Evenfall

by Liz Michalski

  By rights, she should have cut me dead, walked down the aisle without a word. I expected as much, and thought I’d make it easier on her by staying quiet myself. So when she touched me on the arm and asked how I’d been, it was a surprise.

  “All right,” I said, and kept walking.

  She tried again. “I’ve missed our rides.”

  I nodded, said something about work and the farm keeping me busy.

  “I know it’s been a hard year for you,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Frank.” The words made me turn and search her face: no guile or malice waited there. My mother, waiting by the car, saw me look, and that was enough. She waited a few days, just long enough to be decent, and then hired Clara to mend a few of my workshirts. It was a natural-enough request: Clara was known for her skill with a needle, and my mother’s sight was starting to fade. Natural enough, too, once she’d seen Clara’s talents, that my mother find other work for her, enough to bring her to our home two or three times a week, always on the nights when my shift at the plant started late and I could walk her home on my way into town.

  We fell into our old pattern easily enough, although there was a difference: a third person walked between us, silent and unseen. Clara must have felt it, too, and although she chatted easily enough, she never spoke of what I was desperate to hear, not until I’d been walking her home for over a month and had found a way to work it into conversation.

  I’d waited until she was at her doorstep. I’d seen Mrs. Murphy’s shadow at the window, the dip of her head as she moved away into the kitchen to give us our privacy, and I knew no one would overhear. Clara’s hand was touching the knob before I got up the nerve to speak, and my voice sounded false even to my ears, though I’d practiced the words enough at home.

  “By the way, how’s your sister? I heard she went back to Boston.”

  “Gert?” Clara turned to me as smoothly as if she’d been waiting for me to speak. “I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “Gert’s gone, Frank. She enlisted. The government let her finish her coursework with them, and they sent her to Italy a few months ago. We hardly ever hear from her now—half the time we don’t even know where she’s stationed.”

  I don’t remember how I answered or even if I said good-bye before I left. My mother was in the kitchen, writing out bills, and when she asked what was the matter, I didn’t slow a step. I’d planned to throw the ring out, to toss it in the creek or into the ocean when I went to New London, but I found, once I’d lifted the board and unearthed it from its hiding place, that I couldn’t. So I left it there, unseen but not forgotten, until the day Clara told me Gert was coming home. Standing there in the attic that day, fingering the ring, I wondered where the line for too late was, and if I’d crossed it already.

  Crazy, I know. I’d been married to Clara for years by then. We’d fallen into the habit of spending our free time together, and then when her mother died and mine took sick, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to have her come here. My mother liked her, and it eased her last days to know I wasn’t alone. When the time came to propose, I’d gone up to the attic, lifted the board, then hesitated. Suddenly I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I took the bus into New London—the car was gone by then—and found a simple band at Mallove’s. It wasn’t fancy, but Clara cried when I slipped it over her finger on the walk back to her place. She cried a lot back then—her mother had just passed away—so I didn’t read much into it. Gert hadn’t come home for the funeral. When people asked, Clara told them she’d tried, but couldn’t get leave. She did send a beautiful wreath of roses, grown in a hothouse and brought all the way from Hartford, the flowers white with just the faintest blush at the tips, like the cheeks of an infant. She didn’t come home for our wedding, either, although of course there was no way for her to know about it ahead of time. Clara wanted it simple, and it was, just us, my mother, and Richard. Clara sent a note, after, but didn’t get a reply. Not that I’d expected one. She’d made that clear a long time ago.

  When the war ended, Clara kept sending letters, and the army must have forwarded them. Eventually we got a Christmas card, and then one a year after with the return address on it. I noticed she moved around a lot—the addresses were never the same two years running—but the last few times the return address has been from the same place, in upstate New York.

