Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  Wilhelm stared at the farm for a very long time, his legs spread and hands at his hips. He stared so long that the boys grew restless.

  “Maybe it ain’t the right place,” Edgar ventured.

  “Isn’t,” corrected Eveline softly, her manner as stunned as her husband’s stance. “Isn’t the right place.”

  Edgar and Will exchanged worried glances, then looked up to Andrew, but his face was void of any expression. All figures waited for Wilhelm, the statue that didn’t move or seem to exhale or inhale.

  Unable to keep quiet any longer, Edgar hopped, held his pants. “I gotta go.”

  Andrew pointed his elbow at the decrepit outhouse. The boy looked aghast. “Isn’t there a toilet in the house?”

  At this Wilhelm smiled wryly and rubbed the dampness glistening the back of his neck. “Not likely.”

  Edgar galloped to the wooden closet, let the door bang behind him. In two seconds, the child flew out, his nose buried in his shirt. “I’m going in the woods!”

  Wilhelm settled his gaze on his wife. “Home sweet home,” he said coldly.

  She turned away from the iced words and headed to the privy, the twins sitting on her bladder. Eveline closed the door to the outhouse, setting off an eruption of flies from the black hole cut in the wooden bench. An ancient Sears catalog rotted next to the round pit, half the pages ripped out for wiping by the last inhabitant.

  The stink wrapped around Eveline’s body instantly and she buried her mouth and nose in the dress collar. In the dim light, the ceiling thickened with cobwebs, sagging and heavy with flies and curled mosquitos. She hoisted her skirt around her hips and sat on the wooden bench, leaned her elbows on her knees, her hands clasped in prayer.

  Light shone through the crescent moon carved into the door, the shape lying distorted across her shoe. With her stillness, the flies flew to the corners of the structure, beating their wings and buzzing against the walls. Eveline watched their ugliness, watched as they made this place of filth their home. Her fingers touched her lips, felt them stretch and frown as she cried. She brought her palms to her eyes and wiped them roughly, willed the tears to stop. She would not leave this space with wet eyes. After all, this was what she had nagged Wilhelm for since the beginning of their marriage.

  The crescent moon of light lay broken at her foot and the weight of the shadows clutched her heart. The twins kicked, the hard limbs distorting the shape of her round belly. This was the home where she would birth them. This was the land where Will and Edgar would be raised. This would be their life. My God, what have we done?

  CHAPTER 15

  One by one, each window in the house was pried open, the wood splintering and cracking with the thrusts, the harder ones needing a crowbar to shimmy them upward. With the onslaught of fresh air to the closed home, the spiderwebs swayed, dropped dead flies and silk-wrapped insects to the floor, the hollow bodies crisp and crunching underfoot. Hornet nests peppered and buzzed in two of the upstairs bedrooms and small bats darkened nearly every corner. Even with the windows open, the house reeked of mouse droppings and moth wings, each scent exacerbated and succulent within the late summer mugginess.

  Eveline tackled the kitchen, had Edgar and Will clean out the iron stove of ancient ashes. Despite the mess, she was pleased with the space. Two ranges buffered the wall across from the brick fireplace. The stoves had cooking space for eight pots and ovens that could cook bread, a rack of lamb and a cake at the same time. The icebox seemed new. The pantry had shelves enough to feed a small town and revealed a hidden door that led down to the cold fruit cellar below.

  Eveline turned the faucet over the sink. The water spluttered and retched, the copper pipes convulsing so loudly that she twisted the knob off before the plumbing hopped out of the wall. She sent Will to the well to lug in water one bucket at a time.

  Eveline wiped her brow against her shoulder as she scrubbed the shelving, her large belly pressing against the counter space. Her abdomen had been tight for days and the twins quiet with the stress of the move. Not today, she beseeched. Not yet.

  Upstairs, Wilhelm and Andrew cleaned out the largest of the bedrooms. Wilhelm swept the wide plank oak floors and cleaned out the fireplace while Andrew steadied the dustpan and ash pail and tossed the years of filth out the window. They scraped the disintegrating wallpaper and washed away the hardened glue left behind.

