Part 5 of The Memory Orchard : The Path Between Then and Now | Desire Lines
DL - Morning in the orchard was unlike anywhere else.
It didn’t rise, it unfolded.
Like the orchard stretched slowly from a long dream, brushing sleep from the edges of its leaves.
Liora walked the winding trail beyond the silver trees.
Today, she didn’t follow a memory.
She followed the sound of humming.
Low, steady, like someone remembering a song while planting something new.
She found Noah near the edge of a small clearing, sleeves rolled, dirt on his hands, planting saplings into soft earth.
They were too small to name yet.
But not too small to matter.
“You’re planting new ones?” she asked, surprised.
He didn’t look up at first. Just pressed a root into place.
“Some memories are ready to become something else.”
Liora knelt beside him, brushing her fingers through the soil.
It was warm.
Alive.
They worked in silence for a while, not needing to speak.
And then she said, “What if I don’t want to forget anymore?”
Noah paused. Looked at her, truly looked.
“You don’t have to forget,” he said.
“You just don’t have to live inside it forever.”
Liora sat back. Let the wind pull her hair gently toward the trees.
She closed her eyes.
The orchard hummed louder now.
Not in sorrow.
Not even in memory.
But in something else.
Hope.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him.
“I think I want to stay a little longer.”
Noah smiled back.
“There’s always room here for what you’re not ready to let go.”
And together, beneath trees old and new,
they planted not just memories,
but mornings.