The Simplicity of Cider

by Amy E. Reichert

  Isaac found the bottle and his stomach dropped. Fentanyl.

  “You’re leaving these out on the counter where anyone could grab them?” Where Bass could grab them? Or Sanna after a stressed-out day? It was like seeing a cobra in a baby’s crib—unpredictable and deadly.

  “Of course. It’s right next to the water, so I can get my pills and water in the same place.”

  “You can’t keep them out in the open like this. I’ll keep track of it for you. You let me know when you need it, and I’ll give you the right dose.”

  Isaac’s breathing grew shallow and fast. Einars crossed his arms and studied him. Isaac knew he wasn’t making sense and he didn’t know how to explain without telling him about Bass’s mom.

  “There something you want to tell me about?”

  Isaac’s hands shook as he opened the bottle and took out one pill. He gave it to Einars with a cup of water, the bottle still clutched in his hand. The older man took the pill and water, then set his fingers on the bottle, but Isaac didn’t let it go. Letting it go would be the same as putting that cobra in the crib—he’d be responsible if Einars took too many. If he kept them, he’d be in control and no one could get hurt.

  “I knew someone . . . It didn’t end well.”

  “I don’t know about your someone, but I don’t like taking the damn things. They make me sleepy, but if I don’t take them, then the pain keeps me awake and the doc says I have to sleep. I need to be in charge of my own medication, but how about you keep count of how many I take and I promise to keep them somewhere safer?” Isaac nodded and let the bottle go. “I’m sorry about your someone.”

  Isaac took a few deep breaths to get control of the fear. Einars swallowed his pill and slid the bottle into his shirt pocket. Isaac took the empty glass back to the kitchen, then stared—unsure what to do next.

  “Do you even know how to bake? I think I should do it,” Einars said.

  The question brought Isaac back to the present, knowing that he needed to keep Einars with his leg up or Sanna would not be pleased.

  “How do you think I’ve been keeping Bass alive? Of course I can cook.”

  Einars seemed to understand he’d put his past back where it belonged.

  “Cooking is not the same as baking.”

  Isaac chuckled, feeling more like himself.

  “Fair enough, but I’m very good at following instructions.” He picked up the recipe and read the instructions for the salted caramel apple pie. “Maybe you have a simpler option I could make?”

  Einars snorted.

  “We’ll do a lazy-person’s apple pie. Which is basically cooked cinnamon and sugar apples over ice cream with a hunk of piecrust. I even have the crust in the fridge—you only need to roll it out and bake.”

  As Isaac worked, Anders joined them with the papers and his omnipresent frown. Since Isaac had first met him, he and Anders had rarely spoken. He knew there was a lot of tension between Anders and Sanna, but there seemed to be more beneath the surface he didn’t know about.

  “Dad, I need to talk to you. I’ve finally made it through all the books.” He looked at Isaac in the kitchen. “I’ll help you into your room so we have privacy.”

  “We can talk here.”

  “I don’t think Isaac needs to hear all the finances.”

  “I know what’s in those books and I’m not fussed about him hearing. He runs a business, he might have a few ideas.”

  Isaac gave a thumbs-up with flour-covered hands and continued rolling out the pie dough. “I’m happy to help, but I’m also happy to forget it all.”

  “Fine.” Anders sat next to his dad and pulled out papers, then lined them in front of Einars. “How could you let this happen? You’ve borrowed so much money there’s no way you can make the monthly interest payments.”

  “I’ve barely touched what the land is worth. It’ll only be tight until Sanna gets the cider up and running. She’s so happy when she’s making cider, I know it will take off.”

  Anders rolled his eyes.

  “Assuming that ever happens, you still can’t pay the bank the interest until that money materializes, no matter how happy Sanna is. You don’t have any cash on hand. Where do you think it will come from?”

  “I’ve been taking care of the money for years. It was time to take this kind of risk. With only the two of us, the land is struggling. Cider is Idun’s future.”

