Melissa walked between rows of strawberries covered in netting, then followed an alley of staked bean plants sending tendrils curling into the air around them, seeking support. The bean alley led to a squash plantation where thickets of shepherd’s purse and yellow spears of mullein – hardy weeds that the mulch hadn’t prevented from thriving – jutted among broad leaves. Daphne wasn’t there. Melissa peered back toward the farmhouse, but saw no one.
She had known Beck for a decade before they became lovers. He was at her high school in Lanark and then he wasn’t; he popped in and out of the parochial community, a mysterious, sexy semi-stranger. His parents owned an uninsulated summer cabin about a kilometre toward town. Beck sometimes brought a battered guitar to school, and he was a pretty
