Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees

by Janie DeVos

  No one had seen her since the time of Ray’s attack on me. We’d looked for her with the help of Ronnie Coons as our guide, and finally found the cabin where she and Ray had lived. It was isolated, which did not surprise me, and it was horrible, which surprised me even less. It was filthy and nearly devoid of furniture. Old and torn curtains covered the windows, and a battered table with two equally worn chairs stood in the tiny kitchen area. In the one bedroom, pressed snuggly up against one wall, was a rope bed that had seen far better days. A small nightstand stood by it, with an oil lamp on top. There were several wooden pegs along one wall and I spotted a couple of pieces of Merry Beth’s old clothing hanging from them. The pantry off the kitchen—a kitchen with no running water—was pitifully bare, and there were just a few pieces of firewood remaining on the cabin’s rickety back porch. As I stood there looking around and thinking that I would never be able to fathom why Merry had chosen this abusive, desolate, and poverty-ridden road she traveled, I thought of Mama’s irrational and troubled mind, and realized that the apple had truly fallen close to the tree.

  We never did find her, although Prescott talked to one of the neighbors—distant though he was—who said the couple had talked about heading to San Francisco once Merry’s “inheritance” came in. We knew what that “inheritance” really was, and it still hurt me beyond words that Merry would have shared the terrible responsibility if our family had lost the business because of Ray’s theft. And she would have also played a direct role—although perhaps unwittingly so—in my death. Her betrayal was almost a physically painful thing and I did not want it to weigh me down on this special day. So, as hard as it was, I pushed the terrible memories from my mind and got back to the wonderful task at hand, marrying Jack Harris.

  I was closing up my trunk when Grandma walked in with my wedding gown. She had made it for me. We’d allowed ourselves the extravagance of purchasing some heavy cream-colored satin and lace through a special order from Taft’s. As she helped me dress, we went over all of the ancient rituals that brides have adhered to through the ages, checking to make sure we had covered each one: The dress was my “something new.” My “something blue” were small sapphire and gold earrings Grandma had given to me, which her mother had given to her. Lydia Harris loaned us her family Bible, to be used in the ceremony, and that filled the part of the “something borrowed.” I had told Grandma some days before that the earrings could double for my “something old,” but she told me she had something special to fill that particular role, but would give it to me when I was getting dressed for the wedding. Then, just before putting on my veil, she reached into her dress pocket, pulled out a large gold locket with my new initials engraved on the front, and had me lift my hair while she fastened it into place.

  “It’s not the locket that’s old, Rachel,” she said, turning me around to see how it looked. “It’s what’s inside. But you can’t open it until after the ceremony.”

  Thanking her for yet another lovely gift, I promised to wait to see what lay inside, and allowed her to finish helping me dress.

  “Now, let me have a good look at ya.” Her inspection started at the top; from the lace veil that would not cover my face but would rest lightly on my head and flow down to my waist; to my lace sleeves, with the satin-covered buttons at the wrists; to my high-necked lace bodice which ended in a point at my waistline, both in front and in back. Then her inspection moved to the satin skirt portion of my dress, which cascaded down to the tips of my matching satin shoes in front, while the back of the skirt trailed outward in a short train.

  “You’re beautiful, Rachel.” She smiled a rich, broad smile that told me I truly must be so. “Are you ready?” I was too emotional to answer, so I stepped up to her, hugged her tightly and nodded my head against her cheek in answer. “Then, let’s go,” she said, though the words were hoarsely whispered. But neither of us moved. We just stood there holding on to each other, knowing that our lives would never be the same, but knowing that the directions they were taking were the right ones.

  Before letting her go, I whispered, “I love you, Grandma.” The words were spoken so softly and sweetly that even to my own ears they sounded like they’d come from a little girl.

  “I love you, too, honey. Always have, and always, always will.” Finally, she patted my back, turned away from me while rapidly wiping away an escaping tear, then opened my door and called out to Prescott to come take my trunk out to the buggy.