  Isaac really didn’t want to be here for this, but he had to finish baking the pie dough while the apples cooked. Maybe he could hide in the bathroom.

  “Isaac, what do you think?” Einars asked.

  Too late. He couldn’t very well ignore the question, but he felt Einars knew exactly what he had done and had a bigger plan that Anders and he didn’t understand.

  “Well.” He walked to the table and looked at the papers spread out. “Anders is right. Usually agriculture is land-rich and cash-poor, so that can be a big problem if you borrow more than you can pay back with cash reserves. If these numbers are accurate, you need enough to get you through to the cider being profitable because your normal orchard profits won’t be enough. You won’t be able to make the payments by the end of the fall.”

  Anders nodded along in agreement as Einars rubbed his chin in thought.

  “I’m not ready to sell. Idun’s needs more time. There has to be another option.”

  Isaac was saved by the buzzer. He pulled the crust from the oven as Sanna and Bass bounded up the stairs. Anders collected the papers and stuffed them away, clearly frustrated that nothing had been solved but unwilling to push the issue.

  While he had only lived on the orchard for a short time, Isaac understood Einars’s stubbornness. This place was too special for the Lunds to lose. All he could do, really, was finish the website. The sooner people learned about this amazing place and Sanna’s amazing cider, the sooner the Lunds could stop worrying, the sooner Sanna could relax, and the sooner she might kiss him again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Two weeks after Einars’s fall, Sanna finally had some time to herself. This was the first time in weeks that she was alone in the cidery, and her unsettled nerves tried to find the routine she had abandoned and missed. Each day was a scramble to keep pace with the orchard and get her dad to all his PT and follow-up doctor’s appointments. Her journal was covered in sticky notes to herself about tasks that needed to be done, making every day different from the last, no predictable pattern other than the daily chaos of chasing the problems. She picked up one sticky note with GARBAGE scrawled in her tired handwriting with a green colored pencil.

  She had written it last night, right after Anders had finally gone home. He’d come to the loft where she’d been planning what needed to be done the next day, deciding what Isaac could handle, and what she’d need to help him do. If it required her assistance, she’d find a way to accomplish it with Bass rather than spend more time alone with Isaac. With Bass she could keep busy and avoid conversation. She only needed to show him something once and he could do it, and when his attention strayed, she let him play on her phone or wander the orchard. With Isaac, she didn’t trust herself.

  When Anders had sat down next to her, she stifled the disappointment that he wasn’t Isaac. But when she saw his stack of papers topped with a WWW brochure, her disappointment turned to irritation.

  “We need to go over the finances,” Anders said.

  “Why? Dad’s already feeling better, he can take them back. Adding in one more person to the process will just confuse matters.”

  “You can’t keep ignoring me or the truth. The orchard is wildly in debt, mostly because of all your new cider equipment.” He flipped through the papers, pulling out one covered in numbers. Sanna looked out the window. Every day since her dad surprised her with the trailer full of new equipment, guilt had weaseled into her thoughts. Before then, cider had been about pleasure, making what inspired her—now all that expensive equipment waited unused. She didn’t know if she could make such larg
e batches, if they would still be good, and if she failed, they would lose it all. Avoidance was the only coping strategy she had left.

  “Why are you always against us? You can’t come in here and tell Dad he’s doing it wrong when you are never here. He has a plan and has been running Idun’s fine without you. Stick to real estate.”

  Anders sighed and looked at her the way only an older brother could, full of exasperation and love. Or at least tolerance.

  “I’m not against you. I’ve never been against you, but I am a realist and selling the orchard is real estate . . . so if anything, I’m more of an expert than you are.” He held out the sheet with all the numbers Sanna was not looking at. “Dad hasn’t been doing okay. He’s making decisions based on your turning a profit with the cider, but you aren’t selling the stock you do have.”

  “I sell it.”

  “Mrs. Dibble and Thad do not count as a thriving business, and I’m pretty sure you lost Thad as a customer.”

