The Apple Orchard

by Susan Wiggs

  She’d taken to talking to the little stranger as if the baby could understand her. “I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up with Erik. He said his wife had left him. It never occurred to me that it could be a temporary situation.”

  For a grad student often described by professors as “brilliant,” Shannon felt like an idiot. A walking cliché. The wife was back. She was pregnant, too, or maybe she’d already given birth. So for Erik, there was no other option but to stay with her. Francesca. She was as beautiful as her name. Did she have any inkling of Shannon’s existence, or had Erik covered up his extracurricular activities? Maybe Francesca, Erik and their child were like those families in the pregnancy books, the three of them bonded into a single unit, like the chambers of the heart?

  “We’ll be a team, just the two of us,” she told the baby, her voice breaking. Damn hormones. She was a weeping mess these days. “You and me against the world.”

  The life Shannon had imagined for herself, traveling the globe, doing her work in the world of art, had shifted irrevocably the day she’d realized she was having a baby.

  Getting rid of it had crossed her mind. Of course it had. For a girl in her position, there were safe and legal ways to handle it. But her conscience, prodded by her Irish Catholic upbringing, had intervened, a Celtic voice whispering in her ear. Even more powerfully, the notion of having a baby of her own had taken hold of her. People would come and go, in and out of her life, but a son or daughter would always be there for her. Yes, her life had shifted, but she still had her dreams and goals. She would just have to go after them with a little stranger by her side.

  She still hadn’t broken the news to her mom in Dublin. She’d decided to tell her in person after graduation. Her mom would be shocked and no doubt disappointed, but the baby would trump everything. Babies had a way of doing that.

  The phone stopped and started a few more times. Shannon continued to ignore it, instead getting down to work on a paper that was due the next day. With sheer determination, she put Erik from her mind, typing with a fury on her second-hand IBM Selectric about object conservation and preservation techniques.

  A few hours later, Erik came roaring back in the form of a flimsy canary-yellow piece of paper with tract-feeder margins. A telegram. She’d never received a telegram before. The boxy print on the form spelled out his intent—sort of. There was a string of numbers at the top along with the date, and a bold statement below: Meet me tomorrow 4:00 Trianon Fine Art & Antiquities. Important.

  She knew the gallery. The proprietor, Michel Christiansen, had given several guest lectures to MFA students. He had impeccable taste and was incredibly well connected in the world of art and antiquities. It was not unusual to find a Constable original in his gallery, a three-hundred-year-old Wedgwood plate or a piece of estate jewelry that had belonged to Consuelo Vanderbilt.

  What in the world was Erik thinking?

  Shannon told herself not to go. She wouldn’t go, wouldn’t give him the chance to break her heart again. What could he possibly do or say to make this situation better?

  Yet her heart, though battered by him in the past, was a traitor. She spent a restless night, unable to escape the memories of how magical everything had been when she’d first met Erik. He’d seemed like something out of a dream, handsome and assured, tall enough to turn heads when he entered a room and exuding a kind of charm that didn’t seem at all forced. And when he touched her, kissed her...

  She groaned with frustration and loneliness. He was the worst kind of liar, the kind who took hearts as hostages and broke them with impunity. She knew this, but in spite of everything, she couldn’t stop thinking about that moment long ago, when he’d looked her in the eye and said he’d fallen in love with her.

  None of that mattered. She couldn’t let it matter. And yet...and yet... Her imagination took flight. She couldn’t help herself. She pictured him at the elegant Trianon gallery, selecting the perfect antique ring. In her mind’s eye, she saw him go down on one knee, proffering an Edwardian or art deco engagement ring that had once belonged to an heiress, declaring that he couldn’t possibly live without her, that he’d left his wife and wanted to be with Shannon forever. They would be a family, the kind of family she used to fantasize about as a girl in Ireland. Instead of being shunned as the village bastard, Shannon’s child would be the nucleus of a beautiful new family.