  CHAPTER 43

  Something Old

  A soft snow fell outside the warmed window, and I could see my reflection cast by the brightly burning fireplace behind me and the small table lamp on the nightstand beside me. It was not unusual to have snow this late in April, but it was still an unexpected surprise. It had started soon after we’d departed Howling Cut after the reception, and continued to fall after we arrived at the Grove Park Inn, in Asheville.

  The day had been perfect . . . well, almost. Had Merry Beth been there to share the day with us, then it would have been perfect. I sighed and leaned my forehead against the window. How wonderful the wedding and reception had been otherwise. Prescott had given me away, and prior to that, Sam had escorted Grandma down to their rightful seats up front. Standing by a long table crowded with various delicious foods during the reception, I’d heard Sam tell Grandma that the next time he “walked her down the aisle, they would be the ones gettin’ rice pelted at ’em.” Grandma looked surprised and pleased, and actually blushed at his statement. Perhaps, I thought, he’s finally free of the chains that bound him for so long—namely guilt, and the conviction that Grandma deserved better. At sixty-seven, he was still handsome, with a thick shock of gold and silver hair, and dark-brown eyes that sparkled, especially when he looked at Grandma. And Grandma was still capable of turning a few heads with her now shoulder-length, naturally bobbed salt-and-pepper hair and vivid Carolina-blue eyes. Their looks were very different, but they balanced each other well.

  Now came the hard part: coming together with Jack—physically and mentally—the way I so wanted to. I wanted him to know how deeply he was loved, and to do that I needed to show him in the most intimate and ancient way. But every time I thought about it, all I could remember was the pain and revulsion I’d felt as Ray had plunged himself into me. Each time I thought of it, I began to shake. And I was afraid it wasn’t just from the memory, but from the fear of having the same thing happen over and over, even though it would be with Jack. Would I freeze up each and every time, I wondered, with no chance of ever thawing out?

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Jack had come to the window to stand beside me, wrapping his left arm around my waist. I felt myself tense up when he did, and I silently admonished myself for it. The last thing I wanted was to make my husband feel like he wasn’t.

  “Rachel. Turn around. Look at me.” Self-consciously, I did so. He had thoughtfully given me a few minutes alone (making up some transparent excuse about needing to ask the hotel clerk at the front desk about dinner reservations) while I got out of my traveling suit—the blue one I’d worn at the courthouse—and into my lovely peach-colored negligee (a gift from Lydia Harris, no less). Now he was seeing me in it for the first time, and I felt terribly vulnerable. “You’re terrified, aren’t you?” he gently asked. All I could do was nod my head for fear that I’d start crying. “Is it because of what happened with Ray?” Jack asked. Again, I just nodded. “Rachel, what Ray did to you is not what a man does to a woman he loves. What he did was violent and cruel. That’s not what making love is. I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to do—or aren’t ready to do. Rachel, do you trust me?” I whispered yes so softly that he asked me to repeat myself. “Good. That’s enough for now,” he continued. “Just come lie down with me. I won’t ask you to do anything but to just lie next to me. Would that be all right?” he asked, tilting my chin up and looking directly into my eyes.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Tenderly lifting me into his arm
s, he carried me over to the turned down bed, and laid me on it as carefully as he would a small child. Jack watched me closely as he lay down by me, pulling me close to him. I snuggled my head onto his chest as he toyed with my long curly hair, and gently stroked my back as we talked about the day, the people who’d celebrated with us, and the many amusing and heartwarming things that had taken place. We laughed. We kissed. We talked. And with the help of my patient, kind, and naturally skilled husband, I relaxed. Then, slowly, all conversation ceased, and we came together in a way that only love can make right. And as we reached that wonderful, intense release, I finally knew what being complete, whole and truly free felt like.

