The most painful disagreement, however, had occurred when all our fertility treatments hadn’t worked and adoption became more lengthy and problematic than we’d thought. Steven had suggested hiring a woman to be a surrogate for us—someone who could produce a child for us using Steven’s sperm through artificial insemination. Surrogacy would give Steven a biological child, which he wanted. Much as I wanted to make a baby with him, if that couldn’t happen, a surrogate arrangement would give us the possibility of a child with Steven’s deep brown eyes and dark, curly hair. The vision pulled at my heartstrings. I thought I wanted to do this—for him, and for us.
So Steven found a willing woman and arranged an artificial insemination. That attempt didn’t work, however—making it another devastation to our torturous attempts to overcome my infertility. Afterward, I realized that I couldn’t cope with having a child through a surrogate—the payments, along with the intentionality of producing a child and then taking it away from its natural mother, didn’t sit well with me. I told Steven I didn’t want him to try again and he reluctantly agreed, though he argued strenuously that thousands of people had had children through sperm donation and a woman donating her egg and womb was no different. I just couldn’t get there.
Each time we’d come to a precipice of major disagreement in our lives together, we’d pulled back from rupture. I worried we might be approaching another such crossroads.
Steven did not want to commit to a life and a business in Northport, and I did not want to wait any longer to give it a try. I wanted to pursue this business. I had bought this property, had sold three of its five lakefront lots to reduce taxes and restore the equity I would need to invest in a hard apple cider business. I had studied and researched and felt prepared to join forces with people who would help me get my project off the ground—possibly the Aikens, possibly Alex.
Steven was ready with his response, interrupting my reverie. “If you’re trying to bring him back to Michigan, why up there, where it will be hard to find a relationship, let alone a PA job in orthopedics? Whose needs are you talking about here?”
“Alex is not a child, Steven. He isn’t going to do this if it doesn’t make sense for him. He’s not interested in a life in Ann Arbor. I’m exploring whether he wants to be helpful on the business and organizational side of my project, but he’s exploring making a desirable life move for himself.”
“You aren’t being a parent! Why are you pulling him toward something that isn’t good for him?”
I lost my temper. “Did you just hear anything I said? You know, I think this conversation isn’t going anywhere. I’ll talk to you later.” The ice in my voice matched the shards I felt in the pit of my stomach. I clicked the End button and banged the phone into the charger.
Moments later I let the phone ring through to the answering machine, knowing it would be an irate message from Steven. “Did you hang up on me? Don’t call back unless you apologize!” I already had my hands in the potato chip bag.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . . As if the cosmic punisher heard my thoughts, on my next long stride over the glistening sand, my shoe slid out from under me and I fell hard on a veneer of ice, wrenching my knee and losing my breath as my back hit the ground. I lay there for a long moment, the surge of pain further robbing me of breath. I won’t be able to move.
I’ll freeze to death before anyone finds me. The chill of the frozen beach found its way through my running jacket as I gasped for air. I cursed again the absence of cell phone coverage on this whole tip of the peninsula. Pain and fear forced out tears of anger and frustration that had been locked in my throat all morning. I sat up and worked to slowly bend the twisted knee. I could move; it didn’t feel like anything was broken. Still, it took several minutes before the pain subsided enough for me to try standing.
The beach ended in a spit of rocks, displayed magnificently on this brilliant Sunday, all tumbled by the forces of wind, water, and sand. Above, bleached golden tufts of dune grass bent in graceful arcs from mounds of snow frozen onto the dune. I stopped to rest and dry my eyes. With a last look at the lake, lapping gently at the treacherous beach, I turned and scaled the dune past the log cabin standing sentry on Cathead Point. I’d rented the cabin out for most of the summer, but on some autumn nights, I’d come to sleep at this tip of solid land, listening to the rush of water on the windward side of the point and the lap of the waves as they rounded down on the other side into the bay to the east. The original bentwood furniture and hand-drawn map framed in birch bark still graced the ample main room. Tiny bedrooms perched atop the steep oak staircase. Even though it was closed and boarded for the winter, I could feel the thrill of its long history—a history I now felt was mine. I belong here now! I’m part of the place, and it’s part of me.
I limped through the final quarter of a mile to the farmhouse, down the center of the point on a flat, sandy road. Even in the March cold, the scent of pine and cedar greeted me as footfall after footfall crunched through the light snow. Alex might be at work and unavailable, but I’d try to Skype him with our lousy internet. He could at least look at my knee and tell me what I needed to do.
I determined not to bring my struggle with Steven into our conversation. Alex’s precise radar for parental discord and his unerring sense of how to turn it back on us had trained me well to keep marital disagreement out of the conversation with all my children.
I rounded the bend of the road as it wound into the clearing where the house presided over acres of orchard and open fields. Clinging to the railing, I mounted the stairs of the back porch. Shedding shoes, hat, anorak, and fleece, I opened the door to the kitchen and welcomed the burn on my cheeks as they met the blast of warmth from the tile wood stove. I grabbed my laptop from the table, hobbled to the freezer for an icepack, and headed for the couch.
