Beneath the Apple Leaves

by Harmony Verna

  “But not enough to pay down Frank’s loan.”

  “No.”

  “Just wish the boys were old enough to help more. If they were men, we’d have enough help, enough hands.” Eveline chewed at her lip, the anxiety ripping.

  “If they were men, they’d be sent off to war.”

  Eveline had never considered that. She thought of her little ones sleeping upstairs, their innocent little faces, their soft kisses and hugs. In the despair, she found the gratitude, as selfish as it was. As poor as they were, at least she wasn’t losing her boys to the trenches.

  The silence deepened. Eveline’s pulse thumped routinely, timed and rhythmic, like a train approaching from the east. Coming closer. Coming closer.

  Andrew cleared his throat. “I’ve decided to go back to the coal mines.”

  The train slammed. “What?”

  “Once the harvest is done, I’m heading back to Fayette County. I’ll send back what money I make. Every penny I’ll send back. It should be enough to pay off the principal every month. Maybe more.”

  She glanced at his arm and he noticed. “I know. But with the war, the coal mines can’t get enough workers. They won’t care about my arm. As long as I can pick and shovel coal, that’s all they care about.”

  The stupor wore off and the anger rose. “It’s out of the question,” she said coldly.

  “I thought it all over. Ran it through my head a million times and it’s the only way, Aunt Eveline.”

  The woman met his eyes firmly, the blue irises stormy. “The answer is no.”

  He returned the look defiantly. “It wasn’t a question.”

  “I said no!” She stood then, smacked her hands on the table. “You might be the oldest male in this family, but I am still the head of this household! As long as you live under this roof, you will listen to me, young man! You will not ever mention anything as ludicrous as that again.”

  The walls disintegrated, caved upon her shoulders. Heat burned her ears and she wanted to cry, cry in anger and desperation, cry with what her actions and inaction had forced a young man to do—volunteer his life to save her family. “As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t step into a coal shaft again. Do you understand?”

  He opened his mouth to speak and she slammed her palms on the table. “I lost my babies, Andrew! I lost my”—her mouth trembled—“and I lost my husband. I won’t lose you, too.”

  Andrew stood now, matched her stance. “You’re not going to lose me.” He pulled back his shoulders and set his jaw. “I love you, Aunt Eveline, but I’m not your son. I’m a grown man and I’ve made my decision. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

  Her hand flew to her mouth and she started to cry. She bowed her head as her body rocked over the table. Andrew placed his arm around her. “Please, don’t cry. I’m sorry I upset you,” he comforted. “But it’s the only way, you see? Not just for you, but for Will and Edgar, too. It’s the only way.”

  She looked into his eyes, soft with love and duty in the blue depths. “Give me a week, Andrew.” Her chest opened, the decision made. “I’m going to make this right.”

  He shook his head and began to debate her, but she stopped him. “I’ll make this right, Andrew. I swear it.”

  CHAPTER 50

  Andrew and the boys pulled the carrots from the sandy soil, the cluster of orange roots hanging like entrails, before tossing them into the wheelbarrow. And he and the boys looked to the lines of green tops still left to be harvested and looked behind at the few rows that had been completed, the contrast leaving the stooped backs aching with the promise of a full day of work.

  Will and Edgar still carried the aged lines of shock and despair in their childish faces after losing their father. They spoke little and ate even less, the playfulness of youth strangled from their being. They worked hard, their small hands busy and their minds simple, unable to piece together the onslaught of emotions. But they looked to Andrew with the only hope that remained. In him, they saw the burdens that they did not need to carry. Saw the man who kept their mother from falling to pieces and the farm erect.

  And Andrew knew this when the boys met him with their wide, broken hearts and it flattened him. For he would be leaving soon for the coal mines. It was the only way. He promised to give Eveline time to make it right, but there was no right to be made. And so he waited. A week or perhaps two before he would make arrangements.

  In the meantime, Andrew brought what little light he could to the boys. He hid his own pain and told the boys stories while they worked, old folktales his father had told him. Yes, they worked too hard in their grief. Seemed children always had to work so hard. But in these days of living not far from starving, all bodies were required.

