Hard Cider

by Barbara Stark-Nemon

  I recognized that my sense of “home” was in transition, but as I turned into the familiar driveway on the quiet street in the middle of town, I experienced a small surge of comfort in the face of our English cottage-style house. A copper beech towered in front and hemlocks shielded the property from the north wind. Steven and I had rehabbed this house when we first bought it and then rebuilt it after it burned, a phoenix rising into our lives and then sheltering us these last twenty years.

  I often wondered how my children, all of whom lived elsewhere, thought about coming home. Seth still had an intact bedroom of his own here, and friends he liked to see when he was in town. Andrew and his wife, Carrie, visited, but home for them had become where they lived now, on the other side of Michigan. And Alex? Alex avoided coming to Ann Arbor like the plague.

  I wondered if the house itself played into Alex’s discomfort. He alone had been old enough to understand the loss of our home to an arsonist, and had been forced to contend with his own fear, and the fear and horror of the other children and adults around him, all as a six-year-old. Then he’d had a rocky adolescence, with the defiance and boundary violations that had forced us to send him away to school. Even after coming home to finish high school, he’d found life in this university town too rarified, liberal, and intense.

  The insistent ring of my cell phone cut short my reverie. Steven’s law firm number flashed as I answered.

  “Abbie, hi,” Steven said. “Where are you?”

  “Just pulling into the driveway. How’re you doing?”

  “It’s been really busy. I’m just going into a last meeting, and then I should be able to leave. How was the drive?”

  “Good. The snow didn’t start until after Flint, so I got here ahead of any problem, but the roads might be getting bad now.”

  “Okay, well, I have to go. I’ll see you in about forty-five minutes.”

  “Good. See you soon, bye.”

  How many hundreds of times had we had this exact conversation? When the kids were little and I believed he’d get home in the forty-five minutes he promised, I’d kept the dinner warm and the children entertained during the disastrous time in late afternoon when they were cranky, tired, and hungry. I’d done so out of a belief that the family dinner was important. Then an hour, sometimes two, would go by, and I would give up; I’d feed, bathe, and put the children to sleep myself, leaving a lone place setting at the table and the detritus of dinner on the stove. No June Cleaver happy to see her hubby on those days.

  The arguments were useless. Why couldn’t you call? Who did you stop and talk to in the hall while we were all waiting for you? Steven had a big job and had always devoted himself to it. Everything else he had in him, he’d devoted to our family. We’d argued only about the proportions.

  Now it didn’t matter anymore. I’d see what was in the refrigerator, add in what I’d shopped for in Northport, and pull something together whenever Steven got home.

  I opened the garage door and squeezed out of the car and into the house. I still couldn’t help but listen for the dog tags clinking against each other and the click, click, click of claws on wooden floors when I opened the door. The ghost of our dog, Mickey, still informed the silence of the dark kitchen.

  After setting my computer, backpack, and knitting bag inside the doorway, I walked into the kitchen, a space that opened into a great room and the rest of the main floor. Several days’ worth of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times littered the kitchen table, and more were stacked along the counter near the door. I automatically started to straighten up, but stopped myself.

  Don’t, Abbie. Just don’t . . . Instead, I moved to the refrigerator and, finding an old bottle of sparkling water, opened it where I stood and took a long draw, the cold effervescence bursting in my throat and into my chest. My eyes swept over the elevated counter behind the sink and into the great room. Looking up, I could see snow through the clerestory window. The counter held loose piles of mail, the hardy succulents I’d left to be tended here, and an ovoid art glass piece Steven had given me years earlier. In the least bit of light, it shone as if from within, and it did so now, the mysterious light a small beacon. I smiled and turned back to the refrigerator to find some dinner.

  I woke from a dream of sailing on a south wind among the smooth rocks of the Benjamin Islands in Lake Huron’s North Channel. I have an intimate relationship with the south wind, as I do with the rhythmic wash of waves on the sand heard through a lakeside window at night and the shadow of pine boughs on the forest floor in moonlight. These are secret sensibilities that ground me.