  When the room was ready, Wilhelm stopped, breathed heavily. “Need to get the furniture in,” he said, contemplating, his brows furrowed. His eyes flickered to Andrew.

  “I can help,” Andrew answered the question on his uncle’s mind.

  “You sure?” Wilhelm bit his lip in debate. “It’s heavy.”

  “Yeah.” Andrew went to the hall and carried in a side rail for the brass bed. Wilhelm followed and together they carried in the pieces, then assembled the bed. They pushed the Victorian walnut dresser to the clean wall, the weight of it slamming into Andrew’s shoulder as he gripped and pushed with all his might. He dug through the pain, dug for strength at his very core. He wasn’t a cripple and come hell or high water, he’d prove it, even if it meant breaking his body in the process.

  Wilhelm’s face dotted with dust and the sweat slicked the hair around his forehead. He wiped a cloth around his neck. “I’ll grab some drinks.” He glanced at his nephew wearily. “You all right?” The look was softer now and Andrew nodded.

  “Good.” Wilhelm blew an exhausted breath of air. “Christ, it’s hot.” Taking the broom in one hand and the dustpan in the other, he stepped out to the hall. “Going to start on the boys’ room next. Finish up in here and we’ll get Eveline settled. Woman’s been on her feet since we got here.”

  The heavy footsteps thumped down the narrow stairwell and Andrew slunk into the corner, dropped his head back against the wall with fatigue. His right arm pulsed, the biceps twitching. He raised his hand and the fingers shook uncontrollably with the strain of carrying, lugging, pushing, cleaning. Andrew swallowed, his mouth so parched it left him dizzy. With forced will, he stood again and headed to the next bedroom.

  * * *

  On that summer evening, darkness settled languidly over the quiet fields and surrounded the broken farmhouse with the first shade of the endless day. Cool air did not transcend but blocked out the mightiest of the degrees so that pores felt free to dry again.

  The family ate outside, lined like stepping-stones upon the granite slab at the porch. They ate cold bologna sandwiches, the warm bread soft and chewy. Jaws moved mechanically while bodies hunched and ached for bed. Crickets chirped, the song rising upon the heated earth as steam between bittersweet vines. A barn owl hooted. Another called in return and so they danced, back and forth, in a melody that welcomed the night.

  A calico cat inched from the weeds, slunk low as she sniffed the air. Andrew tossed a small bit of bologna in her direction and the cat crawled upon her belly and gobbled it up, licking her lips. Andrew tore another morsel from his sandwich, held it out. The cat came closer, led by her wet nose.

  “It’ll bite you,” Wilhelm warned.

  Andrew fed the cat anyway and a purr emerged. The cat rubbed against his thigh and he scratched her under the chin. “Somebody’s been feeding her. She trusts us.”

  “How you know it’s a girl?” Will asked.

  “Calicos are always female,” he told him. Little Edgar tossed the rest of his meat to the cat, touched the fur with delight as she chewed. “Looks like you got your first pet,” Andrew noted.

  Edgar smiled and before he knew it the cat climbed upon his lap and started to lick his lips. The little boy erupted in giggles, his futile shoves against the cat only making her lick harder.

  “Great,” Wilhelm chided, a grin forming. “Now the cat’s giving him worms.”

  “I’ll name her Wormy,” Edgar announced. He put his chubby arms around the cat. “Come here, little Wormy.”

  Eveline covered her mouth, stifled her laugh. Andrew chuckled easily, met his aunt’s face. She
reached over, squeezed his knee. “Nice to see you smile,” she whispered.

  After dinner, with only one bedroom suitable for inhabitants, Eveline and Wilhelm headed upstairs and Andrew and the boys headed to the barn’s hayloft with a pile of blankets and pillows. As they had never known a home outside of their manicured Pittsburgh house, Will’s and Edgar’s eyes were wide with the expanse of the open barn and the adventure of sleeping so high off the ground.

  Above in the loft, Andrew spread out the blankets and stuffed the rotting hay under for padding. Will scrunched up his nose. “We’re gonna smell like cows.”

  “I like it,” said Edgar as he curled up next to Andrew’s long body. “I don’t ever want to go home.”

  “We are home, you dingbat.” Will lay down on the other side of Andrew, stared up at the rafters. “But I like it, too.”

