That afternoon, he swung off the main road and parked in the driveway of a modest country home. In the side yard there was a pair of sawhorses and a stack of lumber and an empty can of mahogany stain. He climbed out of the truck and leaned down and peeked through the open window at Hunter.
I’ll be right back, ‘kay?
‘Kay.
Standing next to the pickup, Maggie noticed beyond the roofline of the house a wave of dark hills. In the spring, she thought, the beeches on the slope would wear jackets of new leaves and that’s where the sun would rise, over their dark crowns, every morning.
Maggie? Dieter was crossing the lawn and there was an older man with him now. The older man was wearing a faded denim shirt and a John Deere baseball cap.
Hunter stepped down from the truck to stand next to his mother. In the chill morning air he could see his own breath, like a wisp of cloud, dissolve into nothing.
Dieter was saying the boy’s name but Hunter didn’t hear him. He was trying to imagine what it felt like to be tethered to a spaceship by a slender cord. If you let go, your oxygen would eventually fail and you would glance back, for the final time, at the lost planet.
Hunter?
Finally the boy looked up. Dieter was standing in front of him, in the driveway, with an arm around the older man’s shoulder.
Hunter, Maggie . . . I’d like you to meet my dad.
_______________
He sits at his old desk, writing. Outside it has begun to snow but his concentration is so pure, so complete, he doesn’t even notice. Nor does he hear, in another part of the house, Maggie opening jars of tomatoes to make the marinara sauce, or his father helping the boy with lessons, long division today.
Eventually the winter light that spills through the window fades, and when Dieter finally puts down his pen he’s astonished to discover that night has already fallen.
He opens a drawer, takes out his journal, and scribbles beneath the date: three new pages, evening snow . . .
About the Author
Tim Applegate was born in Ft. Benning, Georgia and grew up in Terre Haute, Indiana. In 1978 he obtained a B.A. in journalism and literature from Indiana University.
Tim has lived in Boston, Sarasota, Florida, and for the last twenty-two years on two acres in the foothills of the coastal range of western Oregon. For the last two decades he has owned and operated a commercial contracting business specializing in furniture and wood restoration for the hotel and cruise ship industries. In 2015 he retired from contracting to write full-time.
Tim is married and has two daughters. He grows wine grapes on his acreage, remains an avid hiker, and travels extensively.
Tim’s poetry, essays, and short fiction have appeared in The Florida Review, The South Dakota Review, Lake Effect, and The Briar Cliff Review among many others. He is the author of the poetry collections At the End of Day (Traprock Books), Drydock (Blue Cubicle Press), and Blueprints (Turnstone Books of Oregon). Fever Tree, the first book of a projected trilogy, is his first published novel.
Fever Tree Page 20
