Apple Orchard Bride

by Jessica Keller

  Her father continued. “My hope will remain with my faith, no matter what happens to my body.”

  No matter what happens to my body. Her throat tightened as if someone had shoved a bundle of itchy wool into her mouth and forced her to swallow. Dad didn’t know what those words meant to her, but they still felt like a slap.

  “I don’t like it. I don’t like admitting that you’re not a superhero.” Her voice shook.

  “Every superhero has their foil. I guess PPMS is mine.”

  “I love you, Dad. You know that, right?”

  “I love you, too, sweetheart. I love you very much.”

  She had to lighten the mood, or else she’d dwell on her thoughts too much and start crying. Besides, she was stressing him out and she didn’t want to be the cause of any more issues for him. “So...what you’re saying is we should paint the Batman symbol on your motorized chair when they deliver it?”

  “Ha! I don’t know if I’d go that far. Besides, we heroes like to be more covert.” He winked. “If you don’t mind.”

  Her Camry kicked up a cloud of dust as they drove down the driveway. For her father’s sake, she parked as close to the house as she could. Just like yesterday, her eyes were drawn to the sagging and worn-down parts of their home. It had once been a beautiful place. Dad used to paint it a brilliant white every summer, even though the orchard demanded so much of his time during that season.

  Now the house matched its owner.

  “He’s changed.” Dad’s voice dragged her attention away from assessing the house.

  Jenna followed the path of his vision to where Toby carried a basket of apples into their barn. He’d been out mending the fence when Jenna conducted her morning perimeter walk. Actually, after they’d arrived home from the ER yesterday afternoon, he must have headed back to her ruined Braeburns, because this morning the baby trees were encircled by plastic orange construction fencing. And two of the ones she’d thought were dead, he’d pruned and retied and was trying to save.

  Dad kept talking. “Don’t get me wrong. I always liked him. But he’s different. I mean that in a good way.”

  Jenna yanked the keys from the ignition. “I guess.”

  She didn’t want to think of Toby in a good light. That was dangerous. Feeling anything about her old friend would only lead to hurt. They would never be buddies again. The carefree days of lying in the orchard counting stars were gone forever. He wouldn’t stay here, not indefinitely. Toby’s dreams were bigger than hers. So there was no reason to appreciate him or get attached. Not that she wanted to. Toby was a pest at best and a traitor at worst. She still leaned toward considering him the latter for now.

  She rounded the car and helped her father out.

  He squeezed her arm. “Whatever happened between the two of you? You used to be inseparable. I figured you’d be over the moon about him coming home, but perhaps I was wrong.”

  He pretended not to know me. He made fun of your livelihood. Embarrassed me in front of the whole school. And broke my heart in the process. That didn’t feel like an appropriate answer, so instead she said, “We both grew up.”

  “Now, I’m showing my age here, but bear with your old man. Was there ever anything romantic between the two of you?”

  Not on Toby’s side. Nor would there ever be.

  “We’re two kids who used to play together. That’s all. Nothing more.”

  “Well, the fact that you’re taking a breath belies that. If you’re living, there’s always more. More to experience. More to know. More to laugh about. More is a gift that should be celebrated every day, honeybee. Toby’s back in our lives for a reason. That means he’s part of the more for both of us.”

  Yeah, probably more pain.

  Which was exactly what she was so worried about.

  * * *

  Toby set the crate full of apples on top of the old, rough table that ran the length of one side of the Crests’ barn. He scooped an armful of fruit, placed them in the large washbasin sink and started to scrub them.

  The Crests weren’t farmers, at least not in the normal sense. There were no cows or chickens poking around their ten acres, just apple trees. The barn was separated into three sections—a storage area for equipment, an industrial kitchen area that was set to meet health codes so they could make items to sell and the little storefront in the front of the barn where they sold their goods from the end of September through November, though October was always the busiest time of year.

  Perspiration dotted the space between his shoulder blades. He’d forgotten how much manual labor running the orchard could be. How had Mr. Crest managed the past few years? Toby leaned over the sink and cracked the window, letting in a stream of wind. He dragged in a deep breath of air through his nostrils. Sweet notes from the nearby Fuji, Red Delicious and Gravenstein trees flooded his senses. Those smells were home and happiness. Everything he longed for but could never have—not someone like him, not permanently.

  Jenna and her mom, along with a team of hired seasonal workers, used to spend all of fall in the kitchen area baking pies, making apple-cider donuts and apple dumplings, loaves and muffins, canning applesauce, and cooking apple butter and jelly. Did Jenna do that all alone now? Did the Crests still run the store at all?

  He should have been here. Should have helped them.

  A heavy weight settled in his gut.

  The Crests weren’t his family, not by blood. Even still, he’d spent so many years moping over dreams lost when he could have been of use here. But he could change that now. Toby would be here for them, and he would work hard.

  Maybe his life would actually matter. He could finally prove he wasn’t a failure.

  Okay, that might be asking too much.

