Hard Cider

by Barbara Stark-Nemon

I stepped back, quashing my usual urge to jump into the connection, facilitate commonality, and smooth transitions. I had a new mantra: Let things happen the way they’re supposed to. They would ultimately anyway.

  “So these are the cider apple trees?” Alex asked.

  “Yep. Don’t know if your mom told you or not, but we ordered these five years ago from a nursery in Virginia that’s been working on apple varieties going all the way back to colonial times. Some of the trees here are likely descendants of trees Thomas Jefferson cultivated at Monticello. We’ve got some russets, some Paula Reds, and Macouns. The first years are all about cultivating and pruning to establish a good fruiting tree. We got a decent crop this fall and are betting on an even better one next year. C’mon and have a look at the old pressing equipment we’ve salvaged.”

  Everyone turned and headed back around the inn to the ad hoc cider house, the first of several outbuildings to our right. They strode together like manly men about the business of finding or fending off common ground and mining the entropy that would tell them whether they might work together. I tripped along behind the two of them, thinking, Men! These two either will or won’t get along, but in either case, it’ll be interesting to watch.

  Charles slid the door to the small barn open and we stepped into the sweet dank warmth and the powerful smells of a packed earth floor, crushed apples, and hay. I couldn’t help myself: I broke into a delighted smile and tucked my hands into my jacket pockets. I’d arrived at the next step in a grand adventure.

  Chapter 3

  The late-afternoon sun ignited an orange and blue light show on the sand along the lakeshore as I drove the three miles into Northport.

  I’d succumbed to the guilty pleasure of a single pork chop for lunch, compromising my otherwise pork-free life—in deference to Steven’s kosher background, I never bought it when cooking for him—and had just settled, with a glass of pinot noir, into our well-worn Norwegian recliner for some last moments of peace and quiet when I noted the flashing light on the answering machine.

  There were three voicemails. The first two were solicitations but the third message revealed a soft, unfamiliar voice.

  Hi Mrs. Stone, This is Julia Reiss at Dolls and More. The sock yarn you ordered is in. You can come in and pick it up . . . or I could bring it out on my way home one day . . .

  Her voice dropped off to a lengthy pause. Then she left the store’s number, as well as her cell number. The message ended. Puzzled, I settled back into my chair. Who was Julia Reiss?

  On the face of it, this was just an ordinary message, but I thought I knew all the people who helped the owner of the local knit shop. And the message seemed to go beyond simple customer service. I sipped my wine and wondered about her offer. I resolved to pick up the yarn at the store on my way down to Ann Arbor this afternoon—they’d be open for at least another hour.

  I drained my wine, grabbed what I needed for the week in Ann Arbor, and headed toward town.

  My first purchases were a newspaper and a few groceries that I knew Steven wouldn’t have stocked. Next, I stopped for a mail pickup at the old house that still held sway as the town’s post office. I moved on to the neighboring library, where I stopped to chat and return DVDs I’d borrowed. Down Nagonaba, the main street with the unpronounceable name, I stopped at the hardware store where Joseph, the ancient sales clerk, knew every piece of merchandise and had a ready answer or explanation suited to my skill level for any problem I posed. Today he helped me troubleshoot a dripping sink faucet. Next, I stopped into my favorite bookstore, a classic old shop with beautiful wooden shelves, a wide and quirky selection of used books reflecting the whims of the philosopher proprietress, and interesting new releases. I’d ordered a mystery written by a local author for Steven’s birthday.

  Finally, I grabbed a steaming cup of coffee at the North Country Cafe, tucked back in the rehabbed corner retail space that anchored the town. Danielle, the owner, caught me up on recent events, asked about my trip downstate, and prepared my hazelnut cappuccino. As she steamed the milk, I began my informational fishing expedition.

  “Well, I guess I better get over and pick up my new yarn. I cooked up a project for the Guild Bazaar. I’ve also made some darling little baby dresses for all my friends who are having granddaughters. Not that I’ll ever get one . . .”

  Danielle, also the mother of three boys, hadn’t improved the gender balance with her two grandsons. “You can always dream.” She laughed.

