The apple tree turned as still and silent as stone.
He inched closer and grinned. “Know you’re up there, by the way.”
Still the great tree did not waver.
Andrew scratched his head, thoroughly perplexed and amused. “I guess I’m going to have to come up there then.”
Suddenly, an apple whizzed past his head. “Hey!” he shouted as he ducked another and then another. In the midst of the onslaught, a young woman jumped to the ground, her arms full of apples, her hand readied in the air with her round, red weapon.
“Who are you?” she shouted.
Andrew’s mouth fell open. “Who am I?”
She squeezed the apple, pulled back her arm in preparation. “I said who are you?”
He took a bold step forward and she launched the apple, which he caught easily in his right hand, taking her off guard. “Considering this is my property,” he said sternly, “how about you tell me who you are?”
“You live here?” she spluttered before pouting and flustering. “Thought you all went to town. Didn’t think anyone would be here.” The young woman emptied the apples into a pile at the base of the tree. Her long hair fell over her collarbone and reached past her elbow. She wore a pair of men’s work boots and a pale green dress that was ripped at the shoulder. “I’ll just be on my way,” she said quickly as she ran atop the broken slate.
“Wait.” He hurried to catch up. “Your sleeve is ripped. Is your arm hurt?”
She turned her head, investigated the torn fabric and the red gash. “Just a scratch.”
“Think it’s worse than that.” Andrew stepped in front of her and her body tightened as if she might flee at any second. Gingerly, he touched the fabric, felt her tense as it stuck to the line of blood below.
She pulled away fiercely. “It’s just a scratch, I said!”
“Okay. Okay.” He put his hand up in innocence. The light filtered in an abrupt ray from behind a moving cloud and held to the hazel irises that stared in defiance at him. He swallowed and her eyebrows furrowed at the strange look that inched across his face.
The emerald eyes scanned him accusingly. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said softly, his own voice odd and unnatural. The heat was getting to him and he felt dizzy, wished he had some of Eveline’s lemon slices to wake him up. He met the eyes again. “What’s your name?” he asked gently.
“Lily.” She lowered her gaze. “Lily Morton.”
The name smacked him hard in the back. “You’re Frank Morton’s wife?”
“No!” Her face contorted in revulsion. “Ugh! How could you think that?”
“I just thought—” Andrew laughed then. Laughed at the absurdity of the conversation, at the fact that a woman was hiding in his tree and throwing apples at him, laughed that he wasn’t even sure what his name was anymore.
Lily twisted her chin and stuck a tongue in her cheek. “What’s so funny?” she asked hotly.
He couldn’t think of a reply, stood there dumb and smirking. Her eyes flickered to his, and her brows lowered. She crossed her arms over her middle. “Why are you staring at me like that?” she asked, livid. “You’re laughing at my dress, aren’t you? My big, dirty boots?” she seethed. “Well, take a good look and have your laugh. It’s all I got and I like them just fine even if they aren’t pretty to look at.”
Andrew stopped laughing, shook his head to clear it.
Her face distorted with shame. “I know we’re not rich like you, but that don’t give you a right to laugh at me,” she vented.
He was mortified, sorry to his bones. “I wasn’t looking at your clothes. I swear.” He floundered for an apology. “I’m sorry . . . that wasn’t it at all. I think your dress is fine. I really do.”
“My dress isn’t fine and you know it.”
“Honestly.” He stepped closer and leaned down so she would raise her eyes to look at him. “I wasn’t looking at your dress or your boots.” He smiled amiably. “I was just thinking about you throwing those apples. Nearly beaned me in the head. Got a good arm.” He clicked his tongue. “For a girl anyway.”
She studied him with reserve, squinted her eyes to see if he was teasing or being mean. Then her whole demeanor relaxed and she yielded. “Sorry I threw apples at you.”
“Tell you what, let’s start over.” He stuck out his hand. “Andrew.”
A cry broke from the house. A long, pained scream followed.