I was in luck; I reached Alex right away. He was perched on a kitchen stool in athletic shorts and a T-shirt, cold be damned. He leaned comfortably on the wide countertop, his large hands cradling a huge coffee mug.
I tried to keep my voice from quavering. “Hey Toot. The temperature took a nice drop here overnight. It’s a little icy out there—and I just took a colossal spill at the beach. Would you take a look at my knee?” I leaned back and tilted the laptop to display my already-swollen knee.
Alex straightened. “Tell me how you fell.” He bent toward the screen. When I didn’t answer right away he looked up again, and I described the fall. He instructed me to palpate and move my knee in different directions, and then asked me to lie down flat.
“Can you bend it?” he asked.
I winced when I tried, but was able to bring my leg to a reasonable angle before the pain stopped me.
“I think you’re in luck. I’m guessing it’s just a sprain—but of course without feeling it myself, I can’t be sure. It’s unlikely that anything major tore. Lucky for you, I happen to have left a knee brace in the sports closet up there. It’s probably on the big side, but it’ll work for today. We’ll see how it feels tomorrow and decide if you need x-rays or not.
You should definitely take some ibuprofen and ice it for a while. And prop your leg on some cushions. You’re going to take it easy on that knee today, but every hour you need to move around a little.”
“Okay, well can I at least get cleaned up? Can I take a bath?”
“Ice first.”
Alex finished giving me instructions, then promised to check in later.
“Thanks so much, sweetie.” He’d just saved me a forty-minute drive to the nearest ER.
After icing my knee as instructed, I filled the tub for a bath, though I knew it was too early to treat my knee to heat. As I settled into the warmth, I could still feel cold in the sting of my thighs. I stretched my lower spine in the soothing water.
Why do I want to go into business with Alex? Why not Andrew or Seth? I’d actually hoped that Andrew and Carrie would move up to Northport and join me some day. For now, Carrie had to finish graduat
e school and find work as a nurse anesthetist. If the business worked, Andrew might want to be a part of it eventually, but for now, after all his years of Coast Guard duty elsewhere, Carrie wanted to live downstate near her family, and there were many law enforcement options for Andrew where they were.
And Seth, who worked for an energy start-up firm in Chicago, loved to visit but found Traverse City too sleepy. He would go back to school to achieve his goal of striking start-up gold in the burgeoning energy field.
Alex was the only one potentially ready and available to help me with this cider project. But was he ready? Steven’s objections weighed heavily on me as I slid underwater for a last soak.
Chapter 6
Two consecutive days of brilliant sunshine is a gift any time during a Michigan winter, but it is a special treasure for the fruit grower when it comes late in the season. Charlie Aiken had pruners in hand when I pulled into the orchard. Sunlight glinted off crusted snow on the two-track as I headed toward him from the Flex, which I left at the top of the road. I could not make my way delicately over the surface in my bulky boots, and amusement played in Charlie’s eyes as he watched my feet crunch and lift each step of the way, as if I were walking on chewing gum.
“Every move a picture, huh Charlie,” I called, trying not to sound breathless on top of it all. I didn’t mind providing the morning’s entertainment, since Charlie would provide the professional development. Winter into early spring is pruning and training time in the northern orchard. The five hundred four-year-old trees surrounding us were in the prime stage to establish a strong central leader trunk and three or four fundamental branches extending horizontally in different directions. This structure would maximize fruit bearing for the next twenty or thirty years. Charlie and I were going to prune and train—my first hands-on contribution to our prospective joint business venture.
Yarlington Mill, Dabinet, Kingston Black, Golden russet, Brown Snout, Galarina, and Medaille. The varietal names rolled off my mental tongue like old English sonnets. Charlie had eighty of each type, and I was interested to see if I could detect any differences at all in the young trees. The distinguishing characteristics I had learned to note between types of fruits—bark color and texture, placement of blossom cluster buds, suckering tendencies—I had yet to learn within apple varieties.
Charlie led the way to the top of a gentle rise at the east end of the five-acre orchard. “The height over here and the long day of exposure to western sun puts these trees at least a week ahead of the ones at the other end,” he said, “so we’ll start here.”
I followed him, grinning to myself. I’d already figured out that the eastern side of the orchard would bloom first, and that these trees would also be most at risk for blossom freeze damage.
How would this work between Charlie and me? I had found myself in Abbie-the-warrior mode on the ride down this morning, with an unsettled stomach and quickened pulse, sensing that today would be a test. My skills as a pruner, and the development of a working relationship with Charlie, were on the line.
I decided to choose my tree first and see whether Charlie would join me to observe or comment, or work on his own. These were, after all, his trees, and the investment to date, both financial and in sweat equity, had been entirely his. If I were he, I would be watching my every move—from a respectful distance. And that’s exactly what he did.
