Page 2 of The Apple Cider Orchard

There was a pause on the line – the kind that meant her brother was choosing his next words carefully, which always unnerved her more than his usual bluntness.

‘You promised,’ he said.

Molly closed her eyes. ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she assured him.

‘Yet you haven’t done anything to make it happen.’

‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Busy isn’t a reason,’ Cole said gently. ‘It’s an excuse.’

She stood abruptly, crossing to the window. The sun was dipping now, gilding the city in gold. It was beautiful. It always was. And yet today, it failed to move her.

‘I’ll get to it,’ Molly said, sharper than she meant to. ‘I have a lot on right now.’

‘Like what?’ her brother asked. ‘You barely take weekends off anymore.’

She didn’t answer.

When the call ended, the silence pressed in. Molly returned to her desk, reached for her coffee, cold now, but she took a sip anyway. Her hand shook slightly.

Her boss, Bruno, appeared in the doorway not ten minutes later.

‘Harris,’ he said, tone carefully neutral. ‘Walk with me.’

They didn’t make it far; just to the quiet seating area by the windows, but she felt the shift immediately. This wasn’t praise. This was concern.

‘You’re one of the best we have, Molly,’ he said. ‘But you’re running on fumes.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, a reflex.

‘No vacation this year, no time off, nothing.’ Bruno shook his head. ‘You’re exhausted, pushing yourself to oblivion since your grandmother’s passing. And if I can see it, so can everyone else.’

She swallowed.

‘I’m mandating a sabbatical,’ he continued. ‘Holiday campaigns are all locked-in, so the pressure’s off. A month. Starting now.’

‘What?’ Her composure cracked. ‘I can’t—’

‘You can,’ he said firmly. ‘And you will.’

The city blurred beyond the glass. A whole month. No meetings. No seasonal campaigns. No carefully curated urgency.

Just … space. Time to think. But worse, to grieve.

When she finally left the office that evening, the lobby lights were dimmed and the security guard nodded sympathetically. Outside, the city breathed; warm pavements and food carts, laughter drifting from bars. Life happening regardless.

Molly stood on the sidewalk, laptop case in hand and for the first time in longer than she could remember, she had nowhere she needed to be.

Four weeks’ leave. The thought was both terrifying and, somewhere in a corner of her mind she rarely acknowledged, faintly appealing too. A month without deadlines, without the constant pressure to perform, to exceed. To … forget.

Across the street, a man was selling roasted chestnuts from a steel cart, the air threaded with smoke and sweetness. Somewhere nearby, a saxophone street-performer was playing slow, deliberate notes that echoed off the buildings.

Molly exhaled.

She hadn’t noticed autumn arriving. In her line of work, it appeared in spring in the form of advanced branding decks, pumpkin-spiced product tie-ins and color palettes approved months in advance. Fall, to her, was a concept. A campaign.

But this was the real thing. She bent and picked up a leaf, its surface dry and fragile, veins standing out like a map. She turned it between her fingers, vaguely embarrassed by the gesture, as if doing something indulgent.