. I thought she hated me.”
Daisy was sitting at his feet now, her small hand resting lightly on the tread of his wheelchair.
“She didn’t hate you,” Alicia said quietly. “She’s diabetic. She’s been living rough. I think… she may have run away.”
Vernon shook his head slowly. “No. Not Daisy. She wouldn’t run.”
But Alicia had seen it before—too many times. Kids shuffled through homes like cards, one bad match away from disappearing between the cracks.
“She found Reggie,” Alicia said. “And he found us.”
At the mention of the dog, Vernon looked over.
Reggie sat beside the porch steps, tail low, waiting.
“You got a hell of a good dog,” Vernon murmured.
Alicia smiled faintly. “He’s got a habit of showing up where he’s needed.”
Inside the farmhouse, everything smelled of dust and memory.
Stacks of unopened mail. A half-eaten can of beans on the stove. A bedroom filled with children’s drawings—faded, curled at the corners. Alicia saw one taped to the fridge: a little girl holding hands with a man in a wheelchair, and a dog with one blue eye.
Reggie.
Drawn long before they ever met.
Alicia’s chest tightened.
That night, she set up her cot in the corner of the living room, just in case Vernon needed medical help. She ran vitals, checked his wound sites, helped him change the bandages on his stump. He hadn’t seen a doctor in over a year. He had no insurance. No transportation.
And no one had checked on him.
Until now.
Daisy never left his side.
Reggie lay curled beside the fireplace, half-asleep, but his ears never stopped moving.
As Alicia rinsed her hands in the cracked kitchen sink, she looked out at the orchard. Moonlight shimmered over rows of dead trees.
But in the center, near the old irrigation line, one tree still bore fruit.
One peach, golden and soft, glowed in the dark.
The next morning, Daisy finally spoke.
Alicia had just finished pouring powdered milk into a plastic cup when the girl tugged her sleeve and whispered, “He never stopped drawing me pictures. Even after I was gone.”
Alicia crouched to her level. “He loves you very much.”
Daisy looked at Reggie. “And Reggie never left me. Even when I didn’t talk.”
She touched the stuffed dog she carried—Reggie’s twin in shape only—and added softly:
“Some dogs don’t need words.”