  I slipped out of bed soon after daybreak, and slid on the large dress shirt Jack had worn the day before. I glanced back as I did and smiled at my snoring husband’s contented face. Nothing could have awakened him . . . well, one thing maybe, but it would have to wait. I quietly crept over to the embers in the fireplace, placed another couple of logs into it from a cast-iron container sitting to the side, and knelt in front of the building flames to examine the contents of the gold locket, which I’d not removed the night before. Prying open the small catch, I found a tightly folded piece of paper lying within. There was writing on both sides and I curiously began to read the note that was written in my grandmother’s lovely script:

  My dearest Rachel,

  I have waited a long time to write this letter, but there was never any doubt in my mind that it would be written to someone other than you.

  The people who become the guardians of these words have been chosen for their unusual strength, wisdom, unselfishness and courage. And you possess all of these qualities. Thus it is only natural that you should become the next Wart Buyer.

  I do not have to wait until my dying breath to pass the secret on to you, for it is my choice as to when the torch is passed. Furthermore, now that you have become a Harris, there will be no conflict of having two wart buyers in one family. So, I hand over the responsibility to you with great love and confidence. May you fulfill the promise of keeping people’s secrets locked away in your heart, as all wart buyers have done before you.

  When it comes time for you to pass these words on, may your choice be as easy as mine was for me.

  Now, the Wart Buyer’s secret for getting rid of warts is . . .

  I quietly laughed at the unbelievable simplicity of the remedy. As I reread the letter in order to commit to memory everything she’d written, it did not go unnoticed that she had reemphasized those three things she staunchly believed one must learn to keep: dignity, promises, and secrets. And I realized that these things were as important to the Wart Buyer’s customer as was the remedy. Throughout my life she had repeated these three things over and over to me. And, now, she felt that I truly understood their value and the importance of living by them.

  There was one last thing to do before returning to the warmth of my bed, and the warmth of my new husband. Balling the letter up, I tossed it into the fireplace and locked the first secret away in my heart.

  EPILOGUE

  The Harrises

  Howling Cut, 1933

  “Kathryn Willa! Do not take a bite out of an apple and put it back!” I said, closing the orchard’s ledger and rising from my desk as I tried to smother a laugh. My three-year-old daughter, Kathryn Willa, looked at me for a brief moment before defiantly resuming her relentless dig through a small bushel of apples. She was a true combination of Jack and me, with Jack’s dark hair and my facial structure, but her green eyes were hers alone. “Kathryn!” I admonished again, as I stepped around my nearly two-year-old son who slept atop a folded quilt inside an apple basket. Scooping her up, I nuzzled my nose into her sweet-smelling little neck. “Let’s leave the few good apples alone and see what your daddy’s up to, shall we?”

  We walked out the back door of the orchard’s gift store and stood looking out at the lush, fruit-bearing trees below. Hearing voices just off to the right, I turned and saw Jack handing an empty bushel and bamboo pole to a new man he’d hired just that morning, and watched as he explained the method of gathering the fruit. Kathryn, or “Kate,” as she was most often called, heard and saw him, too, and began wriggling in an effort to be put down. Shouting a high-pitched version of Daddy, she went careening down the small hillside and slammed into his legs, knocking herself back onto her bottom. Apple picking was immediately forgotten as Jack lifted her high above his head while she squealed her delight.

  Life had been good to us and I was never more aware of it than I was at this special time of the day, as the sun set low on the mountains and ribbons of peach, gold, and purple melded into the darkening sky. Another day’s chapter was at an end, adding to a story I was happy to be a part of.

