“I saved you the last piece of pie.” “I fixed the step so you wouldn’t trip.” “I waited to start the fire until you were home.”

They’ve learned something unspoken: that a marriage, like a garden, needs fallow seasons. That you can’t force intimacy any more than you can force a tomato to ripen faster. And that the deepest conversations often happen not face-to-face, but side-by-side—while weeding, or stacking wood, or watching a heron lift from the creek. Just before bed, they sit on the stone wall at the edge of their property. The valley darkens. A single light appears in a farmhouse a mile away. She leans into his shoulder. He puts his arm around her. No one says I love you —because that phrase has been replaced by a thousand smaller, truer things:

— End of feature —

Now, busy means mending the chicken coop before rain. Busy means planting garlic in October, knowing you won’t taste it until July. Busy means walking two miles to the village market for cheese and gossip, then walking back slowly because she stopped to photograph a mushroom.