“Can you at least share the plans with her? Let her see them and then decide?”
Her voice cracked and Anders noticed—his eyes turned from apathetic to sympathetic. Anything he said now would be only to delay his rejection. She’d given that look enough times herself.
“I’ll think about it.”
He left. Eva put the plans away, curling them tighter than necessary to fit back in the tube, to match the tightness constricting her chest. This had been it. The last stand. The final shot. And she had failed. Reflexively, she started to make a mental list of what needed to be resolved before she could go home, but found herself staring at the bakery case near the door. All summer she’d ignored its contents, telling herself she didn’t enjoy sweets at breakfast time. But she did. She always had. She flagged Ann to take away her cold, dull egg whites and ordered a cinnamon roll the size of her head. If her whole life was going to change, might as well start now.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
If you’re here to tell us to sell the orchard again, you can turn back around,” Sanna said as Anders emerged from his black Lexus and entered the lower barn, where Einars, Bass, Isaac, and she were setting up. His normal suit was replaced with jeans and a button-down plaid shirt. He looked ready for a day working in the trees . . . or at least he would have if it weren’t for his tasseled loafers.
Tomorrow was September first—their traditional first day of public sales. She had made it. They had made it. There was still a lot of work to do, but they’d harvested the first round of apples and tomorrow money would start trickling back into their coffers.
The barn doors to the farm stand were open to the warm day. It was about the size of a three-car garage, and that’s what they used it as during the winter when the snow could bury their vehicles. But during the fall, it was open to the public to sell apples and Sanna’s cider, hopefully more of both now that the website was up and running. Coolers lined the cinder-block walls, stocked with a paint store’s worth of colors. White painted wood tables stood in three neat rows. Only one of the tables had apples ready for sale in bags. Right now, only the Gala and Viking apples were ripe. In a few weeks, the tables would be full with even more varieties. Neatly painted wooden apples identified the type, as did the white-handled paper bag that fit a half peck of apples. A few larger plastic bags contained an entire peck—a little over ten pounds of fruit.
Near the open entry, an ancient cash register sat on another white table. The manual keys still worked for their simple sales. This was the first year Pa had agreed—at Isaac’s urging—to get a credit card device they could use with Sanna’s phone. He sat near the register and filled bags from the large wood crate. Each apple sold was a success for her and Idun’s. They were never overwhelmed like some of the other apple stands, but they always managed to have a steady clientele. The rest of their harvest was sold to the bigger stands who wanted a bit of apple variety. Because they were off the beaten path, most people stumbled across them while crisscrossing the peninsula between the bay side, which overlooked Green Bay, and the quiet side, which overlooked the expanse of Lake Michigan.
Once the season got under way, one of them would work the stand, while the rest would pick in the orchards, then they’d spend the nights getting the stand ready for the next day. This time of year was intense. Long days, late nights, and lots of people. For the first time, Sanna wasn’t dreading the customers like she had in years past.
“Keep working. You’re doing a great job,” Sanna said to Bass. It had been two days since the fire, and she only spoke to Isaac when necessary, while Bass maintained his icy silence. This morning Bass had made eggs and toast for her and Einars, leaving Isaac to prepare his own. With each failed attempt to reconnect with Bass, Isaac’s shoulders drooped more, his eyes following Bass’s movements, longing to be a part of his world again. She’d need to help mend those fences. Bass and Isaac needed to be a family, no matter what happened. She, however, never needed to forgive him for being a shameful liar. She had shared more of herself with him than she had with anyone else. She’d told him about her cider-making gift and about the Donor—and he hadn’t shown her the same level of trust. She’d simply resolved to consider him a bullet dodged—though that didn’t take the sting away from knowing she’d never experience another kiss like she had under the dancing tree. Her lips tingled at the memory.
She looked up, waiting for Anders’s response to her statement.
“I’m done with that idea,” he said. “You’re right that Idun’s needs to stay in the family. But you, me, and Pa need to discuss how we’re going to get through this mess and make money off your cider.” Sanna resisted her urge to feign light-headedness at his admission—it wasn’t her style—but it was still tempting.
“Go on.”
Anders looked pleased that he was getting off that easy. At least she was making someone’s day a little better.
“I got to thinking, if we don’t sell, we still have the debt problem to solve. Your cider is good. You just need time to spread the word. Money will buy us time. What if we got some investors?”
“Doesn’t that mean they would own a share of Idun’s?”
“Yes, but the alternative is you lose the orchard completely.”
Sanna thought about it. She didn’t want anyone telling her how to run Idun’s. She and her dad had lived here their whole lives, they knew best. She didn’t want any non–family member owning any piece of it. But despite all her pleading and hard work, if they didn’t get some cash, and they needed more than they could make off the farm stand in the first few weeks, they would default on their loans—and that would mean zero Lunds running the orchard. Sharing ownership was definitely the lesser of two evils.
“Okay, why weren’t we thinking of this before? And where do we get these investors?”
