Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  Andrew came so close that his shadow climbed upon her own. “I never got to thank you for breakfast. Best meal I’ve had in a year.” He smiled softly, beautifully, his teeth white and straight below the gentle curve of his lip. She blushed and she didn’t know what was happening. She hoisted the twins up higher, thought the heat from the little bodies made her sweat. She didn’t want to look at him.

  “It was nothing.” She started to turn back to the house, just needed some air, needed to feel normal again.

  “Here.” He inched closer. “Let me take one of them for you.”

  “No.” She pulled away, felt a fierce heat fire up her neck.

  “Oh.” His mouth evened with the rebuff.

  “It’s just—” She inched back. “It’s just they need to feed now. Why they’re so fussy is all.”

  He nodded and turned around, walked slowly back to the corncrib. Lily pressed her forehead against Harold’s. She felt dizzy. Scared and dizzy and she didn’t know why.

  * * *

  Lily didn’t want to stare at the young man with one arm, but she found her eyes glued upon his figure whenever he came into view, her will little against the pull. She watched him work. His tall, muscular body already tanning with the outdoor labor, his face always strong and intent with focus. But it was the light of him that seized her. A light that warmed the veins, brought color to her cheeks and made her stomach churn with anxiety when his body neared.

  On this night, after working at the Kisers’ all day, Lily returned home in the same dull darkness that dawn had brought that morning. Her thoughts were heavy, not with work but with an indescribable weight. There was warmth back at the Kiser homestead. Despite the crumbling, mildew-stained house, the warmth of babies and smiles and family erased all that was unlovely.

  Andrew flashed before her again and the heat came back, made her swallow. He was always being so nice to her and she didn’t know why. She couldn’t even speak to him without wanting to run away. Maybe inside he mocked her. This made her insides sour. After all, she was just a dumb country girl. She had been to town enough times to know what pretty girls looked like, and she wasn’t one of them. The young women in town had clean, store-bought dresses and satin ribbons tied in their hair. They wore shiny shoes and stockings that made their legs appear longer and more defined. She’d never been jealous of those girls before, more curious than anything. Lily was of the same gender but a different breed altogether.

  Andrew’s blue eyes followed her home, so clear and deep that they pierced into her skin. Yes, that was it. They saw right through her, and nobody wanted to see what was in there. When he looked at her, there was nowhere to hide and she wanted to hide. It was always safer to hide.

  Lily entered the worn Morton house distracted and feeling low. She had probably overstayed her welcome at the Kisers’, but she didn’t want to leave, would have gladly slept in the limbs of the apple tree if given the chance. But she had happily helped Eveline get the twins down and the older boys to bed. Made her feel good. Feel useful.

  All the lights were off except for the oil lamp that Claire had left on in the kitchen. Lily turned off the flame and headed upstairs to her room. Frank’s snoring labored from behind the wall. Lily lit the Rochester wick on her old lamp and turned the knob to the lowest brightness. From beneath her mattress she pulled out a sketchbook and a pencil worn down to half its original length. She flipped the pages, nearly all the spaces filled with drawings. She cherished the book as her only true belonging. One day, the pages would be filled, with no more space to sketch, and her fingers would lie idle.

  This night she drew a rabbit, small and fragile beneath an expanse of trees, the round eyes black and glistening. They peered up to the boughs and leaves, wanted to be them instead of a small creature hiding amid the blades of grass. The light flickered at her nightstand, seemed to glisten the matte lead and make the rabbit’s eyes truly bright. She closed the book and hid it and the pencil back under the mattress.

  Lily inspected her hand, the right side of the palm gray from rubbing on the graphite. She stared at the ceiling, the warped and sagging plaster, and the heaviness came and wet her eyes. Don’t let my light go out, she begged silently, her prayer since childhood. She closed her eyes and tears squeezed from the corners. The darkness pulsed around her covers, slinking and waiting for her to be weak and let it in. But I won’t. She gritted her teeth stubbornly, defiantly. I won’t let you take me. She cried now, kept the tears locked in her thumping chest so no one would hear. Please, God. She prayed to everything and nothing. Please don’t let my light go out.