  “I promise I’ll make you two when you hit the jackpot, Dani . . . pink and purple! By the way, what do you know about the new girl working for Sally? How’d she land here?” My question was direct, but that was how Danielle rolled.

  “Don’t know, exactly. She just showed up here looking for a job a couple of weeks ago. She never found me, but she went to Dolls and More and a couple of other places in town.” Danielle paused long enough to fill and slide a coffee cup across the counter and retrieve the dollar bills from someone behind me before I even realized he’d come in.

  “Sally says she’s from somewhere in Ohio. No one seems to know why she wants to be up here, especially in the winter. But apparently she can really knit and sew. Sally says she’ll be a godsend when it gets busy at the store. She’s staying somewhere out by you, I guess.”

  “Interesting. Thanks, Dani,” I said before heading for the door, cappuccino in hand.

  The sun was making a brave appearance for a February afternoon. Shining through the hazy sky, its hint of heat gave the lie to the dullness of the landscape. The quiet inwardness of winter that suited me so well would eventually give way to the hubbub of summer. I’d be drawn to the outdoors and physical work in my garden and orchard. The desertion of residents during winter would yield once more to traffic and crowding. For now, though, I could stand in the street with my face turned upward for a daily fix of vitamin D without attracting the slightest notice. Thus fortified, I crossed over to Dolls and More.

  From my first moment of entry through the door with its burnished brass handset, it was clear to me that this small shop featured much of what I loved best about small-town fiber art shops. The front section contained bins of yarn on one side and bolts of fabric on the other, the center crammed with racks of pattern books, doll-making tools, needles, hooks, and other crafting paraphernalia.

  I walked through the shop front to the wide door at the back and down three steps into the studio, where Sally, the energetic owner, held classes and where more fabric and yarns were displayed. I’d spent many a pleasant hour taking specialty classes with Sally and other members of Northport’s vibrant local fiber arts community.

  “Sal?” I called. Evidence of her machine embroidery business lay scattered over the counter at the register, and the display of antique and homemade dolls and supplies she sold to would-be doll makers graced the opposite counter. Since Sally had opened the store nearly fifteen years earlier, the scope of her retail endeavors had expanded.

  “Sally?” I called again.

  From the storage room at the other end of the studio, a young woman’s long, dark curls appeared in the doorframe. Her cerulean blue eyes met mine immediately. “Sally’s coming in later. It’s just me right now. Hi, I’m Julia. Julia Reiss. I just started working here.”

  Julia Reiss was arrestingly beautiful. I thought she must be in her mid twenties. Taller than I, and very slender, she was also very shapely. Her dark hair framed an oval face with creamy skin.

  “Hi Julia, I’m Abbie Rose Stone.” Julia’s gaze became pensive. “Thanks for your phone call. I thought I’d just stop in to pick up my yarn.”

  “Sure. I’ll get it for you. It’s in here.” Julia stepped back down into the stockroom. I stayed in the studio to have a look at what had gone on since I’d been there last.

  Set on the corner of the table closest to the window facing Mill Street lay a nearly completed child’s sweater still on its fine needles. I recognized the pattern immediately, having knit a nearly identical one
myself. Colorful toys, numbers, and figures danced across a navy background. The work was fine and even. I reached for the needles and instinctively checked the reverse side of the work, the true test of a knitter’s skills. All the connections between different colored yarns were expertly woven and the transitions were smooth and tidy.

  Julie Reiss’s voice spoke hesitantly behind me: “I’ve got your yarn.”

  “Is this yours?” I asked, surprised at the mild embarrassment I felt. The culture at Dolls and More was one of continual sharing and support, yet I didn’t know how far into that artistic fold Julia had been drawn and here I stood, inspecting her work.

  “Yeah, Sally asked me to make it as a sample. We’ve got the Debbie Bliss book with the pattern and all the right yarns.” Julia was quietly matter-of-fact.

  “I love this sweater. You’ve done a beautiful job.” I hoped I sounded as genuinely admiring as I felt.

  “Thanks. I want to do the rosebud teddy and the ducks and boats sweater. I like the projects in this book.”