  Clara wrote to Gert regular like, but Gert never wrote back, besides the one card a year. She did send flowers after Richard’s wedding. Richard had got the girl pregnant within weeks of their first date, and then managed to leave town until it was almost too late to do the respectable thing. He’d been living on his own then for a few years, coming round regularly to cadge money off Clara when he thought I wouldn’t notice. He had a notion he could make it as a race track trainer, and was always following the ponies, from Plainfield up to Rockingham and then on to the New York circuit. Clara put a stop to that, at least until the baby was born.

  The day the girl came to see her, Clara spent the rest of the afternoon banging around in the kitchen, slapping out buttermilk biscuits and roasted chicken with potatoes, fine fare for a Sunday afternoon but unusual for midweek. We’d lost two babies by then, both early on in the pregnancy, and I knew enough to stay out of her way. When she’d finished, she packed the meal up in a wicker basket and asked me to drive her to the train station.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow or the next day,” she said, and kissed me as she got out of the car. It was new—I’d bought it after the war by selling off a few acres, something Abe would never have done—and she shut the door carefully behind her, bumping it gently with her hip. I waited until I saw her board the train to New York before I drove away. The house was quiet, but in a good way, and for the first time in a long while I dreamed of Gert, woke up with my heart pounding in the dark.

  When Clara came back, she had her brother in tow, following behind her as meekly as if she’d twisted his ear. The Murphys had spoiled him after the death of his pa, and he reminded me of a bantam rooster, always strutting around and crowing. But Clara got him to marry Lily in a quiet church wedding, and started talking about a honeymoon baby almost as soon as the minister finished the vows.

  The baby was born seven months later, a tiny, screaming thing, almost small enough to pass off as early. It was a long labor, Clara said, even for a first time, and Lily was worn out and white at the end of it. I saw her a few days later and she still hadn’t recovered, but her smile was luminous, enough to light the room. That’s how I see her when I remember: bending over that tiny baby, the child’s dark eyes and impossibly long, slender fingers, with Richard grinning from the doorway as if he’d engineered this miracle himself.

  It ended less than a week later. Lily woke up in the night with a headache. She collapsed on her way to the bathroom and never spoke again. A vessel in her brain just let go, the doctor said.

  Richard took to drinking again, long nights when he’d sit at home with the baby and a bottle of whisky, drinking until he’d pass out on the floor and Clara would find him there the next morning, the baby screaming and the room dank with the smell of soiled diapers and sour milk.

  She tried to take the baby to our house, but Richard wouldn’t hear of it. To make matters worse, the child was jaundiced, an ugly yellow that started in its eyes and spread all through its skin. I’d offered to go and take the child, Richard be damned, but Clara was afraid to have it so far away from town. In an emergency, the doctor might not make it out to the farm in time. She took it into her head that the baby needed more help than we could give, that she needed a medical professional. That she needed Gert.

  And now Gert was returning. In the attic, I stared down the road, as if I could see her there, coming this time instead of leaving. I twisted the ring within the piece of cloth and thought of her face the way I’d seen her last, and of how she must look now, and wondered if she’d find me the same, or if I’d changed to her.

  The n
ext three days passed in a haze of memory and longing, anticipation and fear all rolled into one. Clara had a hundred little tasks for me to do—she wanted the car polished until it shone, the mattress in the spare bedroom had to be turned and beaten to get the dust out, a cot found for Richard’s house in case Gert decided to stay there—and there were the regular, daily tasks of life on the farm, plus the night shift at work. If Clara had any regrets for what she’d put in motion, she kept them to herself. Except, Sunday night, I woke to find her arms about me, her lips on mine, moving against me with a hunger she’d never shown. When we’d finished, she put her head on my chest and fell asleep. I stared at the ceiling and thought of what had passed, and what might have been, until dawn came through the window.