  “Need an extra set of hands?” Pieter rose from the hill, the sun bright behind his head, making his face invisible for a moment.

  “An extra back would be more helpful.” Andrew stretched and leaned his spine, cracking it from the base.

  Pieter walked ahead and pulled out two fistfuls of carrots and tossed them into the wheelbarrow. “Comes out like butter,” he scoffed. “You Dutch are too soft. Aren’t they, boys? We Germans are hardy!”

  The boys smiled and laughed dully. But it was laughter all the same, and with the spurt of levity they increased pulling with renewed vigor.

  With the boys distracted, Pieter turned to Andrew, his face suddenly tense. “I need to talk to you.”

  The look on his friend’s face brought new worries. “Pieter and I are going to work higher up the line. We’ll meet in the middle,” he told the boys. “We’ll make it a race.”

  The young men headed straight along the green feathery heads until out of earshot. Pieter stopped. “I saw Lily.”

  The last word Andrew expected to fall from Pieter’s mouth and there it was. Lily. Her name hanging in the fields, pumping oxygen to his heart. He set his jaw. Pushed the name away. “That’s no concern of mine.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  The punch came straight and hard to his stomach, shot fire and numbness at once through his veins.

  Pieter kicked at a round stone, looked to the right of Andrew into the woods beyond the fields. “Thought you should know. The baby being yours and all.”

  The punch landed again and he thought his lungs might collapse. “It’s not mine.” His voice was hard and low. Dark. His Lily had shared her body with another. She had kissed and touched another man, given herself away. He thought of Dan Simpson, the man with brutish features, enjoying her and she him. Andrew never felt so sick—the second amputation of his life.

  “I figured—” Pieter blinked swiftly. “Thought you two had—”

  “We were never together,” he interrupted. “Not in that way.” He thought back over the months to that day in the fields, the last time he saw her, the way she turned from him in disgust. Her lies fanned, waved deception over every memory. And it was this dishonesty that crippled him more than any accident.

  “I’m sorry.” Pieter blew air from his mouth; his head dropped. “Well, at least you know. Told you there wasn’t something right over there.”

  Andrew lifted his boot and crushed a clump of carrots into the ground. His stomach was lead—sour and heavy. “Where did you see her?”

  “In Pittsburgh.” Everything about his friend suddenly changed, his gaze contracting as if in fear. “Polish Hill. Working in a restaurant.”

  “Was Claire with her?” He wanted to cement the betrayal into his history, to ensure any doubting of Lily’s true nature would be forever quashed.

  Pieter shook his head and his chin twisted to the side. He wasn’t thinking about Lily or Claire any longer. Something had taken hold of his thoughts. Andrew’s flesh rose.

  “Why were you in Pittsburgh?” he asked. But Andrew already knew. “You enlisted.”

  Pieter nodded. “Head out for training next week.”

  A breeze played with Pieter’s blond, shaggy hair. “Pa won’t speak to me.” />
  “I’ll help your family, Pieter.” Andrew thought about the coal mines, knew the burden of two families instead of one. A curse seemed to have settled on the houses and families along the main road, sinking each into a chasm one after the other. He wasn’t going to tell Pieter he was going away until he absolutely had to. “I’ll work with Fritz, hire out for extra hands if needed.”

  Pieter flared out his arms in desperation, the anger sudden. “Come on, Andrew! You can’t manage your own farm, let alone ours! It’s too much for any of us. We’re all drowning. Like the whole world is drowning!” he shouted.

  Andrew stopped him. “The war can’t last forever, Pieter.”

  “Yes, it can.” Pieter met his gaze straight. “It can last forever. Can last until it plucks us off one by one.” The acrimony was hard to witness, the gaiety of his friend erased as if it had never existed.

  * * *

  Eveline shut her mind off, wrung it dry like a rag as she walked up the road and turned into the Mortons’ lane. Her hands itched, the pounding of her heart so rough that it hurt.