  “Me too. Looks like you’ve been knitting for a long time. Where did you learn?” While the question gave me a natural way to begin satisfying my curiosity about the girl in front of me, it was one I could rarely resist posing to any other knitter or quilter. I found a woman’s path to working with her hands endlessly interesting, as well as an informative key to the nature of her muse.

  Julia thought for a moment. She seemed neither skittish nor impulsive. “I actually learned first from my great-grandmother. My mom was pretty young when she had me and she didn’t marry my dad until later. She and my grandma both worked, so I spent a lot of time with my great-grandma. She did cross-stitch tablecloths and crocheted lace, and she knit whole suits for herself out of silk yarn. When my grandmother retired, she started working in a knit store in Ohio. She still does. My mom knits too. I started doing spool knitting when I was four and then learned to crochet and knit. I guess I’ve always liked making things.”

  “That’s quite a pedigree. I can see why you’d like working here.” It was on the tip of my tongue to go on to ask Julia why she’d come to Northport, but I wanted both of us to stay in the comfort of artistic sharing for a while longer. “One of my grandmothers was also a master knitter, but we weren’t that close so I had to learn a lot more on my own,” I volunteered. “My other grandmother did beautiful cross-stitch.”

  Julia looked down at her sweater, lying on the table between us. “Do you have a daughter that you’ve taught?” Her deep blue eyes turned back up to mine.

  My sigh escaped before I could hold it in. I didn’t typically discuss how I mourned a daughterless existence, or the deprivation of female intimacy that was grounded in my Prussian Germanic mother and the age span between my younger sisters and me. Such intimate questions . . .

  “Nope, three boys. I do have a daughter-in-law, and she’s a talented knitter, but they aren’t nearby and she’s really busy, so we don’t get much fiber art time together.” To my own surprise, I kept right on talking. “We almost adopted a baby girl once, but it was so close to the time my youngest boy was born, and the other two were still small, and the birth mother of the little girl changed her mind anyway, so it didn’t work out.” Why am I blabbing like this? “So I spent a lot of my parenting time building with Legos, coaching soccer, and going to rowing regattas, basketball, and water polo games. My husband still occasionally threatens to go and find three little girls to adopt.”

  I said this last part lightly, with an eye roll, but Julia, who’d been listening intently, seemed to think seriously about my comments, and a stricken look passed over her lovely features.

  “So you adopted kids,” she said quietly. “My brother is adopted.”

  Her brother, but apparently not her. “Two of my three boys are adopted,” I said.

  Now we’d each exposed our private lives, so I changed the subject, hoping to move away from whatever had disturbed Julia, and ask what I’d been curious about.

  “What made you decide to come here to Northport? Especially in the winter? And you offered to bring my yarn out to me, which is very nice. Do you live north of town?”

  Before Julia could answer, her cell phone rang on the table next to where we stood.

  “Sorry,” she said quickly, “but I have to check this.”

  “No problem, I’ll just browse,” I said, giving the girl points for not assuming I’d be okay with the disruption. I moved back to the children’s sweater sample I’d admired previously and fingered yarns in nearby bins while Julia carried on a brief, urgent-sounding conversation. She listened more than spoke for a short while, then raised her voice slightly and said into the phone, “Mom, I have to go.”

  “Sorry,” she said again when she came to stand next to me. She could have used the interruption to ignore my questions, but instead spoke quickly and intensely. “I’m giving myself some distance from my family right now, and it’s been hard for my mom.” Something changed in her posture as she handed me my yarn. She straightened her shoulders, stood tall. “In fact, that’s kind of why I came to live here. I have some family issues to sort out, and I thought this would be a good place to do it. The Leytons, out on Sugarbush Road, needed someone to house sit for the winter, and Sally wanted some extra help here, so it all worked out.”

  I saw a fierceness in Julia’s expression, but also felt myself retreat from an inclination to sympathize or ask for any more information. As a parent, I’d struggled with well-meaning advisors questioning my decisions and giving unasked-for advice to my children. I had no desire to step into that role with another family.

  “Family issues can be tough to sort out,” is all I said.