  CHAPTER 22

  Andrew took the smallest bedroom in the house. After Will and Edgar worked by his side repainting the walls, they displayed his few belongings and books along the top of the bureau. Will picked up Andrew’s football, the threadbare leather patched at the tips. “You play football?” he asked.

  “Used to.” Andrew pressed the top of the paint can loosely, then hammered down the rim. “You can have it if you want.”

  The little boy rubbed the ball. “Could you play with me? With me and Edgar?” he asked, the question tentative.

  “It’s too late. Maybe tomorrow.” He was distracted and half-listened, had been irritable all day. “Why don’t you and Edgar run off to bed now. I’ll finish up in here.”

  Will stepped closer. “I could help you.”

  I don’t need any help, he wanted to shout but kept his mouth shut, ignored the child’s offer.

  Will gave a slight toss to the football, but when he tried to catch it the ball landed on one of the paintbrushes and knocked it to the floor, splattering cream paint across the hardwood.

  “I’m sorry—” Will chased the wayward ball, but Andrew caught it first.

  “Just go,” Andrew snapped. His temper rose without warning. “Both of you. Just give me some peace, all right?”

  Edgar and Will dropped their heads. “Just wanted to help,” Will sniffled.

  Andrew turned away without a response, began wiping up the spilled paint with an old rag. Two small arms came from behind and hugged his waist. “I’m sorry,” came the little voice before the two boys left the room and closed the door.

  Andrew threw the rag to the floor and plopped down on his bottom, rubbed his forehead. He stared at the newly painted walls, his cousins’ artistry that left patches of white between uneven and sloppy paint strokes. He shouldn’t have been harsh with the boys. He saw Will’s face, the crushed expression, and the guilt poked. After all, on most days the little boys were the only ones who helped him forget the pain, the loss and homesickness that waited in the shadows.

  But even the boys couldn’t offer relief today. For the telegram came this morning from his mother overseas. Only an address, nothing more. No words of her travel. No words of the fighting or her health. No warm memories of his father or mention of his severed limb. Only her address. And the absence of sentiment spoke louder than any commissioned typing—after the loss of her husband, the pain of her son’s deformity was more than she could bear.

  The contrast between his mother’s rebuff and his cousins’ affinity stood out bold and blunt. He’d make it up to them tomorrow, play ball until it was too dark to see. But he knew it wasn’t just his mother’s telegram that set him off. He was getting too close to this family. Growing up in the coal mines, one learns quickly not to give away the heart so freely; in the mines, every greeting is laced with a farewell. He had been well taught and the lesson learned—life has a way of taking away what you love the most.

  Andrew finished cleaning up the paint cans, the brushes and the floor. With hand at his hip, he viewed the room. Home. And yet he never felt more lost.

  The window in his room yawned widely, the temperate night air full with the infused scents of honeysuckle and lilac. Andrew took off his shirt to cool his skin and sat cross-legged on the quilt, swinging his father’s miner tags in front of him like a pendulum. He thought about the work of the day, the inabil
ity to do any task quickly or efficiently. He had tried to carry rocks for the new stone wall but couldn’t grip the round edges with his one hand. He settled for smaller stones and filled the wheelbarrow. He lifted the handgrip and thought he could balance, only to have the wheelbarrow fall to the side and the rocks roll out. He couldn’t patch the roof because he couldn’t work and hold on at the same time. He was the first one up and the last one to bed and still his efforts were only a quarter of his former production.

  Andrew stopped swinging the miner tags and peered into the warped metal for answers. “I don’t know how to do this,” he whispered to his father. His nostrils flared. “I don’t know what to do.”

  His chest was bare and he forced his eyes to his torn left shoulder. He wanted nothing more than to turn away, but he kept his focus on the curled and unnatural flesh, the raw ugliness of it. The very sight of the amputation site nauseated to the core and yet this body was all he had—an ugliness he would own for the rest of his life.

  Finally, he pulled his eyes away and dropped the tags on the patchwork quilt. A coyote howled plaintively far away in the woods. Another followed and then a series of devilish yaps crowded the previously calm night. He peered out the window, couldn’t see another light or house. He wondered if he was the only one awake, wondered if the woman with green eyes and golden hair was asleep in her bed.