I stood back and studied the healthy young apple tree before me. The central leader and the three strong side branches were all there. I saw no dead wood to trim out. I noted new side branches, one of which stretched up from the trunk at almost a thirty-degree angle, and several straight vertical suckers that had to come out. I’d sharpened my pruners and lopper early this morning, and they hung, along with a small tree saw, from my tool belt. Though I’d never had my own orchard, I’d always had tree fruit in my home garden, and in my training as a Master Gardener, I’d learned the basics of fruit tree pruning. When I’d bought the farmhouse, I’d begun to work on the four ancient apple trees that remained from an old orchard that had once existed on the property.
The suckers and upright branches were the first to go, to maintain an open, airy shape that would increase the tree’s disease and pest resistance. Next, the upper limbs had to be trimmed shorter than the ones below; the idea was to end up with a shape like a Christmas tree. I searched along for spots with well-shaped blossom cluster buds and trimmed immediately beyond them. I stepped back to judge my progress, and felt Charlie doing the same.
My last task was to cut out or place a spreader between the trunk and the new thirty-degree branch. The new shoot occupied a functional place in the overall shape of the tree; I decided to keep it. I turned back to Charlie, and without a word, he reached into his tool cart and handed me a forked plastic branch spreader, which I wedged between the trunk and limb while Charlie tied the center of the branch to stakes that he pounded into the frozen ground. When we were done, I looked at him as he surveyed the tree. He gave a clear nod, and we moved on. If only children and husbands could be pruned to grow the way you want them to this easily . . .
The morning flew as we worked, and despite the cold temperatures, we soon shed our heavy outer shells and wore only down vests. By noon, I was thoroughly hungry.
“How about some lunch?” I asked. “I made some sandwiches, if you’re interested.” I looked up at Charlie and could see he was tired too. We’d done a good bit of hard labor.
“Sounds great,” he said. “Let’s go in and I’ll make you something hot to drink. Maybe even scare up a beer.”
“Come on, Charles, winter is when you check out the competition and do some tasting,” I said with a chuckle. “Haven’t you got some cider to try?”
With Melissa at work and her kids in school, we were alone in the kitchen. The gorgeous Scandinavian masonry stove throwing heat at us from the far side of the room was what had inspired me to put one in my own kitchen. Charlie stoked it with a new log, and I went to work on the stacked turkey sandwich I’d made for myself. Charlie broke out a very dry cider from a maker on the west side of the state, and also poured us each a steaming cup of his special cleansing tea, before sitting and devouring the eggplant and feta I’d fixed for him. The cider he sipped at, but didn’t really drink.
Charlie’s stringent diet, begun after a cancer diagnosis ten years ago, involved a complex system of fasts and teas, as well as a lengthy list of allowed, required, and forbidden foods. He looked more a sophisticated, urban business type (which he had been for most of his adult life) than a holistic medicine advocate, but no one would argue with the success of the regimen. After being given only months to live, he had survived beyond the ten-year mark.
I liked the cleansing tea with its combination of herb, flower, and pepper flavors. I also figured that given my cozy relationship with the scotch bottle, some cleansing would work just fine for me too.
“I met with Lance Kupfer about renovating my small barn into a cider shed. I’ve already done the roof, and he’ll have an estimate on the rest to me soon,” I told Charlie.
He nodded.
“Then I’m heading downstate,” I said. “Oh, and I’ve booked an October trip to New Hampshire to see how they’re making cider out there.”
Charlie looked up from his tea and smiled. “Well, good. Let me know if you need any contacts. Made that same trip myself about ten years ago now. Who you going to see?”
“I’ve arranged to meet David Waters and tour Framinghill Ciders. If I’m going to get into pressing and cider making, I want to scout out the best there is.”
“Are you sure you want to get into the pressing?” Charlie’s gaze turned penetrating. “You can mix and store and age the juice without getting into that whole mess.”
“I know.” Charlie’s gentle challenge pricked the sore spot made by Steven’s doubts and my own. “I’m not really sure, but I want to understand what would be involved. This other guy I’m in touch with in New Hampshire knows Waters pretty well. It’
s just research, Charlie. If it doesn’t work for the whole operation, I won’t do it, believe me.” I knew we were feeling our way along this idea of joining forces, and the morning had gone well. We’d made it to another level of connection, and I wanted Charlie to trust me.
We finished lunch, and soon I was steering the Flex onto M-22 toward home. The winter day remained beautiful; wishing to share it, I dialed Seth’s phone number while I still had a signal. To my surprise, he picked up immediately.
“Hey sweetie, I thought you’d be at work and I would leave a message.”
“Hi Momma, yeah, I’m on my way back from a meeting, so I can talk for a few minutes.” He sounded as though he was walking, and I imagined him on the streets of Chicago, tall and slim, his shearling coat and the wool scarf I’d knitted him keeping him warm in the windy freeze. “I actually planned to call you tonight,” he said. “I have a friend here whose apartment got destroyed last night in a house fire. They’re okay, but they’re obviously freaked out and kind of don’t know where to start. Didn’t you put together a kit or something for people with fires? Do I remember that right?”
“Oh god, I’m so sorry. Yeah, I did, actually. Who is it?”
“I don’t know if you remember Ashley—she’s a friend from Northwestern. I think we took her out once with a big group for dinner. It’s her and her boyfriend’s apartment.”
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