  “I sell more than that.” Sanna crossed her legs and arms. Sanna knew it was petty, but he brought out the worst in her. She didn’t know where to begin, who to ask, or the first thing about selling. She only knew about making.

  He waved the paper for her to take, then gave up and set it back on top of his pile.

  “If you claim you want what is best, you’ll consider the offer. Do you really want Dad to have to work until the day he dies? Shouldn’t he be able to enjoy some form of retirement?” he asked. Sanna just stared at him. “If we sold the orchard, he would never have to worry about anything.”

  “But what about me? What would I do?”

  Anders set the WWW brochure on her lap.

  “Everything isn’t about you, Sanna.”

  She ignored the itch at the back of her mind created by Anders’s words, worried that if she scratched it, they’d be true. Dad believed in the orchard, in her, in family. So she would, too.

  Anders had packed up his car and left the orchard. Sanna had unfolded the WWW brochure, looking at the frothy water slides and tacky cartoon wave that was the company’s logo. Out the window, she tried to imagine a hotel and whining children in inflatable water wings and distracted parents, the scent of chlorinated water replacing ripening apples and summer sun–warmed grass. She couldn’t imagine their beautiful orchard destroyed for this type of monstrosity.

  As she had stared out the window, lights flickered at the edge of the orchard. Kids sometimes snuck in with blankets on warm summer nights—the dancing fireflies made a romantic background for frenzied teenage romps. She could certainly understand the allure—it would have been her first choice, too. She made a note to check the area tomorrow for any garbage they might leave behind and stuck it on her journal.

  This morning, Sanna peeled that note off her journal and decided to check it out before Isaac and Bass arrived. Elliot trundled over the ground as she recited the list of chores she needed to accomplish. Spray the Looms, mow the grass near the new trees, take dad to PT and doctor, and check on the early harvests. If time permitted, they could start organizing the farm stand.

  • • • • •

  She stopped the truck a few trees away from where she had seen the lights. The apples here were starting to blush a pale pink. From experience, she knew these Galas would be entirely red in a few weeks. Sanna trailed her fingers over them, their perfect skin evidence that she could run the orchard. She’d been in charge and making the decisions and everything was going well. Anders didn’t know what he was talking about.

  Her eyes scanned the ground for empty cans or stray condom wrappers—it wouldn’t be the first time, and she certainly didn’t want Bass to find those. One of the kids must have left a tennis ball, odd. She bent to pick up the green orb before her, hard like a baseball, and then her stomach dropped.

  All around her, the ground was covered with little green apples. At first her eyes didn’t register what she saw, her mind rejecting the possibility. She glanced at the trees down the row and a carpet of unripe apples speckled the ground. If it had been a few weeks from now, she could have gathered them up and let them sweeten, but it was too early for that. They were lost.

  Her stomach churned. Who would intentionally pick and discard apples? That was a lot of work to handpick them. She looked above and only a few apples on the tallest branches remained. Why would horny teens do this? She’d never given them a hard time about sneaking onto her property. If anything, she was more tolerant than the other neighboring farms.

  The sick feeling in her stomach turned to rage at the unknown saboteur. Were they even a big enough operation for another orchard to sabotage? How dare someone do this to her trees? Adding insult to injury, the culprits had yanked the apples off too far up the stem, meaning there would be no buds next year. Only four trees lost their apples, but that was two years’ worth of crops, and what if they came back tonight to do more damage? Her body grew more exhausted with each new question. The last thing she needed was a sleepless night keeping watch for punk kids. By the time she got back to the barn, her blood was on a steady simmer. Einars and Isaac had already left in the ATV, leaving her alone with Bass. She had hoped to talk it over with her dad alone first.

  “Hey, Miss Lund, how ya doing?”

  She nodded. “Hi, Bass. I’ll be with you in a second.”

