Anne Pine guided her comfortable old pickup down the narrow country road. Ava sat in silent wonderment gazing at the passing landscape with her city eyes. She’d driven into Eden last night well after nightfall. Last night her eyes burned from concentrating so hard on the deserted back country roads. They were nothing like the razor straight interstate that cut through the flat landscape to the east of Eden. Overhead the sky had spread big and foreboding making Ava feel exposed - uneasy. But here in Eden the sky was smaller, more intimate. The roads narrow and winding.

For as far as Ava could see there were mounds and mounds of high dumpling shaped hills. This landscape reminded her of something but what? Ava searched her memory. The answer was right on the tip of it. “Think Ava think!” she scoulded herself. She had it! Grandma Moses. Ava was literally riding through a Grandma Moses landscape!

Here were all the elements of one of her famous summertime paintings; rich green, tree laden hills, quaint white clapboard farmhouses set well back from the road. Some built right up against the base of a hill. Cows or sheep but always chickens grazing in every farmyard they passed. Rustic old world barns with clusters of outbuildings nestled nearby. Horses being hitched up to plows and buggies. Ava was enchanted. She could feel something inside herself start to untwist. Until this morning she thought places like Eden only existed in the imagination of artists.

“What happened to that field?” asked Ava pointing towards a close cropped field the early morning sun was turning to a rust-gold.

“You mean that one there?”

Ava nodded.

“The wheat‘s just been harvested.” said Anne Pine.

“It looks like the field has been given a crew cut.” said Ava.

Anne Pine let out a giant burst of laughter. “I never saw it that way before but you’re exactly right!”

“Everything is so green and lush around here. I feel like I’m looking through tinted glasses but I’m not,” said Ava.
“I know what you mean,” said Anne Pine. “Do you know when I first drove back into these hills, all this green made me physically sick? I‘m not kidding. There was just more green than my system could handle! You see I grew up out West, in Georgie O’Keefe country.”

“You’re from New Mexico?” Anne Pine nodded. “How long did it take you to get used it?” asked Ava.

“Not long, Doc Forrester gave me something out of his cabinet when I went to meet  him the first time.” Anne Pine saw the quizzical expression on Ava’s face. “Doc is how I came to Eden in the first place.”
“Have you been here long?” Ava asked hoping she wasn’t prying.

“Eleven years. Came right here right out of vet school. Answered a small little “Help Wanted” ad in the back of one of the vet magazines. The vet, that’s Doc Forrester, needed part-time help to fill in for him. He wasn’t looking for full-time and that suited me.”

“Why’s that?”

“Cause by time I finished vet school I already knew exactly what I wanted to do.” said Anne Pine. Ava thoroughly enjoying hearing about Anne’s life. There were few things she loved better than listening to how people got to where they did in life. Ever since Ava was a teenager she longed to know what her own life story would end up being. She was so confused back then. She still was in a lot of ways. So she continued searching for clues about her own life in other people’s lives.

“During my last year of vet school,” said Anne, “I realized I wanted to become a midwife more than I wanted to be a vet. Well no, that’s not right. I wanted to do both but to do midwifery more then tending to animals. I love both fields but I come down heavier on the midwife side of the scale.” Ava admired Anne Pine’s gift for knowing what she wanted to do and then doing it! She wondered what inner trait Anne Pine possessed in this regard that she herself lacked.

“What about you?” asked Anne abruptly. Ava was completely caught off guard. She was used to her privacy. Her mind raced to come up with some kind of answer that would satisfy Anne Pine’s curiosity without revealing anything significant. She opened her mouth to speak but just then Anne leaned out the truck window to wave vigorously at a man driving his horse and buggy down a lane towards the road.

” That there’s your knight in shining armour!” Anne Pine crowed. Ava was shocked! “What do you mean by that?” she asked crisply.

The cell phone rang startling them both. Anne Pine jammed her hand into her sweater pocket and grabbed it. “That’s Gideon King!” said Anne hurriedly before answering the phone. Ava turned around and stared out the back window of the truck cab.

Anne held the phone to her ear. “Anne Pine here,”  she said in her no-nonsense voice.