  I can’t do this. She started to turn back, then thought about little Will and Edgar, thought about what they would do if they lost the farm. There was no hope. They’d be homeless. She had no choice. Something pinched her organs and she put her hand to her chest, thought she was having a heart attack. She was breaking, could feel it in every nerve, and she leaned her head against the peeling doorframe of the Morton house, opened her mouth into a silent howl. She thought about Wilhelm, missed him so much that it made everything snap, and yet she was so angry he had left her. So angry she wanted to break everything on the outside. She melted into the anger and gripped the old wood so hard that splinters entered her fingertips. She pushed the missing and the longing away, concentrated on the points of wood against her skin, anything to keep her standing.

  Eveline didn’t knock. She opened the door. She walked over the wide-planked floor as if she knew the grains, knew where her path led, and she did—straight to Hell. She heard footsteps on the floor above and found the carpeted steps, worn and threadbare as she walked one step up at a time. A light glowed at the end of the hallway. She stood in the doorway of the small room. A large desk centered the space; a green banker’s lantern edged it. Frank sat, read a ledger, his fingers rubbing his forehead in thought. The Stetson hat hung on the chair and the imprint of the band still etched the man’s forehead.

  She waited until he felt her presence. Frank looked up, startled, before a half grin curled his mouth. “This is a surprise,” he said languidly.

  She walked into the room. Her heart was quiet now, silent, seemingly nonexistent. She closed the door, put the deed on his desk. “I’m ready to pay in full.”

  He leaned back and crossed his arms. “Is that so?” Slowly, his eyes drifted down her body, and she felt them across her skin like hands. And she let the eyes drift, stood steady with attention no different from that of a soldier under inspection. And she was a soldier at that moment and she needed to be brave in her war, even if it meant losing her soul.

  “How do you know my offer still stands?” he asked, holding cold eyes to her blue ones. “Maybe I’m not interested anymore.”

  “Then I’ll go.”

  He nodded. Tilted his head to look at her from a new angle. He stood then and came around, sat on the edge of the desk. They were only inches apart, their gazes level. “My terms have changed.”

  “How so?”

  “I get to do whatever I want to you.”

  She thought about Andrew and the coal mines, swallowed, but kept her head up. “All right.”

  He leaned back against the desk, spread his legs slightly. “And you have to do whatever I tell you to do.”

  The silver letter opener gleamed near his hand. She wanted to thrust it into his heart. “All right.”

  “And”—he reached a hand up and grabbed her hip, squeezed roughly—“you have to like it. Have to show me how much you like it.”

  Bile rose to her throat. Her nostrils flared. She nodded fiercely.

  He grabbed her by the waist then, pressed his lips hard against hers, his tongue hot and large in her mouth. Eveline pulled back. “Not until you mark the deed.”

  He laughed, breathed fast, his pants tented. He turned and grabbed a pen, scribbled on the paper. She took the moment and wiped her mouth, wished she could expel the remnants of him on his shoes.

  With a final signature done with impatient flurry, he turned back and found her mouth again. “Remember, you have to show me you like it.”

  Eveline let her stiff lips yield against his. She pinched her eyes closed, fell into the rhythm of his kissing and panting, matched his seamlessly, concentrated on this matching so that it was not a kiss but a mechanical act that took no feeling.

  She hated him and yet she was giving her body. She used the fire of hate to tear at his shirt in mock passion, ripping the buttons from their holes. She found his mouth and bit his lip hard. He pulled back for only a moment before coming at her swiftly, pulling at the buttons that reached from her chin to below her waist. She tore at his undershirt until it was above his head and then on the floor and she kissed his chest, bit the skin roughly. She clawed at his back, knew she drew blood and kissed him harder for it.

  He twitched between the spasms of pain and pleasure and growled into her neck. “Knew you were a fiery one.”

  Frank stood then and lifted her, swiveled their bodies and placed Eveline on the desk where he had been. He pushed down the dress to her undergarments, found her breasts hidden behind the fabric, tore until the strap ripped and pushed it off her shoulder.