  On the hillside directly across from me, and above the highest tree line in the orchard, men were finishing up their day’s work on the new two-story house that Jack and I were having built for our expanding family. I rubbed my growing belly and laughed, thinking about the fact that in just a few months another little Harris would, undoubtedly, wreak havoc in our lives. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lydia gathering up a few pieces of clothing from the clothesline behind the old house. It was the original orchard home, and the one that she would be staying in. In our nearly completed new home, Jack and I would be close enough to be there for my aging and oftentimes needy mother-in-law, but we would also have the privacy that any young family needs. Lydia seemed a bit put out by our plans at first, but then she started thinking about “wonderful ways to redecorate her home,” and suddenly the whole situation greatly appealed to her. I laughed to myself at her recent obsession with fabric possibilities, and paint selections. At last she had a little bit of money to be frivolous, and I was delighted for her.

  Our two families were doing well, and I stayed involved with both sides. I still tended to the books at the mill, but shortly after our marriage, I took over the accounting at the orchard, as well. Lydia was never very good at it and she far preferred working in the gift shop. Harriet was in Asheville in nursing school and Jack was too busy with the other aspects of running an orchard to be concerned with the accounting part of it. So, by default, the task fell to me. I didn’t mind, though. I loved the work, and loved being involved with both businesses.

  Prescott had continued to build a solid and highly respected furniture and timber business. And that respect had served him well, for he had been able to keep the place going even when the stock market crashed. Though it was a dark time in our country, the country folks had survived well. And a lot of our survival was attributed to the fact that we had been self-sustaining and self-reliant all along. Because we grew, made, traded, or raised most everything we could ever need, the Great Depression was not felt too greatly by the Appalachian Mountain people.

  However, fewer people were ordering furniture, so Prescott and I put our heads together. Depression or not, the railroad was moving forward and it needed tracks in order to continue doing so. With tracks came the endless need of wooden ties, and we were able to secure a large government contract for the continuous production of them. The Hollis Mill wasn’t as fortunate, or, perhaps, their reputation for shady, borderline-legitimate dealings finally caught up with them, and they shut their doors permanently in the summer of 1931.

  The apple orchard had found a way to survive, too, through the simple fact that babies need to eat. Those little mouths out in the rural areas continued to get their usual sustenance from their families’ gardens, cows’ milk and cream, and their hens’ eggs. The city folks, however, relied almost entirely on store-bought products and they fed their babies, even if they could not afford to eat themselves. Fortunately for us, one of the products the city folks still bought was Gerber’s baby food applesauce. Several months into the Depression, I boarded a train out of Howling Cut, complete with a lovely hand-selected bag of our best apples, and headed for Fremont, Michigan, and a meeting with Mr. Daniel Gerber, himself. An agreement was reached with th
e nice man, and an even nicer contract was signed, and our York apples—the same apple that Jack had told me he had “high hopes for” years before—became the main ingredient in babies’ applesauce in cities across America. Because of that gem of an apple, we were able to buy out Maybree Lomax’s share of the orchard, giving the Harris family full ownership.

  Sam, true to his word, walked down the aisle with Grandma, with rice pelting them, just three months after Jack and I were married. Grandma used the excuse that it just didn’t seem proper to be running a boarding house with a bunch of single men living in it, and her being unmarried. So, Sam, in a “valiant effort to save her reputation,” as he was so fond of saying, did the right thing and married her. But the reality was that they were foolish about each other, and to be around them was to be around two people who acted like young teenagers in love. At long last, their love had prevailed.

  As far as Merry Beth went, I had only seen her one time, and that was at the baptism of Kathryn. As Jack held the baby still for Reverend Hamlyn’s sprinkling of holy water, I glanced out the side window of the church just beyond Jack’s shoulder and saw my sister standing a good ways back from the window, still close enough to see, but too far away to be a part of our family again. She looked disheveled and much too old for her age, and my heart broke for her—and for our loss of her. I didn’t do or say anything at the moment, although I quickly walked outside in search of her afterward, but she was nowhere to be found. I never did tell anyone. I figured she didn’t want anyone to know or she would have come in.

  As a matter of fact, there were a lot of secrets that were bound to me by then. Some heavier than others, and some harder to hold, but I would always hold them close, protecting them, until one day they would be buried, along with me, beneath our beloved apple trees.