“We’d need to raise over two hundred thousand, at least. More if we can get it. We could get a lot of small local investors, or a few larger investors. And I didn’t think of it before because I was blinded by the huge offer from WWW.” He looked down at his feet. “Taking the money was an easy out, this will require a lot more work. Pa told me about the girdling and how you worked to save the Looms. Idun’s is where I grew up—past tense—but it’s your home, your livelihood. I get that now.”
“I’m in,” Isaac said from behind her.
Sanna turned, torn between wanting to glare at him and wanting to hug him for his enthusiastic offer. Though he might be offering to get back in her good graces, which she was willing to sell to him if it helped the orchard. Against her better judgment, she softened toward him.
“I’ll consider your offer.” She turned back to Anders. “Who else?”
“Julie and I have a bit saved, too. We talked about it and thought this would be a good investment. With luck, it might pay a sizable portion of the girls’ tuition in ten years.”
“How did you convince her?” Sanna asked.
“The reason we don’t spend more time here isn’t just because of Julie, it was because of me, too. I needed to separate myself—prove I was more than this place. She actually saw way before I did how much Idun’s means to you, and what I would be forfeiting to give up on this place.”
Sanna covered her mouth with a hand and closed her eyes to keep tears of gratitude from falling. They’d had so many differences over the years, and he and Julie still wanted to help. Too often, she and her father seemed to be two against the world keeping the orchard running, but knowing Anders and Isaac had her back felt like the reinforcements had arrived. Maybe there was hope for them yet. She stepped toward Anders to give him a hug.
“Don’t hug me yet. You haven’t heard who the final investor I have in mind is.”
Sanna shook her head.
“I don’t care who it is if it means Idun’s is still ours. Done.” Sanna looked at her dad, but he was watching Anders warily.
“Who’s the last person?” he asked.
Anders took a step back and swallo
wed slowly before he said the last possible person Sanna ever would have guessed.
“Mom.”
• • • • •
“No. Absolutely not. We’ll find someone else.”
Isaac stood behind Einars and Bass in the shaded stand while Anders and Sanna glowed like angry Norse gods in the sunlight. “Sanna, she wants to help. I’ve told her all about the cider business—she thinks it’s a great idea.”
“Since when are you and the Donor chummy?” She poked him in the chest, her face reddening with each emphatic jab. “Is this why you wanted to separate yourself from us? You’re too busy living the high life with her? Traitor.”
Anders caught her hand, his mouth a grim line, then gently moved it to her side, where she let it stay.
“First, stop referring to her as the Donor—you’re more mature than that. If you don’t want to call her Mom, call her Susanna. Second, I started seeing Mom in college. She reached out to me, just like she reached out to you.” Sanna gave her father a quick glance, and Isaac could tell from Einars’s pressed lips that he understood everything. “I chose to listen to her, to try to eventually understand why she left us.”
“I know why. She was too busy with her new husband and new life.”
Isaac didn’t like watching Sanna have to relive these painful emotions from so many years ago. He wanted to help, but knew there was nothing he could say to shield her from the truth any longer. She and Anders needed to have this fight to get all the ugly truths out on the table.
“Wrong. She tried over and over again to see us. Dad wouldn’t let her. Ask him.”
He pointed to their father, whose face had drained of color, reminding Isaac of the day he had fallen from the ladder. Perhaps he and Bass should head back to the house and give the family privacy, but he didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by leaving.
“Pa? Is this true?”
Einars’s shoulders melted even lower and he rubbed his hands over his eyes.
“She left us,” he said. “She didn’t deserve to see you two if she wasn’t willing to come here.”
“The D—Susanna wanted to see me and you didn’t let her.” Sanna fought to keep tears from falling.
“Sanna-who, she could have seen you if she would’ve come to Idun’s. She refused. We were happier without her.”
Sanna stepped away from Anders and away from her dad until she bumped into the garage door’s frame. She clenched the wood for support until her knuckles whitened.
“Don’t call me that. Not now. You were happier without her. Not us. We weren’t happier. I wasn’t happier. A part of me has been missing my entire life, and now you tell me it didn’t have to be that way?” Sanna used the heel of her hand to wipe the tears on her face. “How could you?” She turned back to face her brother. “And why didn’t you tell me any of this earlier?”
“You seemed happy,” Anders said.
“Sometimes what looks like happiness is just people making do.” She started toward the house. “Does everyone have deep, dark secrets they are keeping except me and Bass? No investors. You don’t deserve to be a part of Idun’s Cider.”
• • • • •
Five months ago Sanna had stepped into their clean, remodeled barn, ready to start planning the new season, sketching out ideas for new ciders to create with all the shiny equipment. She could make huge batches of her most popular versions, while still making smaller specialty batches. She could make bottles of any size, or a quarter barrel for a bar to serve her cider on tap. A cold room and a walk-in freezer could store pallets of cider and juice—enough for her to keep cider production going year-round. It was way more than she needed, but if her dad believed she could do it, then she believed, too.
Back then, she wouldn’t have said she was happy, but she was content. She had a routine of breakfast, chores, lunch, cider, dinner, reading, and planning—or more chores, depending on the time of year. Baking apple treats with Pa, and a movie sometimes with Thad. It was predictable and simple, and now she knew that none of it was happiness.