  He pushed the density of the day away, ripped the telegram in his mind and focused on the young woman up the road. Andrew grinned then, his mood levitating with the breeze. There was a wildness to Lily Morton but a grace as well, the way a meadow can be wild and overgrown with flowers—a simple, natural beauty that fills the heart with hope that such a land will never be tamed and will always bloom freely.

  Thank God she delivered those babies, he thought to himself for the hundredth time. Andrew flopped back to his pillow, ran his fingers through his hair so the strands stood up by the roots. He smiled in reverence. He knew she had been scared delivering those twins, but no one else would have seen it. He wasn’t sure why he could, but he knew she had been as terrified as he had been.

  He waited for exhaustion to take over as his thoughts drifted off to a woman in a torn green dress and old work boots with a smile that blinded everything around its edges. Yes, Lily was the meadow. He rolled over and the nerves pinched painfully around the missing limb. And, he reflected contritely, he was the severed stump on the outskirts.

  * * *

  The cows arrived from the dairy farm in Cumberland County, filled the stalls of the barn. The new hogs grunted in the pen behind. The horse and chickens would arrive in a few days. And the Kiser clan left the grind and the hardness of the city behind and eased into farm life one animal and chore at a time. The transition left them cringing at first, until they sighed into the new routines, the way one pulls thick socks off blistered feet.

  Andrew and Wilhelm patched the holes and cracks in the barn with new wood. They lined rocks and mortar along the foundation. Wilhelm covered the holes in the old roof with new shingles Andrew handed up to him. Hay stocks, fresh and dusty, filled the lofts and stacked the sides of the barn. The lane, still impassable, necessitated the use of pitchforks and bale hooks to transport the hay squares from wagon to hand-pushed wheelbarrows, the work long and prickly.

  The privy was long bloated and honey dippers were called to dig a new one, bury the old and move the ratty wooden closet atop the new hole. Edgar and Will delighted in calling down the clean pit while their voices ricocheted against the black sides.

  After supper, Andrew worked in the chicken coop, scooping out the years of compact feces and seed husks from the floor, nearly a foot high. The stink had long been removed, but the feathers and history of warm chickens itched his skin. He took a thick shovelful of muck out and was leaning the wooden handle hard against his shoulder for leverage when Will came running up the hill.

  “Andrew!” Will hollered from the lane. Little Edgar ran close to his heels. Andrew propped the shovel against the coop.

  “Somebody’s out there!” Edgar cried. The boys screeched to a halt, their eyes wide and nervous. “He’s throwing rocks at us!”

  “Big rocks and sticks and stuff,” Will huffed between breaths, showing a small scratch on his cheek. They pointed down the lane in unison.

  “All right,” Andrew said. “I’ll check it out.”

  Will grabbed his arm. “He’s a big man. Like a monster.”

  Edgar nodded. “Like a big, hairy monster.”

  “All right.” Andrew patted Edgar’s head. “Stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.”

  But the boys looked all around in a panic. “We can’t stay here. What if he finds us?” Will whined. “He’ll lock us in the coop and eat our brains or something.”

  Andrew grinned. “Okay, come with me then. Show me where you saw this monster.”

  Andrew walked steadily down the lane while Will and Edgar hid behind his back, weaving unnaturally like a Chinese lion parade.

  “Ouch!” Edgar rubbed his arm.

  “What’s wrong—ouch!” The small rock bounced against Andrew’s chest before another one knocked him on the forehead. Will cried, retreated to the house.

  Andrew grabbed Edgar by the collar and pulled him to safety in the barn. More rocks pelted the sky, the source of the assault stemming from a large arm throwing in a steady pitch. Andrew put Edgar in one of the stalls. “Stay here. Got it?”

  Stealthy as a fox, Andrew shimmied around the back of the barn, saw the back of a mammoth of a man crouching around the corner. Andrew picked up a slender metal pipe and tiptoed closer to the form. Without a sound, he jabbed the pipe between the man’s enormous shoulder blades. “Stand up.”

  The man stiffened and began to shake, started to turn around.