  Andrew grinned in the dim light. “Why’s that?”

  “I don’t know.” Will thought about this, the soft features of the young boy taking on a seriousness well beyond his years. “Hard to say. Kinda feels like I’m a chipmunk that just got let out of a shoe box.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Edgar, his voice fading. “Me too.”

  In the next moment, both boys were sound asleep, their gentle breathing keeping pace note to note with the hum of insects outside the barn wood.

  Andrew’s body sank into the coarse blanket, every nerve slinking toward slumber except for the ones occupying his mind. He lay on his back, his one hand resting behind his head. In the shadows, he stared at the beams of the roof. A few holes in the shingles left gaps to see the stars. One was large enough to show the tip of the half-moon. He couldn’t remember ever seeing the sky clear enough to see the stars so bold.

  The hayloft was comfortable, cooler than the house. Will snuggled and inched closer to his side, the young boy’s brow crinkled with deep dreaming. A raccoon or a skunk slunk around the floor below, the wet nose sniffing in the corners, the claws scraping against the wood. Shadows flapped along the roof as bats darted, bringing a slight breeze across the skin.

  Andrew tried to sleep, tried to force his thoughts to rest as his body desired, but to no avail. Gently, he scooted Will’s body from his side. He crouched under the low beams and silently moved through the loft and climbed down the ladder and went outside. The sky was wide as it was deep in midnight blue and the constellations scattered in an order they had arranged since the beginning of creation. In the warm night, the crickets hummed from all sides, made the earth vibrate below his feet. Lightning bugs flashed around the trees and low bushes, lit the night like pinpoints of sulphur-tipped matches.

  Andrew sat under the enormous, ancient tree that hovered over the yard. The canopy of leaves hung low with apples at every branch. Something rubbed against his leg, meowed. “Hello, Wormy.” He scratched the warm fur and smiled. “Sorry about the name. Had nothing to do with it.” The cat jumped on his lap, put a paw on his chest. He curled the cat into the crook of his arm, the purr vibrating through his chest.

  Five months had passed since the train accident. In a year, he had lost his father, his mother, his home, his friends, his arm, his future. He didn’t recognize this new life, couldn’t find his place in it, like he was walking in circles through a fog-filled maze.

  The cat rubbed against Andrew’s maimed side. Over the months, the burn had lessened, the pain now nearly gone. Numbness had replaced the pain but made it feel dead instead. The pain held a form of life and now even that was gone.

  He remembered the thick volume of poems Miss Kenyon had given him once—Dante’s Divine Comedy, a story outlining a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Andrew knew Hell now—fire in all its forms. He peered at the old farmhouse, listened to the gentle purr of the cat and hum of the soft land. And this was Purgatory.

  Paradise. If the story were true, Paradise would follow. Andrew laughed then, elicited a surprised chirp from the feline. Not likely. He raised his eyes to the sky above the tree limbs, awed by the stars again, bright as diamonds without the smog. And he wondered, Maybe things have to fall apart in order for the stars to shine?

  He was tired of feeling sorry for himself. He had one arm. He hated it, cursed it, but he had one good one left and he would focus there, try to find his way again.

  “Paradise.” He said the word jeeringly as he gave the cat a long rub. “What do you think, Wormy? Anything out there for me?” The calico climbed to his shoulder and jumped to the tree behind him. He turned to see where she landed and noticed a roughly scraped spot in the bark, a circle shaved to its smooth, pale underside. He squinted to examine the solitary word carved into the wood: “Lily.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Lily Morton bent over the washtub, scrubbed the last bits of hay and dirt and grease from the work clothes. Her long hair hung in a plait between her shoulder blades, but the top of her light brown head was full of loose hairs, straying in every direction. She rubbed her itchy nose against her shoulder, then heaved the soaking clothes up, fed them through the wringer and hung them on the clothesline to dry. Her brother-in-law’s pants dripped heavily next to her and her sister’s dresses. With a scowl, Lily pulled up the male undergarments from the soapy water and wrung them in her bare hands like a neck and sloppily hung them in a queue, sticking her tongue out in disgust.