  Julia glanced around the store. Another customer had come in. Turning back to me, she asked in a bright voice, “You have kids who rowed? I’m a rower. I rowed in high school and college, and I’m actually running a rowing camp in Ohio this summer, so I’ll be gone for a couple of weeks.”

  Her tall, slender figure and broad shoulders made for a great rowing body—no surprise there. But most people who moved up to Northport were retirees or, less often, young families. Twenty-something singles with no apparent ties to the area rarely chose this small town. “Oh,” I said, “so you’re thinking of staying in Northport for a while?”

  “Let me know if you need anything,” Julia called to other customer. Then she looked at me with an odd expression. “Yeah, I guess I am thinking of staying around for a while.” She pointed to my yarn. “What are you planning for this?”

  “I’m looking to make the baby shoes and the rabbit from that Debbie Bliss book, actually. I’m doing them for the Fiber Arts Guild show.” I watched her mentally flip through the pattern book and arrive at the sweet photo of rabbit booties and a knitted animal with a blue vest and pink undersides on his floppy ears.

  “That’ll be adorable,” she said. “You’ll have to come in and show us when you finish.”

  Julia might be very good for Sally’s business. She knows how to engage a customer. “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be in long before I’m done. I’m kind of a regular here,” I said, with more assertiveness than I’d intended.

  “Then I guess I’ll see you again soon.” She smiled.

  “Yeah, that’ll be nice. If you want to ring me up, I’ll head out.”

  I followed Julia to the register at the front of the store, where she efficiently completed my purchase.

  I settled into the Flex for the long ride to Ann Arbor. Julia Reiss had given me a lot to think about. It intrigued me that she lived at the Leytons’. On my way into town, I’d stopped at a stand of stag-horn sumac to gather branches of the crimson dried fruit; it always looked lovely on a table or sideboard. Near there, through the shrubs and the sleeping apple orchard, the home of Stan and Gina Leyton rose on a hill.

  They had moved to the area fifteen years earlier. Gina had nearly single-handedly revived the artistic community at this remote end of the peninsula, spearheading the construction of a shared
school and community theater for which she directed plays. The Leytons had also created a Celtic maze in the field next to their house that drew tourists and new age devotees alike. Gina had convinced locals to come to yoga and Pilates classes who had never tried either, and, recently, introduced and marketed edible serviceberries to the fruit-raising culture of the area.

  I wondered how Julia had found them, or they her. I wondered about the mother at the other end of the phone conversation at the knit shop. A girl of many questions.

  Chapter 4

  Satellite radio and audio books rescued me from the travel hell of switching from radio station to radio station as I drove down the center of the state to Ann Arbor. Even so, the in-depth news programs I normally loved on public radio sounded foreign and even a little obsessive after a stint of living off the media grid in Northport.

  The drive from door to door took, at minimum, four hours and forty-five minutes. Today the roads were clear and I had time to think of what lay ahead: Steven’s birthday, and the organizing touch I was sure the house in Ann Arbor needed after weeks of his living there alone.

  Winter twilight descended on the highway as I traveled south, the wrecked centers of mid-state cities shielded from scrutiny by those of us on the highway with other places to come from and go to. The snow began just south of Flint, a steady, dry, mesmerizing dance of flakes striking the windshield like sparklers from the gathering dusk. I loved snow, even when driving in it became a challenge. I loved being wrapped in the cocoon of white silence, and the softening of hard edges. I loved it even when, as now, one could have thoughts of winter aconites—harbingers of spring—poking their yellow blossoms through the snow.

  The quiet midweek evening in downtown Ann Arbor still boasted after-work diners filling the Main Street restaurants and students, bundled head to toe, on their way across campus to libraries or bars after the day’s classes. I had chosen to brave the elements and isolation at the farmhouse in Northport, but my rootedness in Ann Arbor was more complicated. I had attended college, married, made my adult life, conducted my career, and raised my children in this university town. Friends, community, family—it had all happened here. But so had an earlier failed marriage, problems with our children, and fallout from lives turning out differently from what we’d hoped and dreamed.