  She was still adjusting her schedule for the day as she entered the barn to get her journal and list of to-dos. Bass followed her in, tossing a baseball from one hand to the next. She picked up her journal and turned to see Bass throw the ball high in the air and take a couple of steps back to catch it. She saw the crash unfold in slow motion and before she could say a word, he backed into the tower of crates. Each crate was full of empty bottles waiting for cider, cider she hadn’t had time to bottle because she’d been too busy caring for her father and running the orchard. She watched Bass bump them and the stack wobbled once, then twice, like a tower of blocks assembled by a toddler. It reminded her of a swaying tree in a windstorm, except that there were no roots to keep the crates safely planted, and the tower toppled in a thunder of smashed wood and shattered glass.

  Bass tried to stop it by grabbing a crate halfway up the pile, but the top’s momentum was already too much. He froze as it toppled and turned his little face up at Sanna for reassurance that it would be okay, but she had no reassurance to give him today.

  A part of her brain knew it wasn’t a big deal—that most of the bottles would survive. Even if they all smashed, bottles were easy to replace, not even that expensive. But today that part of her brain had no hope of winning. It was a Little League team against the New York Yankees, or a baby seal swimming in shark-infested waters, or a kite in a tornado. Today, logic and levelheadedness had no place, so even as the words left her mouth and her face scrunched into an angry expression, that corner of her mind regretted it. The rest of her wanted to light the world on fire.

  “Out,” Sanna said. She didn’t shout. It was barely a whisper. But it was hard and cold, and Bass’s eyes widened with something too close to fear and he ran.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Bass knew that look. It was the look his mom had given him a few times when he’d dropped a cup of milk or spilled his goldfish crackers or left his Legos lying on the ground. Mom would give him the look and he’d run to his room until Dad came home from work. His dad would come to his room, bring him dinner on his special Cars tray, and read him stories until bed.

  Bass didn’t know where to find his dad in the orchard, so he ran in the direction he and Mr. Lund had headed and found himself in the Looms. He ducked under the branches. This tree was older and shaggy looking. The long, arching branches looked like enormous spider legs, drooping toward the ground under the weight of the growing fruit. Hiding in a giant tree-spider seemed safe, until he could find his dad.

  He hadn’t meant to knock over the bottles. It was an accident. And he would have helped clean it up and even work it off, but that look was scary and he didn’t want
to know what would happen next.

  Under the arching branches, the tree made a tent, cutting him off from the world like a safe cocoon. He leaned his back against the tree trunk, pulling his knees to his chin, and he finally let his tears fall. Miss Lund had become his friend, and he really liked her. He wished he had Snarf with him right now. When he was alone, he liked to read the notes hidden in the secret pockets. They reminded him of when he was in a family.

  He scrubbed the tears off his face with the palm of his hand and listened for sounds of the ATV or Elliot, expecting Miss Lund would follow him. That’s what most adults did when kids were upset, they followed you to make sure you were safe. But he only heard the insects buzzing. The air was getting stuffy because the breeze couldn’t reach him.

  Bass didn’t know when he’d leave, or if someone would find him first. His mouth got dry from thirst, and his stomach rumbled. He’d left his bag of snacks in the barn with his water bottle and hat. After watching a spider scurry up the tree bark and spin a web, he worried no one would ever come look for him. Maybe he’d have to spend the night out here.

  He heard footsteps approaching along with the voice of a man and a woman. The only woman he knew was Sanna, so he stayed hidden. The voices stopped outside the tree and he could see their legs between the bottom of the branches and the ground. He stayed still in the dark shadows of the branches. The man wore brown pants and work boots, and the woman wore a dark skirt with tan, black, and red plaid rain boots.

  “These are the trees?” the woman said.

  “Yeah. They call them the Looms. Losing them would devastate her.”

  “How do I tell them apart from the non-Looms?”

  Bass heard a clicking sound, like a camera, and the boots turned in a circle.

  “They’re bigger and more spread out.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, that’s exactly the information I needed.”

  They walked to the next tree.

  “When will we get our payment?” the man asked.