  “Look straight ahead!” Andrew ordered. “Put your hands up.”

  The man stretched to his full height and Andrew gulped; he’d never seen a man so tall. The hands in the air quaked violently.

  “Who are you?”

  The arms shook more, rattled down the wide back.

  “I said, who are you?” Andrew pushed the pipe harder into the back.

  A whimper radiated from the enormous body. “Don’t shoot me!” he wailed. Deep sobs winded the man. “I’m sorry!”

  Andrew pulled the pipe away. “Turn around.”

  Slowly, the man faced Andrew, his face red and slimy from tears. But it was not the face of a man, the features puffy and nearly childlike, a young boy’s head transplanted on a statue of a lumberjack. “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “Didn’t mean to hurt nobody. I’m sorry.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Fritz!” Another voice gained momentum as a figure jogged down the lane.

  The blubbering man ran and grabbed on to the stranger. He bent and cried into his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Pieter! I’m sorry!”

  “Goddammit, Fritz, what you go and do now?” Pieter’s anger waned as he patted the big man-child on the back. “Settle down now. Okay? Just settle yourself.” He met Andrew’s eyes square and then rolled them. “I’m sorry about this. My brother doesn’t know what he’s doing sometimes. He didn’t hurt anyone, did he?” Fritz looked up at Andrew, his eyes pleading.

  Andrew dropped the pipe and kicked it away. “He was throwing some rocks is all. Kids got spooked.”

  Edgar snuck out of the barn and pointed. “He threw rocks at me and Will. Hit me square in the head!”

  Pieter shook his head. “What the hell you doing throwing rocks at kids, Fritz?” he scolded, exasperated. “Know better than that! What the hell you doing that for?”

  Fritz crumpled onto his bottom and held his knees to his chest, rocked against the reprimand.

  Edgar glanced at Andrew and approached the crying form. “I’m okay,” he consoled tentatively. “Didn’t really hurt.” He fished through his pocket and pulled out a piece of hard candy, unwrapped and stuck with pocket lint. “Here.” He handed the sweet to the man-boy. “It’s butterscotch.”

/>   Fritz blinked at the outstretched hand and smiled so widely through his tears that the sun nearly came from his skin. He took the dirty butterscotch and put it in his mouth, stared at the little boy as if he loved him.

  “What you say to these people now?” prodded Pieter.

  The man sucked on the butterscotch, content and lively. “I’m sorry I threw rocks at you. I ain’t gonna ever do it again.” His enormous jaw bit into the candy. “Fritz ain’t never gonna cause trouble again.”

  Edgar, suddenly enlivened by his new friend, the rock pummeling now erased from his mind, grabbed Fritz’s hand. “Come on. You can help me clean the coop.”

  Pieter watched the two disappear around the corner. He rubbed the back of his neck, struggling between humor and embarrassment. “Sorry about my brother. He’s not a bad kid, just doesn’t know any better.” He carved the toe of his boot into the ground. “Wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but he’s as gentle as a mouse. Just thought he was playing a game. He just doesn’t know better.” He stuck out a hand of goodwill. “Pieter Mueller.”

  “Andrew Houghton.”

  “Houghton? Heard the name was Kiser.”

  “My uncle. Wilhelm Kiser.”

  The young man pumped the hand heartily. “Well, you already met my brother, Fritz. Would have come by sooner but been visiting my sister upstate. Just had her fifth kid. Was on my way over to invite you all up for dinner when Fritz barreled ahead. Ma didn’t want to bother you yet case your aunt didn’t have the house ready for guests. Women get all funny with that stuff, don’t they? Give me a rock to sit on and I’m happy as a goat.”

  Pieter mirrored his age, maybe a bit older, mid-height and slim, night and day from his brother. He had blond hair and freckles from the sun that carried down his forehead and across the bridge of his nose. He pointed to the new pigpen behind the barn. “How many pigs you got?”

  “Two.”

  “Mind if I take a look? Know a thing or two about hogs. Got more than we can count up our way. Heard of Mueller sausage? Best damn German sausage in the state. Pa grew up in Nuremberg making the stuff.” He raised one eyebrow confidentially. “Secret family recipe.”