  * * *

  Shannon didn’t have a car. In these times, when gas was over a dollar a gallon, who could afford a car? She took the trolley and walked the rest of the way down the hill to the shop, which was near the Embarcadero. It was a beautiful day in the city, one of those days when you knew springtime was more than an empty promise. The sunshine broke free of the dreary shackles of winter, glaring on the damp sidewalks and shop windows.

  It was wrong, going to see Erik like this. Only yesterday, she had steeled herself to his persistence, declaring herself done with him and ready to face the future on her own. Yet something—the telegram or the intrigue, her own fickle emotions or maybe hormones—had filled her heart with romantic expectations, and she couldn’t help herself. Maybe she just wanted to see him to tell him it was over. Maybe she’d simply listen to whatever it was he had to tell her. She knew that no matter what happened, she would always remember the smell of the air this day—the after-rain smell of sunshine on sidewalks, a fresh breeze from the bay.

  What she never expected was that he wouldn’t show, not after his persistence in calling and finally sending her a damn telegram.

  She loitered up and down the block. Her ankles started to swell, so she looked for a place to sit down. There was an open air café across the street from the gallery. She sat drinking a coffee the way they did in the old country, making the deep cindery flavor last even as the dark sweet liquid turned lukewarm. People came and went from the gallery, nearly all of them empty-handed. One couple emerged hugging and snuggling, clutching a bright shopping bag between them, and the sight of them gave Shannon a pang. Lately, happy couples had that effect on her, reminding her that she was all alone and making her wish someone would look at her that way, with tenderness and caring, as if she were the center of the world.

  The romantic outcome she’d fantasized about all night looked less and less likely. A waiter came and took away her cup and refilled her water glass. She thanked him quietly but kept staring at the shop across the way. Just how deep did she want to take the humiliation?

  The irony of the thought brought a brief and bitter smile to her lips. Here she was, nearly broke, unmarried and pregnant, and she was worried about being humiliated.

  She waited longer than she should have. He said he would be there at four o’clock. The hour came and went, the sunlight of early spring broken by the tall trees all around the bridge.

  He’d changed his mind. Or chickened out. Or failed to procure the wad of money he’d promised her. Shannon told herself it didn’t matter. She mentally gathered up the pieces of her heart and melded them together into a cold ball of ice.

  I’m done with you, Erik, she silently told him. I’m done with you.

  She paid for her coffee and left a tip, and headed over to the shop. A small brass bell over the door chimed gently as she entered. The gallery smelled of old things and furniture polish, reminding her of Mom’s place in Dublin. Shannon let herself enjoy a beautifully framed and illuminated Old Masters painting and a line drawing by Picasso. At the back of the shop were the glass display cases rigged with alarms to safeguard the treasures within—vintage cameos and medallions, and a cache of wedding and engagement rings.

  She found herself wondering about the owners of the rings. Were they long gone, and had they given up their rings when they died? She wondered, if she put on one of those rings, would she be filled with the love and hope of the original owner? It was a fanciful thought, she knew. A ring was just an object. The things it symbolized—love, commitment, devotion—were far more transitory than the precious metals and stones.

&
nbsp; “May I help you?” asked Mr. Christiansen.

  She could feel his gaze assessing her. She’d dressed with care today, though she’d told herself not to put in any extra effort for the sake of Erik. She had only one decent outfit that covered her ungainly figure. It was a loose Liz Claiborne jumper over a cap sleeve white T-shirt, and a pair of flat espadrilles. Her swollen ankles spoiled the effect, but she didn’t look totally ghastly.

  “I’m Shannon Delaney,” she said. “A grad student in Berkeley’s MFA and museum studies program. I saw your lecture about avant-garde Russian art last year.”

  That warmed him up a little. “Welcome. Are you looking for something in particular? I hope it’s not a job. I’m overstaffed already.”

  “Nothing like that.” What was she going to ask, after all? Have you seen the father of my child? He begged me to meet him here but he stood me up. “I was supposed to meet...a friend here today, but I guess he’s running late. Erik Johansen?”

  “Ah. We had an appointment.”

  And...? She was desperate to hear more. “I thought maybe he’d called you about being delayed.”