As she walked back to the house, she replayed every major life event in her mind and wondered how it would have been different with her mom there. Or how many times her father and Anders had lied to her? Why couldn’t they rewind the clock before they remodeled the barn and purchased all the cider-making equipment? If she had been content to continue with what she had had, they wouldn’t have the debt looming over the orchard, they wouldn’t have needed Isaac to help them, and Anders would be staying out of their business. Everything would be simple.
In the house, she went into her father’s bedroom and found the box he kept full of pictures of Susanna and took it to the loft. It looked worn at the corners, as though weary from too many years of holding in sadness. Sanna curled her feet under her on the couch, set the box on her lap, and lifted the lid to her greatest pain.
On top sat the picture of the four of them, smiling faces frozen in time. She sorted the contents into piles—photos and letters. At the bottom was a box containing their wedding bands, still shiny like new, since they had only been used less than a decade. A wedding band should have nicks and scratches, like the great dining room table downstairs, but these were polished and bright. As she removed each photo, she studied her mom’s face for signs of Susanna’s unhappiness—a downturned mouth, a creased forehead, a brittle smile. It was so obvious now.
She returned the pictures to the box and picked up a letter. It was dated around her thirteenth birthday.
Dear Einars,
I know you will never share this with Sanna, but I’ll regret not trying even more. She is nearly a teenager and I’m sure she has questions best answered by a mother. I would love a chance to see her. I can come to Green Bay. Just name the date and time.
I know you want me to return to the orchard. I tried. I made it as far as Algoma and had to pull over from the panic. I know you can never forgive me and I’m truly sorry for how I hurt you, but please don’t let our children grow up without me.
Please.
Susanna
She looked through the letters and they were all similar. Excuses for why she couldn’t make it to the orchard and pleas to see her children. Sanna couldn’t make sense of either of her parents’ actions. How could her dad keep these from her all these years? And why couldn’t Susa—her mother drive those last few miles? It seemed the height of selfishness. What made seemingly rational adults make such stupid choices? Anger made it impossible to cry for all the years she lost. Her head hurt without the emotional release of tears.
Now that Sanna had briefly glimpsed a little happiness with Isaac and Bass—seeing the joy the right family created—she didn’t want to settle with getting along anymore. And now her mother wanted to invest in the very place she hated so much. When did everything get so complicated?
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sanna heard someone come up the steps and braced herself for another confrontation. At least she knew it wouldn’t be her dad—he still couldn’t make it up the spiral stairs with his crutches. She had intentionally come up here because she knew it was difficult for him to walk up the stairs.
“Sanna?”
It was Bass.
“What’s up, bud?”
“You okay?”
She gave a little chuckle that he was checking on her. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
“I’ll be fine.” She wrapped her arm around him and gave him a little hug. “Thanks for checking on me.”
“Dad always says that when a lady says she is fine, she’s really just angry at you that you don’t know the real reason she’s angry.”
Sanna snorted at that. It was always interesting to hear what Bass gleaned from listening to the adults.
“Your dad said that? He’s not too wrong. But in this case, I didn’t say I was fine. I said I’ll be fine. There’s a difference—do you see it?”
Bass nodded and looked up at Sanna.
“Is the orchard rea
lly in trouble?”
Sanna shifted so she could look at his face while they spoke.
“It is. My dad borrowed a lot of money from the bank, and we don’t have enough cash to make the monthly payments. Haven’t had enough for a few months now. To get the money, we promised we would make the payments on time and if we don’t, then they could take the orchard. We don’t have enough money to make those payments right now, so unless we get some fast, the bank will take it.”
“That sucks big hairy balls.”
Sanna gave him a look. He was too young to be talking like that—at least around adults.
“Okay, it just sucks.”
She nodded at the improved language. “It really does.”
“Our dads really screwed up, didn’t they?”
“They didn’t think we were tough enough, I guess.”
Bass put his finger to his lips like he was holding his words in until they were ready to come out.
“Maybe you should let your mom help.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“But she’s still there and wants to help. Even though my mom chose drugs over getting better, I still wish I could see her again—and I don’t ever get to do that again. Maybe it’s different when you’re old, but that’s how I feel.”
Sanna brushed a curl off his face, astounded at how right he was. He wasn’t complicated by years of hurt feelings and a scarred heart.
“First, your mom was sick. She didn’t choose drugs over getting better. She was sick and she couldn’t fight it any longer. Second, it’s not any different when you’re grown up.” She propped her feet on the coffee table and leaned into the squashy cushions. “Do you think we need to go back down?”
“Nah—let them finish the work.”
“Good idea.”
They looked out the window at the orchard. On the far right an unusual movement caught her eye. She scanned to find it in the Looms, not spotting it right away. Something was wonky with the Dancing Tree—as she’d come to think of her favorite. Branches pointed up and wobbled, and they knocked into the branches on the tree next to it. She saw a figure in tan walking toward the back property line.
The Simplicity of Cider Page 23