  No south wind today, at least not that a person could feel wrapped in the heat of this buttoned-up house on a late winter day. I’d lived so much of my life with hopeful and dogged energy in this solid home with its many intricate spaces. Now I longed for the simplicity of water, wind, and sand. I craved cleaner lines, less clutter, an obvious metaphor for my wish to uncomplicate my life.

  In this moment, the temple of the familiar felt languid and simple enough and I nestled into the quilts, the memory of making love with Steven after our time apart bringing a smile to my waking. I allowed the myriad tasks of the day ahead to float above the bed, at bay for now.

  The ringing telephone brought these thoughts to an abrupt halt, as phones still did for me. Unlike my children, I felt obliged to answer phones, or at least attend to the intrusion. I reached into the shelf of the nightstand from which the multi-line intercom and phone system, now a dinosaur, still served our home.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.” The pause lasted longer than normal, and because of that I knew it was Andrew. No “Hi Mom,” or “Hey Mom, it’s Andrew.” Just, “Hi.”

  “Hey Andrew.” I paused. Under his rules, I now had the responsibility of leading the conversation. He never called without an express reason. So, I could maneuver the conversation to find out what he wanted, or mark time with news sharing until he was ready. I had long ago learned to ask for information I needed and wait for the rest. That Steven’s birthday happened to be today complicated this ritual dance, but since I hadn’t yet texted reminders to my sons, I questioned whether this could be a birthday call.

  “How’s Carrie?” I asked. My daughter-in-law had just begun her first placement as a nurse anesthetist graduate student.

  “She’s good. She’s still working nights and I’m on all days right now, so we don’t see much of each other. We both have next weekend off, so we should be able to have some fun.”

  “How did you get to be on all days?” Andrew’s prior sheriff assignments had involved mostly night shifts.

  “My promotion came through and they needed a marine officer.”

  “Already? Wow, that’s great.”

  “Yeah, I guess. A couple of the new guys are kind of idiots.”

  “Well, that’s what they’re paying you the big bucks for, sweetie. Did your pay go up?”

  “A couple of hundred dollars. It helps.”

  “That’s wonderful, Andrew. Congratulations!” Pause. “Has Carrie been able to scrub into surgeries yet?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Did she like it?”

  “I guess.”

  I’d asked enough now, I could tell. I curbed my desire to say, “What do you mean, you guess? Haven’t you asked her?” Whatever they did in the way of communicating with each other appeared to work very well.

  Carrie was a woman with plans. She’d been a floor nurse in a large hospital while Andrew finished his Coast Guard enlistment, and now that they’d returned to Michigan, she’d begun an advanced degree in anesthesia. So far, her plans had proceeded as scheduled, and I was proud of and impressed with her accomplishments.

  “Is Dad home? I need to ask him something.”

  Involuntarily, my heart sank. Not a birthday call. “I think he’s down in his office.”

  “We’re starting to think about what’s going to happen when Carrie’s done here. It’s still seven months, but
she thinks it’s time to start looking for jobs for her, and if Dad has some contacts, people might pay attention faster.”

  “Good idea to get a head start on that. Is she looking in Ann Arbor? Does she want one of the big hospitals? Here, I’ll let you talk to Dad about it so you don’t have to repeat yourself.”

  “Oh, and Mom, I know you think I forgot, but we want to say happy birthday to him too.”

  Will miracles never cease? “Busted. You know your mother . . . Hang on.” I transferred the call to Steven and swung my feet out of bed, an energy of hopefulness inspiring me to dress for a bundled run through the neighborhood to the arboretum. The Huron River would be dressed in winter white and black water ripples.

  I never tired of this run. Through snow-covered plantings of spring-flowering shrubs, through a glen of rhododendron, azalea, and mountain laurel, the path wound its way for a whole mile down to the river. There it left the riverbank and wound into a broad field, maintained as prairie by the University School of Natural Resources. A controlled burn in the fall had left areas of stubble where wild grasses had grown, but now the whole of the landscape was softened by the copious snowfall of the past week. It sparkled with myriad snowflakes taking bows in the morning sunlight.