  “Sorry. No.” He pressed his lips into a seam of discretion.

  “Well,” she said. “If he does happen to show up, maybe you can let him know I was here.”

  “Of course, Miss...”

  “Delaney,” she reminded him. “Shannon Delaney. I’m in the phone book and the student directory.”

  He didn’t quite look at her very pregnant belly, but she sensed him thinking about it, maybe putting things together in his mind. At the same time, her heart was coming apart, again, maybe this time sustaining permanent damage.

  “I’ll be sure to do that,” Mr. Christiansen promised.

  * * *

  When she stepped aboard the bus to the city, the passengers parted to give her plenty of space, as if what she had was contagious. She took a seat vacated by some guy, offering a vague smile of gratitude. Clinging to a pole, she gazed dully at the passing scenery—flickers of Telegraph Hill between the shoulder-to-shoulder shops and office buildings.

  The bus ride made her nauseous. Indecision made her nauseous. Everything made her nauseous. She lurched off the bus and stood on the west side of campus, wondering where the sun had gone. Low clouds pressed a chill down on her. She was in an agony of curiosity about what Erik’s real intent had been today. If it had been to send her on a wild-goose chase, he had succeeded.

  Since she’d already humiliated herself at the Trianon shop, she figured she might as well go for broke. She couldn’t call Erik at his home number—what if his wife answered? She could easily picture his wife, dewy-eyed and pampered as she gracefully gestated the legitimate child. The favored child. One thing that should have been a red flag when Shannon and Erik were going out was that he hadn’t introduced her to any of his friends. Every time she’d asked about this, he used to kiss her and say, with a sincerity she too easily bought, “I want you all to myself.”

  She knew the name of his best friend—Carlos Maldonado. They were neighbors in the town of Archangel where they’d grown up. Erik had described their exploits as kids, climbing the apple trees of Bella Vista, stealing jugs of wine from the Maldonado winery vats. Carlos always looked older than his age and had no problem sneaking into racetracks for betting. He was addicted to betting on horses, Erik had once explained. It caused the family no end of trouble.

  And that was the extent of what Shannon knew of the people who knew Erik. What a loser she was, getting knocked up by a relative stranger.

  The campus library had a collection of all the phone books in the state. She perused the shelves in the reference section, finding a fat California Bell tome marked Greater Sonoma County with a list of communities—Kenwood, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg...Archangel.

  Her fingers felt clumsy and chilly as she flipped through the thin pages. And there it was: Maldonado, C. Hacienda Drive in Archangel.

  She rushed to a pay phone before losing her nerve, and dialed the number she’d scribbled on the back of an envelope.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice.

  “Yes, hi. My name is Sh...Sharon Smith.” Great, Shannon, she thought. Could the name have sounded any more contrived? “I was hoping to speak to Carlos Maldonado.”

  “Carlos? He— Lourdes, stop that. Leave the dog alone— Sorry. My daughter’s being a pest. What was it you wanted?”

  “I was wondering if I could speak to Carlos.”

  “Look, if you’re from the collection agency, I can tell you right now, we—”

  “No.” Shannon had the feeling of wading into murky water. “Nothing like that. I, um, I found something that might belong to him.” Oh, way to lie, she thought.

  “I’m sorry, what— Lourdes, what did Mommy say?”

  “Sounds like this is a bad time,” Shannon said, regretting the impulse to call.

  “When you’ve got two little kids, there’s no such thing as a good time for a phone call. But anyway, Carlos isn’t back yet. He went to the city.”

  “With someone named Erik Johansen?”

  “Who is this?” the woman asked sharply.

  Shannon hung up quickly and stepped out of the phone booth.

  Had Erik come to the city with Carlos? What did that mean? And where the heck were they?

  * * *

  Shannon decided to treat herself to Chinese takeout for dinner that night. The doctor at Planned Parenthood had told her to avoid salty foods and stuff with MSG. Shannon was usually pretty good about that, but today she felt like breaking the rules. Just the thought of Moo Goo Gai Pan made her salivate. Min Cho’s, her favorite place, had a TV in the bar, always set to the local news. While waiting for her cardboard pail of Moo Goo Gai Pan, she stared dully at the screen, unmoved by reports of mayhem and murder.