  Toby dropped more apples into the sink before turning on the faucet. They needed to be scrubbed and chopped; then he could put them in the apple press. Nothing went to waste at the orchard. They always used all the fallen apples to make cider. This would become a daily process once they opened for the season.

  The side door creaked, drawing his gaze.

  Jenna entered and glanced around. “My dad sent me in here to check on you.” She closed the door and moved a few feet closer. “Making cider?”

  “I figured it was time for the first batch of the season.” He turned off the faucet and pulled the scrub brush off the counter. “You guys still run the store out of the front?”

  “We’ll open next weekend. The pumpkins should be delivered on Wednesday.” She placed a dishtowel over her shoulder, selected a knife from the drawer, gathered a cutting board and joined him by the sink. “You wash, I’ll cut.”

  For a few minutes the only sounds were water sloshing, the rhythmic chops of the knife going through the fleshy apples and a nest of birds outside. When he moved to refill the sink with more apples, Toby snuck another glance at Jenna. Even with her hair tucked back in a ponytail, golden waves framed her face. His eyes ran over her gentle curves. Jenna was beautiful. How had he missed that when he was young?

  Even if he had noticed, he’d never have been worthy of her. She was innocent. Pure. He was...he was every mistake in the book, and then some. Someone like him could never deserve someone like Jenna Crest. Not in a million years. Not when he was in high school, and certainly not now.

  She stopped cutting and looked over at him. “Need something?” She ran the back of her wrist over her forehead.

  He’d been caught staring. Great. Toby cleared his throat as he picked up a few more apples. “How’d your dad’s appointment go?”

  Her knife stilled over the board. “They said...” She took a breath and started again. “They said he should stop walking.” She cut into the apple but then straightened up and rolled her shoulders. “They’re making him get a motorized wheelchair.”

  When Jenna’s mom had
been unable to walk was when her health had really started to go downhill. Hearing the same news about her father had to have hit Jenna hard. “How bad is he?”

  Her forehead wrinkled. She smoothed her fingers over it. “I might as well tell you. I don’t really tell anyone this stuff, or what I told you yesterday about my panic attacks, but I guess I will. It’s not like you wouldn’t figure stuff out, living on our property. Do you know what he has?”

  He knew that look. The one that said “Please don’t make me explain something I don’t want to acknowledge exists.” He knew because he’d worn that expression many times himself. He’d spent his childhood pretending to be okay. Pretending his brother’s illness and death didn’t affect him. Pretending he was the perfect son, athlete, student—anything people wanted him to be—so that he didn’t have to answer questions or be honest about what he really felt. Didn’t have to tell them he hated it all, the death and the questions and trying to be the son who “deserved” to live. It was all an act. Ben had been a better person than him. Would have been a better man. He would have made his life matter. Toby was sure of that.

  Toby knew that in the same way he knew that his own life was a waste.

  But thoughts like that wouldn’t help Jenna. He needed to find a way to get her to talk more. Engage with him. Stop disliking him.

  Toby ran his finger over a splintering crack in the counter. “Primary progressive MS. My mom told me.”

  “Your mom. Of course.” She turned toward him, pressing her hip into the counter. “So how much do you know about us?”

  He shrugged. His mom was a bit of a talker. Some would call her a gossip.

  He wasn’t about to admit that he knew it’d taken her six years through correspondence courses to finally achieve her college degree. “You went to college for journalism. Did some freelance writing for a magazine and newspaper out of—” he held up a finger, thinking back over his conversations with his parents “—Grand Rapids. You lived there for a little bit, right?”

  Her face clouded and she looked away. “Up until six months ago.”

  Toby’s gut kicked a little. Had she left behind a life she loved back in Grand Rapids? A boyfriend? His chest felt tight. Why did that thought bother him so much?

  “Do you miss it?”

  She laughed softly. “I was writing a little, but mostly working at the coffee shop below my apartment. Not exactly earthshaking stuff. I was glad to come back. Relieved, actually. Does that make me a bad person?”

  He was in a similar place—here because his cousin had passed. Something bad had brought him back, but he’d welcomed any sort of direction in his life. “I hope not, because I was happy to come back here, too.”

  “I mean, I had to come back because my father was sick. And I was happy to have a reason to come back—not happy he’s sick, but...does that make sense?” Guilt made her face tense.

  A part of him really wanted to open up his arms and offer her a hug, but she wouldn’t accept that. At least, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t and wasn’t brave enough to try without knowing he wouldn’t get shot down.

  “Completely. You can say anything around me—you know that. We always functioned with the umbrella. What’d we call it?” He squinted, looking at her for the answer.

  She sighed, and the tiniest trace of a smile pulled at her lips. “The Umbrella of Grace. Whenever we wanted to say something blunt or hard, we’d pretend to open an umbrella and both stand under it and call it the Umbrella of Grace. We could say whatever we wanted without judgment.”

  “As long as the umbrella was up.” Warmth spread across his chest. How had he forgotten about that? More important, what else had he forgotten when it came to their friendship? He’d blocked most of it out when he left for college, too aware that if he held on to those memories, relived them, it would make him miss things he couldn’t have.

