August came in at the height of the summer's work. The garden stood heavy and complete, the tomatoes coming in in their full flow, the rose in its third flush, and the oak — the oak had done what young trees do: it had grown a foot in a season, and stood at the edge of the yard with its whole summer in its branches, holding its first season the way it had been asked to, and then some. Aaron stood over it with his coffee in the long mornings and thought about the fall that was coming, and the fire that was coming with it, and the way everything at the lake had learned to arrive on time.
The first jars went up that week, the kitchen working its hot pattern, the shelf in the pantry filling the way it had filled the autumn before — and Aaron stood in the pantry door looking at it, the jars holding the summer in rows, and he thought about the shelf of jars the year before, when there had been one row, and how it had been enough, and how the house had learned to keep more.