  It all ended, all the dreaming, the moment I saw her on the train platform. If I’d remained the same in time and place, Gert had changed in a way I could not follow. Her figure was the same, the same slight build and proud, fierce carriage she’d always had, but as she walked closer to us, I sensed a difference I could not name, not until she was up close and I could see her face. Clara reached to embrace her first, and Gert allowed her to, but there was a space between them even so. She’d sliced her long braid off, the ends coming to a sharp point just below her chin, and the color had gone to mostly silver. But her eyes were the biggest difference. We’d once called her the ice princess, so cool and smooth she was, but I could see the ice was gone, replaced by a substance that would not shatter or break no matter how hard you beat upon it. She’d turned to steel, forged herself a defense so razor sharp and strong you’d cut yourself if you held her the wrong way. And so I didn’t even try, just nodded and smiled and carried her bags to the car, all the while wondering what she’d done and why she’d done it, and if I was to blame.

  THE dog stirs in its sleep, a long, slow sigh, and I turn from the window and look at the space about me, my prison and my fortress. And something more. If the sea was built into this house, with its mast-like beams and porthole windows, the shipwrights who worked on it crafted another secret as well. I feel the pull of the ocean from this room, hear the ebb and flow of the tides, and find nightfall and day turning back. Currents crisscross the air, pulling me into a different ending, a different life. I see my grandfather aboard his ship, his face relaxed and dotted with droplets from a fine salt spray. I see his namesake, my brother Abe, alive and whole, sunburnt from working the fields all day. There’s a woman in a yellow dress waiting in the shadow of the porch, and he sweeps her into his arms and laughs.

  Always, always, I see Gert. Sunlight is on her hair, a small hand tugs at her dress, and when she turns to me, her face is alight with joy. This is how our lives were meant to be, she tells me, and from my distant place in time I can only nod.

  Andie

  ANDIE wakes craving peaches. She wants to hold one in her hand, bite the rosy flesh, let the juices dribble down her chin. She breathes deeply and inhales their phantom scent, sweet and rich.

  Percoca. In Italy, the white peaches are round and heavy, so luscious that eating them in public feels like a lewd act. Maybe because the slang word for peaches also means a ripe young girl. At the grocery store in Hartman, Andie passes them by. Most are tiny and hard, tinged green around the stem. The few ripe ones bear bruise marks.

  But peaches stay on her mind. She tastes their sweetness beneath her breakfast of toast and black coffee, feels their juices running down her throat. She thinks about settling for the store-bought variety, placing them on the windowsill to ripen, but knows she’ll be disappointed. The fruit will stay hard and unyielding until she throws it out.

  It’s not till she’s finished cleaning up the kitchen that she remembers Aunt Clara’s peach jam. Golden with just a hint of blush, like the last rays of a sunset, the jars lined the shelves of Clara’s pantry every year. During canning time, the kitchen was steamy and filled with a delicious scent that drew bees to the window screens. Andie never stuck around for the actual canning—that would have involved staying indoors on a summer day, heresy to her teenaged self—but she’s almost certain Aunt Clara never purchased a peach in her life.

  That means there must be some on the property. The thought of finding them makes her mouth water, though she feels a pang of guilt at the prospect of wasting a morning. But she’s earned some time off, she argues with herself. Despite Gert’s absence and Cort’s presence, she’s managed to get much done. Yesterday she spent the whole afternoon rummaging through Frank’s desk, throwing away years of neatly filed phone bills, canceled checks, and receipts for everything from shoelaces to lawn mower parts. She’d found curiosities, too: a moth-eaten velvet bag, tucked into one compartment in the back. When she’d untied the string that held the neck closed, cool glass marbles spilled across her hand. An envelope, unsealed, with three squares of fabric—a silky cornflower, a red rough flannel, and a blue cotton square, the color of sky, that looked vaguely familiar. In the very last drawer, she’d found a handkerchief, carefully knotted, containing a faded bouquet of, of all things, lavender and bittersweet. When she’d tried to pick it up, the flowers and berries crumbled into dust. She’d swept up what she could but the fine particles scattered every which way.

  She’s done enough for now, she decides. Tomorrow she’ll tackle the closet in the master bedroom. For one day, the house can wait.