  The hardness of him told her he’d be quick and she hurried. Eveline grabbed the pearl buckle, the one that had intrigued her in another life, and pulled hard until the leather came undone and lay slack on either side of his waist. She unbuttoned the fly, shoved her hand into his underwear and grabbed with a tight grip.

  He moaned heavily into her ear, fumbled with the remaining clothing until it lay in a puddle on the floor. He opened her legs with his knees. She stroked him, used her nails against the sensitive tip, watched his face contort with her fingers and pressure. She pushed his jeans off his hips and leaned back against the desk, opened her legs widely and pulled him toward her. He entered her swiftly, banged against her thighs and pelvis, their movement making echoes of thump, thump, thump in the tiny room. He finished in less than a minute, taking her deep and growling into her neck with the release. She was not a victim, she told herself. He was. And she took him fully and watched distantly the weak man get his little pleasure.

  She lay there, Frank still lodged between her thighs as his chest quieted in her neck. The letter opener sat next to her fingers and she glanced at it from the corner of her eye, thought how easy it would be to slip the tool into her palm and thrust it into his back.

  She twisted her neck away from the man’s panting. “I’ll get my things,” she started, but he stopped her with a shake of his head.

  “We’re not done yet.”

  She met his eyes with as much blackness as she could and in response he just chuckled, his laugh slow and long with pleasure. Her stomach dropped and she closed her eyes, realized she had been a fool to think he would let her off easy.

  “You a religious woman, Eveline?”

  She didn’t answer. Simply hated him. Turned all her hate into one glaring pinpoint of disgust.

  He donned a look of priestly devotion. “There’s a story about Adam and Eve that you won’t find in the Bible. It’s an old story from the Jews.” He reached over and rubbed her breast, squeezed the nipple between his fingers. “The story says that Adam’s first wife was a woman named Lilith. But Lilith was an evil woman, you see. Impure. She was not a good wife to Adam. She would not obey him. She refused to be subservient. And so she abandoned him, left the Garden of Eden and hid within a cave to do her evil deeds.”

  Frank ran a finger down the line between Eveline’s breasts and cont
inued, “As you can imagine, Adam was very distraught and angry at his first wife. But God took mercy on him and created Eve.”

  “I don’t need a Sunday school lesson, Mr. Morton,” Eveline hissed.

  He laughed at this. “Don’t you find it interesting at least? Here is my sister-in-law named Lilith who refuses to obey me and runs off with my wife. Then you, dear Eve, come to me, offering your body. Doesn’t that strike you as fate?”

  “My name is Eveline Kiser. Not Eve.”

  He ignored her proclamation. “And you being tempted by my charms all along,” he went on. “Eve couldn’t wait to taste that apple.” He touched the red bite marks that lined his chest. “Eve couldn’t wait to bite that apple, eh?”

  “Never believed much in the story,” she growled to the devil himself. “Always believed it wasn’t Eve who bit the apple. . . .” She paused and thought of Wilhelm hanging in the apple tree. “It was the apple who bit Eve.”

  With that, she lunged for the deed, but Frank was quick and slid it from her reach. “I told you, we ain’t done yet.”

  He touched her face almost lovingly, stroked her chin and her cheeks, reached up and petted her hair. And there his palm stopped and he pressed the top of her head, pushed her into a grave. She knew what he wanted, something she never did to her own husband.

  “Kneel down, Eve.”

  * * *

  When Eveline Kiser left that tiny office, it was dark outside, dark inside. She was numb. Cold or heat could not have had an effect, did not exist against her skin. She had done things in that room that she didn’t know humans were capable of doing to each other. He had left her sore and wounded, depleted of anything human, made her feel more animal than woman.

  She stumbled through the Morton kitchen and out to the lane and up to the street. The air came hard to her lungs and she was running, didn’t even know she was running until the stars blurred and the moon followed at a rapid pace above and to her right. She stopped and screamed. Screamed at the moon like a wounded wolf and she screamed until she fell to her knees in the road and melted into the rough gravel, let the tiny rocks press into her skin and she couldn’t feel them, couldn’t feel anything.