  I settled into a slow, steady jog, grateful that all I had to think about and plan for today were final logistics for tonight’s surprise birthday dinner for Steven. I’d invited a few friends to join us at a local restaurant. Steven hated attention drawn to him but loved socializing in an intimate setting, and I knew he’d enjoy himself tonight.

  I came to a stand of aging pines, thick, solid trunks soaring to their needled crowns. So often in the past, I’d had to struggle with a heavy heart and overwhelming challenges on runs to this arboretum. When we’d had to send Alex away to school, I’d stumbled down the hill to this spot and wrapped my arms around a tree in the center of the grove, forehead against bark, beating heart to living wood, the connection producing sparks on the screen of my closed eyelids, and just cried. Bark prints forged on my forehead, I had shuddered through a final sob, willed a draft of energy from the lovely pines, and turned back to kick into uphill mode. That is how I got through those dark days: parceling out the energy to make it all the way, praying for the Zen to take over.

  No matter that my pace had become slower now and my joints no longer contained well-oiled springs. I headed up the long hill to home, enjoying how the familiar strain called forth a rhythm, two short inhalations followed by a long exhale.

  Halfway up, cell phone vibration rescued me from the out-of-breath climb and I slowed to a walk, letting the rings continue until I’d recovered enough to speak. I smiled as the screen flashed “Owen Moses.”

  Owen had hired me as an editor during graduate school, and we counted each other as lifelong friends of the soul mate variety. Different in background and living in different parts of the country for nearly all of our thirty-year friendship, the many streams of our connection ran deep: music, sailing, artisanship, complicated relationships, raising boys, northern homes that were heart centers, a fascination with words, and a wry belief in common decency. Fortuitously, Owen also had a friend with years of experience in the apple growing and processing business. I put the phone to my ear.

  “Owen. Long time no talk to.”

  “Abbie Rose, where have I caught you?”

  “I’m actually huffing and puffing my way up the big hill in the Arb in Ann Arbor. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Annapolis. I tried you in Northport, where you’ll find a message, so I thought I’d try your cell phone. I didn’t know you were downstate. How’s the cider research going?”

  “I came down for Steven’s birthday and I’m actually working on the trip to New Hampshire. Looks like it won’t happen until the fall—that way I can go for a pressing, which is what I want to see most. Did you talk to your friend Sam?”

  “Well, happy birthday to Steven. I did talk to Sam. I will email you both by way of introduction, and you can take it from there. He said he’d be happy to talk to you and even host you if you venture out east.”

  “You are the best. Thank you so much.”

  “Any plans to come out this way for some sailing? I’m about to put Synergy in the water.”

  “That sounds enticing. You may get two for the price of one. Steven is insisting that he wants to do more sailing this summer. I’m sorry to admit I’d rather watch the apples grow.” I hadn’t intended the wry complaint in my voice to sound so peevish.

  “Sailing with Steven would be just wonderful. In fact, you can send him out here and stay back to meditate in the orchard.” This is why I loved Owen. “Is Steven actually backing down on work?”

  “He actually is. I’ll pass along the invite.”

  By the time I’d caught up on Owen’s life, I’d walked to the top of the arboretum and trotted the two blocks to home. Another summer on its way. Time to gear up.

  Chapter 5

  One who injures another is liable for five things—damage, pain, healing, loss of time and disgrace.

  —Mishnah

  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I recited the words over and over running on hard-packed sand, my body tilting toward the water as I headed up the beach to the point—like if I was sorry enough I might magically sail onto the gentle waves and the pain in my joints, along with the pain in my heart, would lift in the breeze.