  She whistles for Nina, picks up a wicker field basket from beside the front door, and claps on a man’s straw boater, both finds from the hall closet. She’ll surprise Cort with dinner tonight—cold chicken sandwiches, a green bean salad, and a peach tart. She’s already roasted a chicken for Gert, but her aunt won’t mind if a few pieces are missing.

  IT takes most of the morning to find the peaches. Andie starts with the apple orchard. It’s overgrown with grass and Nina twines underfoot, whining and tripping Andie to the point where she wishes she’d left the dog home.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she says, grabbing a tree branch to avoid falling on her face. The branch is loaded with green fruit, but there are spots on many of the apples.

  Nina barks once, then curls up in the grass, her nose on her paws. Andie’s about to leave her there when something long and black slithers just beyond her foot. She screams and jumps back. Nina races past her. The dog is a blur of flying fur and white teeth, and the snake doesn’t stand a chance. When it rears to strike, Nina darts in, grabs it by the neck, and shakes her head with joyful savageness. Even after the snake stops writhing and goes limp she keeps shaking it, a low growl emitting from between her powerful jaws.

  “Good girl. Good girl. Drop it now,” Andie says. She realizes she’s been holding her breath, and she lets it out in one long exhale. Nina gives the snake one last shake and then lets it go, tossing it in the air. It lands with a soft thud in the grass, and Andie takes a step back. It has to be at least three feet long.

  “Good girl,” she says again, and Nina trots over, tail high in the air. Andie crouches and runs her hands over the dog’s muzzle, neck and body, checking for puncture wounds. To her relief, she finds none. She gives the dog a pat before standing up.

  “Aren’t you the brave one,” she says, and Nina wriggles with pleasure. “I’ll have to find a special treat for you when we get home.”

  She finds a long branch under one of the apple trees and gives the snake a poke to make sure it’s really dead. It is. Her heart rate slows to near normal.

  For the rest of the morning, she keeps Nina in front of her, and the dog’s jaunty tail waves above the grass like a flag promising safe passage. It’s silly, Andie knows. Poisonous snakes in Connecticut are few and far between, but still she shudders at the thought of encountering another.

  There are no peach trees in the apple orchard proper, nine acres with hundreds of trees packed together in row upon row. Wooden signs mark the beginning of each section. Some of the signs are leaning and others have fallen over; on all the paint is peeling and fading.

  A few of the varieties—Red Delic
ious, Gala, and Cortland—are familiar, but most—Gravenstein, Ashmeads Kernal, Maiden’s Blush—Andie’s never heard of. She wanders through the orchard of twisted, gnarled trees and wonders how old they are and who planted them. They look ancient, but many are still bearing fruit. A few have split at the trunk, showing rotten wood, and others have lost limbs to disease or storm.

  She reaches the end of the orchard and almost passes by the peach trees. It’s the buzzing that stops her, a high, almost constant hum that makes her pause and look around. Off to the side, in an untidy cluster of their own, she finds a dozen peach trees swarming with bees, yellow jackets, and wasps.

  Even Nina seems to understand that caution is called for. She flops down on the ground, panting in the tall grass, while Andie carefully approaches the trees. The ground is littered with overripe fruit, and the smell is intoxicating. A little cloud of yellow jackets rises when Andie nears the first tree and she halts, but the insects appear almost drunk on sweetness. Moving slowly, she picks as many peaches as the basket will hold.

  When she’s done, she walks back to Nina, checking the grass carefully before sitting down. The first bite of peach is so good she holds it in her mouth for a moment without swallowing, letting its warm liquid sweetness fill her. She eats the whole peach, bending over so the juices drip down her chin and onto the grass, then licks her fingers.

  When she’s finished she lies back in the grass for a moment, comfortably warm and full. The sky is so blue it looks solid, punctuated by only a few white streaks of cloud. The heat, the rich scent of the grass, even the buzzing of the insects soothes her. She breathes deeply, closes her eyes. For this exact moment, she could stay here all day. She could stay here for the rest of her life.