Andrew ran to the porch and into the parlor and found his aunt bent over in front of the rocking chair, her hands gripping the curved arms as if she rocked a ghost in the empty chair. The woman’s hair hung loose around her face and her features twisted in agony. Andrew put an arm around her waist. “Come to the sofa,” he ordered.
“No,” she panted. Short, quick breaths blew from her pursed lips. “They’re coming.”
“I’ll find a horse and get to town, get the doctor.” He let go, but she grabbed his wrist, her grip strong as a bear trap.
“There’s no time.” Then her lips rose about her teeth and she curled inward, wailed low and deep, the sound raw and primal. She breathed hard again, winced with terror and pain. “They’re coming now.” Her body writhed. “They’re coming now!” she cried. “Oh, God.”
“Mrs. Kiser?” The young woman in the torn green dress appeared in the room beside him. “We need to get you walking,” she urged with pointed control. With that, she took one of the woman’s limp arms and put it around her shoulder. She motioned with her head for Andrew to do the same and together they etched a circle in the room while Eveline hobbled between them.
“Who are you?” Eveline panted as the next contraction began building.
“Lily Morton. Live across the way.” She gave a slight curtsy under the weight of the woman. “Good to meet you.”
Eveline gave a short laugh at that before crumpling into the next wave of pain. “Oh, God!” she cried again. “Not now.”
“Bring her to the couch,” Lily ordered, and led the way. Eveline lay down and arched her back, clutched her stomach.
“Andrew,” Lily called to him, her voice calm and steady, rigid with authority. “You need to boil a whole pot of water, do you understand? I need a pile of clean sheets and some towels.” She swallowed and lowered her voice. “Need you to boil a kitchen knife, too. Just in case.”
Andrew blanched but went to the kitchen. He picked up the pot but was so nervous that it slipped from his fingers and crashed loudly against the floor. Stay calm. He lit the stove and stared at the pot for a long moment before he realized there was no water within the base. He ran to the well pump and filled a bucket, brought it back into the house, his speed sloshing half the water across the floor and making him slip.
He ran up the stairs, taking the steps three at a time. From the parlor, Eveline screamed. He shivered to his bones, grabbed the clean sheets, brought them downstairs. Eveline’s dress was up past her knees while Lily inspected the state of the birth.
Lily lowered the skirt quickly and took the sheets from Andrew, placed one under Eveline along with several towels. “I need to wash my hands, Mrs. Kiser. Andrew’ll stay with you for a minute.” She patted the woman’s knee. “It’s going to be all right, you hear me? Just keep breathing like that. In and out when the pain comes.” Lily imitated the technique, her eyes wide with instruction. “Won’t be much longer now.”
Andrew sat next to his aunt and held her hand, her clutched fingers so tight that his knuckles turned white. Her nostrils flared; her eyes stretched in horror. “I’m scared.”
He didn’t know what to say. Every time he opened his mouth, nothing came out, so he just sat there with an unwilling vow of silence and let her squeeze his hand. When the screaming began again, he closed his eyes against the strain, to witness such pain and do nothing nearly unbearable.
Lily returned, her sleeves rolled up past her elbows. “You better go now,” she told him. “But stay close.”
Andrew backed out of the room,
headed to the porch and leaned against the wall. The shouting came quicker, lasted longer, stopped and started, over and over again endlessly until the house radiated with one excruciating howl. He slid to the floor and bent his knees to his chest, buried his head and prayed for the woman’s pain to end.
* * *
Lily cut the cords with the knife and laid one baby boy to Eveline’s chest and then another. Eveline gazed at each child, her features pulled in disbelief. Lily wadded up the bloodied sheets and towels and replaced them with fresh ones. The red and wrinkled babies were tiny, premature by months, but breathing and intact. Lily’s body finally relaxed, though her muscles were shaky and weak from the stress of the last hours.
Warmly, Lily watched the mother with her newborn sons. Mrs. Kiser was entranced with the children in the crook of her arms and Lily ached with the look. “What are you going to name them?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” Eveline smiled. She was a beautiful woman, the love shining straight from her skin. “Sure I was having girls. Didn’t even think of any boy names.”