  My talk with Steven this morning about Alex hadn’t gone well. Did I know it wouldn’t? Did I sabotage it? After four nice days together in Ann Arbor, were we back to that old place of fighting our way to a mutually acceptable decision on something important, having nicked another piece off the corpus of our relationship as collateral damage? Just run, Abbie.

  If only Mickey were here to distract me. Our Brittany spaniel had died with grace at the age of fourteen a year ago, the dog of all our hearts, but especially mine. Not a day went by that I didn’t miss her. In summer, she would bark at my heels until I found some piece of driftwood to throw into the water, the farther the better. For a field dog she was a remarkable swimmer, and had scared us more than once with the distance she was willing to swim to chase after a seagull or herd Steven or me back to shore from a long-distance swim. On a wintery day along the lake like this one, she’d be just off the edge of the beach in the dune grass.

  Thinking of Mickey now brought sorrow front and center into my “I’m sorry” chant. Losing her had been true sorrow, and put to shame my current angry sarcasm.

  I was truly only sorry that I hadn’t been clever or controlled enough to keep the conversation with Steven this morning from becoming an argument, but even so, as with most of the arguments we’d had, important information had still passed between us that would reemerge in the future—with any luck, toned down and more reasoned.

  It had begun well. I told him I’d spoken to Alex and that as a result of Alex’s visit to Shawn in January, Shawn planned to travel to Iowa to see Alex in the spring.

  “Good for him,” Steven said. “It’s healthy for Alex to maintain that relationship.” He went on to talk about maintenance chores on the Ann Arbor house, and when he might next come north. We threaded our way through these exchanges with the familiarity of long-married people.

  The basic business concluded, I broached the topic that Alex and I had spent more time talking about earlier that morning: “You know when Alex visited up here in January, he and I went down to see Manitou Brewing, but we didn’t get to talk much about how he might get involved in the cider business. I wanted to hear his thoughts about my plans, so we had a good conversation about it today.”

  I rushed on, “I asked him what he really thought about a move back to Michigan. He said he knows he has a good job and a decent place to live in Iowa, and he’s made some acquaintances, so he’s not in a huge hurry to leave. And as you have been quick to point out to him, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for him to come back here to join a business that’s not even a
business yet. He’s checked out PA opportunities in Traverse City, and he’ll wait to see what I’m going to get involved in.”

  Steven remained silent so I continued, “I told him that sounded about right to me. I reinforced to him that I’d love to tap into his organizational and mechanical skills and get his thoughts about any other part of the business, but I’m not asking him to consider running it, or being involved at all, if it doesn’t interest him.”

  The continued pause on the other end of the phone told me that either Steven was reading email or he was choosing his words before responding.

  “Alex needs to concentrate on figuring out what the best next move for him is,” Steven began. “Are you sure you ought to be distracting him with all of this?”

  “All of this” in Steven code meant my business proposition that didn’t interest him, and that he apparently thought shouldn’t interest our children, either. Still, I worked to stay measured and calm.

  “Steven, I don’t really look at this as a distraction but as an option for Alex, if he wants to be involved. He’s not all that happy in Iowa on his own: there’s no connection to family or friends or a relationship! You know he loves Northport and the whole area. How is he going to know if coming back here interests him if he doesn’t explore it? He’s just looking. It’s not like he has to make a commitment to helping me with this business, and it’s not as if he would give up being a PA.” I censored my next thought, though it burned in my chest as an ember of anger that didn’t bode well for the rest of our conversation: At least he’s looking at my business before rejecting the idea.

  In twenty-five years of marriage, I’d made and acted upon a major decision knowing that Steven was either outright against the idea or not solidly on board with it only three times. One time was the day I’d torn up the enrollment deposit in front of the parochial school we’d decided to send Alex to, knowing that I wanted my children to go to public schools. Another time, I’d decided to bid on the original ramshackle beach house on Lake Michigan, which I did without Steven ever having seen it. He’d ended up agreeing to purchase it, and now shared my view that the years we spent in that funky little place had ended up being precious to our family even beyond our expectations.