  But was it possible for him and Jenna to pretend? To act like they did in the old days? As if life could exist simply on the orchard, and they could forget failures and pressure from the outside world? If Toby was excellent at anything, it was pretending.

  Toby wiped his hands off on his shirt, then pretended to click an umbrella open and duck under it. “Want to come under here with me?”

  She braced her free hand on the counter. “Those days are over. You and I both know that.” Her voice shook.

  He dropped his hands from his imaginary umbrella. Why didn’t she trust him? “Jenna? What happened? What—?”

  “I should go check on my dad.” She set down her knife and made to leave.

  “Hey, stay.” Toby caught her arm and gently let his hand slide down to encircle her wrist. “Stay with me.”

  She focused on where his fingers wrapped around her. For a moment, he thought she was going to shove away from him. Instead she studied his hand as if she were a scientist looking through a microscope at a new life-form.

  Toby playfully swung her arm between them. “You okay?”

  “That.” She licked her lips. “You grabbing me. It should bother me. Why doesn’t it bother me?”

  He didn’t understand what she meant, but he was glad she wasn’t upset with him. Toby took a deep breath. “Tell me about your dad. That’s where we started before the conversation got derailed.”

  She twisted to lean against the counter, lightly pulling out of his hold. “He has trouble sleeping. His hands tremble. Six months ago, I didn’t know much about MS, and now I feel like I’m an encyclopedia for it.”

  “I’m sorry.” That her dad had an illness. That she was the only family he had, the only one who could shoulder taking care of him long-term. That she’d be alone someday after her dad passed. That her life had been upended by it all.

  He was sorry for all of it. But he didn’t have to explain. She got it.

  “He was diagnosed seven years ago.” Her shoulders sagged. “He kept that from me. From everyone. If he had told me when he started feeling bad, I would have left school. I could have left before my sophomore year. Before...” Her gaze sought his, desperate for encouragement. “He was suffering quietly that whole time, and I missed it. How did I miss it?”

  “Hey.” He clamped his hand on her shoulder and gave a gentle shake. “Don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault. Nothing you did or didn’t do caused this or made it worse. You have to believe that, or else questioning it will eat you alive.”

  “You were so young.” She looked at the ground. “With Ben.”

  Even fifteen years later, he couldn’t talk about Ben. Didn’t want to. Not even with Jenna.

  Toby’s arm slacked. “Don’t worry about the motorized wheelchair. I get what it means to you...why it’s such a hard thing. But I’ll help. I’ll build a ramp into the house this weekend.”

  Jenna’s eyes went wide. “I didn’t even think about that. I should probably move his bedroom downstairs, too.”

  Toby mapped out their farmhouse in his mind. “Yes, the bedroom can go into his office. That’s a great idea.”

  “And we’ll move out the rugs and install some handrails.” The first real smile lit up her face. It brought life to her blue eyes, along with the excitement and freedom he was used to seeing there. He’d counted on these expressions from her. She was his beacon of hope, his best friend. Back again. If only for the span of a few heartbeats.

  Toby’s heart twisted. He’d do anything to get her to smile more around him. “We’ll make that place safe for him.”

  “Thank you.” She eased away from the counter. “I really should head in and check on him. I’ll talk to him about moving his room downstairs.”

  “I’ll finish the cider and head back out to the orchard.” He jerked his head in the direction of the tree line. “It looks like there’s going to be a great harvest. You’ve worked hard here, all on your own. You’re a strong woman, Jenn
a. I hope you know that.”

  She tossed down the dishrag and muttered, “If only that was true.”

  He opened his mouth to argue with her, but Jenna headed toward the door. She glanced over her shoulder as she exited. “Bring the cider to dinner. You’re welcome to join us around five.”

  “I’ll have Kasey.” He pushed his hands into his pockets.

  “Kasey’s welcome, too. I want to meet her.”

  “Then we’ll be there.”

  Chapter Four

  Jenna dumped chunks of mushrooms into the skillet, followed by a chopped onion and a handful of fresh thyme, pressed garlic, and a dash of salt and pepper. The mixture popped and sizzled in the hot pan, and the earthy aroma from the blend of seasonings made her mouth water. She’d skipped lunch again, hadn’t she? Not intentionally. She’d just gotten busy. Jenna rolled her shoulders once. There was way too much to get done before their orchard opened to the public next weekend.

  Dad clanked a cup with a plate as he set the table.

  She pivoted to watch his movements. How long until he couldn’t move at all? Until he lost his sight? Until...?

  She had to stop. Those thoughts weren’t helpful. More often than not, his gait was jerky and his arms volleyed between the extremes of shaky and stiff, robotic. He tried to hide it. Tried to quell her worries. But watching him made fear claw through her stomach all the same.

  Jenna tightened her grip on the skillet’s handle.

  Not my dad. Don’t do this to him. Why is this happening? Why don’t You care?

  She absently scraped the spatula through the mushrooms. “You don’t have to do that,” she said to her father.

  “I’m perfectly capable of setting a table.” He had four more glasses tucked between his arm and chest.