“It’ll come to you.” Lily stood then and took the crumpled sheets with her. She stopped in the doorway to the porch and watched the young man pacing back and forth, from one end all the way to the other end. “They’re boys,” she announced quietly.
His jaw dropped and he wiped his face as if he had just washed it. “Are they okay? Is she okay?”
Lily nodded and curved a finger for him to follow. In the parlor, Eveline glowed with the infants. “Come meet your new cousins.”
Andrew didn’t move, stunned by the tiny infants who hadn’t been here this morning, seemed to have appeared out of thin air. Lily nudged him and he wiped his hand upon his pants. He stepped as if his footsteps might shatter the babies, looking lost. Lily touched her throat as she watched the tall, proud figure kneel next to the couch.
Eveline tilted one side of her body to her nephew. “Go ahead and hold him.”
Andrew rose. “I better not.”
“He won’t break,” Eveline coaxed. “They’re sturdier than you think.”
Andrew’s chin lowered and he shook his head only once, the glance resting on his missing arm. “Just better if I don’t.”
“Sit,” she ordered, the tone still peaceful.
Andrew obeyed and knelt again, let Eveline place one of the babies into the curve of his arm. The terror left. His lips parted, his features melting in sweet wonderment. “I’ve never held a baby before,” he admitted, his voice daunted. “How did you—” He couldn’t put words to the emotions. “It’s like a miracle.”
Lily removed herself from the room, the young man’s sensitivity touching the sore places within her. In the kitchen, she threw away the soiled sheets and towels, washed and scrubbed her bloodstained hands. For a moment, she did not recognize the kitchen she had so often investigated during those years of dormancy. The curtains and flowers and clean counters and working stove sprouted in the space like the first signs of life on a desert plain. The Kisers had only been here for a few days and yet the old, rotted smell was already replaced with the scents of coffee, summer air and burning wood. She dried her hands with the clean towel, a longing relaxing deeply into her belly. There was life here now. New life and growing life. She touched the small vase of wild white roses, smelled the deep aroma within their folds.
“For the record,” came the deep voice behind her, “you can throw apples at me anytime you want.”
She folded the towel and smiled at the young man, suddenly taller and larger than he appeared before. He came toward her and for the first time she noticed the radiant blue eyes. A thump, nearly a knock, jolted her heart and she tapped on her chest to quell the sensation.
“How did you know what to do?” he asked, the eyes highlighted sapphire by the bright light streaming through the windows, the pupils stranded in awe.
The ache seized again. She wouldn’t tell him that she was seven years old the first time she helped her sister deliver a stillborn. “Just something you pick up, I guess. Being a woman and all.”
For a long moment, the man’s gentle face turned and stared unfocused across the room, forlorn and intense. “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here.” He faced her then, the awe and qualm growing. He stared so long that she needed to shift under his gaze.
The intensity of the day rose in waves and hung upon her shoulders, oppressive as the still heat within the house. Raw memories battled with raw hope and she felt unsteady with the emotions mounting. She pushed the sensations down, but they crawled through the skin and made her knees shake. “I need to go home now.” The statement was sudden and panicked and she knew this. Hated the weakness that her voice hinted at.
She poured a glass of water from the pitcher and went to the parlor, set it on the table. “I need to be going now, Mrs. Kiser.”
“Won’t you stay?” Eveline asked. “My husband should be back from town soon.”
“I wish I could.” She busied her mind for an excuse. “My sister will be worried. She gets nervous with me gone.” The thought of meeting the other Kisers, the joys and shock of seeing the new babies while she stood in the wings and watched a family grow and celebrate, would remind her of all the ways her life was not that.
“May I come by tomorrow to visit?” Her throat started to clog with tears, could find no reason for them. She blushed at her body’s betrayal, wished she could be normal for once in her life. Fit in just once. “I could bring my sister, Claire. Would that be all right?” She inched slowly from the couch.