  Leaves crunched behind the house from the barn. Her sister stumbled forward, bent over as she struggled with the two full pails of fresh milk, the precious contents sloshing over the rim. Lily ran to her side and took the pails from her hands, the metal handles leaving a red mark on each palm.

  “Claire, it’s too much. You know that,” she scolded. “See, you spilled half the milk. Don’t have to carry so much at one time.”

  The woman rubbed her sore hands, rubbed them more than necessary, over and over as if she were balling dough. “I thought I had them. Didn’t want to leave them in the field case they got sp-sp-spilt,” she stuttered.

  Lily touched her sister’s arm consolingly, instantly sorry she had scolded Claire. She was thirteen years Lily’s senior but was childlike more times than not. The doctor had said it was from the mule kick she suffered as a girl. Shame, the neighbors had said. Such a beautiful girl. Shame that damn mule made her stutter and soft as a turtle egg. But Lily knew the truth. The only damn mule that ever kicked Claire was her father.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lily placed her hands atop Claire’s rolling ones. “Just let me get the milk from now on, all right?” She squeezed until the toiling fingers stopped and her sister nodded.

  “All right, Lily.” The woman’s mouth twitched. “I’m sorry I made you mad.”

  “I’m not mad. Not at you anyway.” She looked over at the drying long johns and stuck out her tongue again. “Can’t you at least get Frank to wipe his bum for once in his life? Looks like his underclothes been run over by wagon wheels that got stuck in the mud!”

  Claire broke out in giggles, laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth. Lily laughed, too, loved to see her sister happy and smiling. “Can’t you slip a diaper on him when he’s sleeping? Pin it on good and tight?”

  Claire doubled over. “Stop!” Tears of laughter squeezed from her eyes. “You better hush. He’ll hear you,” she warned between giggles.

  “He’s not hearing a thing.” Lily put her arm around her sister’s slight shoulders and mocked seriousness. “Except his own noises echoing in the outhouse.” The women erupted with giggles again, their heads locked together in devilish mirth.

  Claire had raised Lily, even if it was like being reared by an infant. Lily’s father took no part in her upbringing. His eyes were dead. Seemed he wanted to make everything else dead, too. Seemed he wanted to beat the life out of anything that had life running through it.

  He always smelled of drink. When she was a child, she didn’t know the smell of whiskey, just thought it was the smell of men, that all fathers smelled like that in mouth and skin. Only later, when she ran into men coming from the saloons,
did she recognize the scent and it made her feel frail and sad at the same time. But she always had Claire. It was Claire who fed her and changed her, rocked her and slept with her at night. It was Claire who took the force of their father’s blows when he was missing his dead wife and cursing his life, blows that left Lily’s sister simple and scared of anything that moved.

  Lily glanced at the ditch not too far off from where the laundry was hung—the last place she ever saw her father, shot in the back and bleeding to death in the mud. She turned her view and concentrated on the milk in the buckets, turned the memories of red blood to white. She picked the pails up and brought them to the house carefully, setting them near the door so she could strain the cream after supper.

  * * *

  Frank Morton shoveled the last of the eggs into his mouth and wiped his lips against the napkin. He wore his new silver-tipped boots and his favorite beige Stetson atop his head. He looked a fool, thought Lily. Frank deemed himself a cowboy. Thought himself handsome in his polished boots and spurs, though she was pretty sure he’d never been on top of a horse in his life. Women found him attractive—this she knew—but for what reason she hadn’t a clue. But she saw the way the ladies glanced at him in the general store and the way the wives of his clients hung upon his stupid words and his awkward swagger.

  Claire pulled out another pie from the oven and placed the pan on the window ledge with the others, the syrups bubbling from the fork holes.

  “How many pies you making?” he asked.

  “Seven.” She took down one of the cooled ones and began to slice. “Figured you could bring a few down to the new neighbors.”

  “I’ll do that,” Frank decided.

  Lily picked up his plate and fork and dropped them in the wash bucket roughly. “Why they want that beat-up Anderson place anyway?” she asked, her tone sour.

  “Beats me.” Frank leaned back and rubbed his belly. He was midway through his thirties and his torso was starting to show it. “Traded that house in Troy Hill without even seeing the place.”