  The TV news anchor droned on about a horrific fatality accident this morning on the Redwood Highway. There were worse things, Shannon reminded herself, than being stood up by some guy. She took her dinner home and sat at the kitchen table, savoring the sautéed chicken and veggies while perusing the latest Smithsonian Magazine. Sonic Youth’s “(She’s in a) Bad Mood” streamed from the radio, its ugly melody a good match for the lyrics.

  She’d eaten half her dinner when the highway patrolmen showed up at her door. She stood there, staring at the two officers in confusion while the words they spoke took her world apart. Mr. Christiansen of the Trianon gallery had said she might have some information for them. They were investigating an accident on the Redwood Highway. Evidence at the scene had led them to the Trianon, and the proprietor had given them her name.

  “What happened to Erik?” she asked, swaying against the door frame.

  The older of the two officers eyed her pregnant belly. “We’re sorry, ma’am,” he said.

  The officer looked a bit like Steve McQueen, Shannon thought, just a second before she upchucked her Moo Goo Gai Pan all over the floor.

  Twenty-One

  Tess pictured her mother, young, alone and pregnant, getting the news from the highway patrol. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her throat thickening and her eyes burning. She looked over at Isabel. To her surprise, Isabel was dry-eyed. It must have been hard to hear, a story about her father sneaking away from her mother to meet with his pregnant mistress.

  “So what was his plan? Did he intend to sell the egg to the gallery and give you the money?” asked Tess. “If he did, that would mean he was incredibly naive, or he didn’t understand the true value of the egg.”

  “I think so. I mean, I want to think he was trying to help me. We can only speculate.”

  “What about the friend?” asked Tess. “Carlos Maldonado, the guy you made the phone call to.”

  “He died, too. A drowning.” Isabel quickly found a link online to the archive of the Archangel Trumpet, the town’s weekly newspaper. Older articles had been scanned and presented as images showing newsprint that was yellowed and brittle with age. There were two photos of equal size dis
played on the page. Erik Johansen and Carlos Maldonado. The headline boldly proclaimed: “Double Tragedy Strikes Local Families.”

  “My lord,” Isabel said softly. “Look at the date. Carlos Maldonado died right after our father, and four days before you and I were born.”

  The juxtaposition of their birth date and a horrible dual tragedy gave Tess a chill. Staring at the picture of the man who had fathered her, Tess felt an overwhelming sense of loss. I wish I’d known you, she thought. I wish you could have known me. Maybe he’d made some lousy choices, maybe he’d screwed up Shannon’s life, but judging by all she’d learned of him, he’d made his parents happy. People around Bella Vista had loved him.

  And then there was Carlos Maldonado, about whom she knew virtually nothing.

  “So his friend died, too,” Tess said. “Was it some huge, tragic coincidence, or were they related?”

  Isabel read the paper’s explanation of the connection:

  “‘The day after Erik Johansen’s fatal accident, tragedy struck again, this time at the Maldonado family. Carlos, who had been best friends with Erik since boyhood, drowned in an irrigation pond on the family property. The county coroner’s office ruled it an accident. He leaves behind his parents, Ramon and Juanita Maldonado, his grandmother Flora Maldonado, his wife, Beatrice Maldonado, and his daughter, three-year-old Lourdes.’”

  She stared at the list of names. “Lourdes? As in Dominic’s ex-wife, Lourdes?”

  Isabel nodded. “The same.”

  “Okay, that blows my mind.”

  “Here’s my mother’s obituary,” said Isabel, scrolling to a page dated four days later.

  Francesca Johansen—Isabel’s mother, Erik’s wife. It might well be Isabel herself, smiling up from the page. They had the same deep-set, soulful eyes, thick, wavy dark hair, generous lips and patrician noses. The three of them looked at it for a long time, each lost in her own private thoughts.