The weariness of the birth settled upon Eveline and her eyes drooped heavily, gave no sign or notice to Lily’s unbridled nerves. “That would be lovely.”
Lily turned, but Eveline called out to her. “Lily,” she said as she adjusted under the weight of the babies. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
The compliment was too much and her voice faltered. “I—they’re beautiful babies, Mrs. Kiser.” She sniffled and wanted to run, held her body inert for a pained moment. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen such beautiful babies.”
She brushed past Andrew, floundered with her torn sleeve as she tried to tuck the fabric back in place instead of letting it flap over her shoulder. She cursed herself as she headed outside, her footsteps thick with restrained flight.
“Hey.” Andrew caught up at a trot. “Are you all right?”
She tried not to acknowledge him, hoped he would disappear along the stones or she would disappear altogether. But he stopped her, studied her profile unabashedly and without apology.
“I just don’t feel well.” And she didn’t. She placed her hand against her forehead.
He touched her back kindly, just for a moment. “Sit for a bit. There’s no rush.”
She pulled her body away savagely. “Don’t touch me!”
As if slapped, he stepped back. His stricken face pale. “I’m sorry. I . . .”
She dissolved into her palms, her face completely hidden behind her hands. She didn’t know what was happening. She wanted to scream and punch him, wanted to beg for forgiveness, wanted to run for the forest even as she wanted to stay on this land forever. “I’m sorry,” she cried.
One strong arm, hard as marble and soft as goose down, wrapped around her shoulder, turned her to his chest. He did not stroke her back, did not touch her more than necessary, simply held her as if she were about to slide into the sea.
She tried to stop crying, but everything cracked inside. She tried to breathe and stop the tears, but they broke and shattered. And still he held her without a word.
Her skin shuddered. Her sobbing finally slowed until the tears ceased. Andrew’s unbleached cotton shirt cushioned wetly against her cheek. The arm around her stayed steady. The sound of a blue jay cackled from the trees. The trickle of the stream nearby went on uninterrupted. And yet here she was, her face buried into the shirt of a stranger—a stranger she had thrown apples at, screamed at, cried on.
She pulled back and he let go. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Don’t know what came over me.”
The young man with the blue eyes of the sky held her face in the tenderness of his expression. She could not name her grief with words, but in the gaze of this man she saw that he understood it more than she did.
“I’d like to walk you home,” he said firmly.
She wiped her eyes with her torn sleeve, saw the gash at her shoulder. She smiled wearily, any fight gone. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” He smiled good-naturedly. “More of a disaster, actually.”
She snorted. “I like to make a good first impression.”
“Oh, you made an impression, all right. Doubt I’ll ever walk by that tree again without cringing in fear for my life.”
She rolled her eyes and shielded her brows in embarrassment.
“Ever think of enlisting?” he teased. “Send you overseas and the Germans would surrender in one day.”
She crossed her arms and laughed. “Are you enjoying this?”
“Very much so.” He grinned playfully and he held her eyes until the smile softened. “Come on, Honus Wagner, let’s get you home.”
“Who is Honus Wagner?”
“Who is Honus Wagner?” Andrew repeated loudly. “Plays for the Pittsburgh Pirates?” He grunted as if in pain. “The Flying Dutchman?”
“Who cares about football,” she said slyly.
“Baseball!” He rolled his eyes in exasperation, frowned and shook his head long and low. “Oh, Lily girl, what are we going to do with you?”
She cocked her head at this.
“What?”
“You called me Lily girl.”
“Hmmm.” He thought of this for a moment. “So I did.”
They crested the hill and walked side by side toward the sun that sparkled the weeds and the mica in the stones. The old work boots, ancient hand-me-downs from her father, grazed her knees with each step. They were too big, but the blisters had healed years ago and so they slid against her heels without a wince.
She stepped off the side flats of low grass and entered the road, walked right in the middle without any fear of meeting another soul or vehicle. Lily pointed to the right, her arm grazing his chest. “Those are the Muellers down that way. Hog farmers.”
Beneath the Apple Leaves Page 9