I set my basket of Early Girl tomatoes on the wooden table and smoothed my apron. It was a Tuesday, the kind of humid, heavy July morning where the air feels like a wet blanket. I had been running this stand at the end of my lane since 1984, back when the road was still gravel and my late husband, Arthur, was still walking beside me to help pull the weeds.

A woman walked up the drive. She was probably in her late thirties, wearing a plain blue sundress and sandals that looked like they had seen better days. She didn’t look like a regular. Most of the people who stopped were just neighbors looking for something to put on a sandwich.

“Those tomatoes look perfect,” she said.

Her voice was soft, maybe a little shy. I told her the price and she picked out five. It was a lot for one person, but I didn’t think much of it. People get funny cravings in the summer. She paid with a crumpled ten-dollar bill and asked if I had lived here a long time. I told her since the seventies. She nodded, smiled, and walked back to her car.

She came back on Thursday. Then again on Saturday. Each time, she bought more tomatoes than anyone could reasonably eat, and each time, she stayed a little longer to talk. She asked about my childhood. She asked where I was born and what the summers were like back in the sixties.

It felt like she was fishing for something. I didn’t mind, honestly. My house has been quiet since Arthur passed away four years ago. The silence in the kitchen can get pretty loud sometimes. I figured she was just lonely, or maybe she was new to the county and looking for a friendly face.

On the fourth visit, the sun was starting to dip behind the cornfields. The shadows were stretching out across the driveway, long and thin. She didn’t even look at the tomatoes this time. She just walked up to the counter and set her heavy wicker basket down with a soft thud.

Her eyes were red, like she hadn’t slept in a week. She didn’t say hello. She just looked at me, really looked at me, and her chin started to tremble.

“My birthday is June 14, 1963,” she said.

The air in my chest just vanished. I felt like I had stepped out of a plane into freezing water. I knew exactly what that date meant. I knew what the hospital felt like that day. I knew the smell of the antiseptic and the way the ceiling tiles looked when they were counting down the minutes.

“I was born at the St. Jude County Home,” she continued.