Beneath the Apple Leaves(18)

Will inched closer to his cousin and squinted at the remnants of the amputation, studied the ragged scar. “Looks like the smokestack at the Heinz factory.”

Edgar climbed up from the floor and scooted past his brother. “Let me see.” Andrew cringed as the little boys inspected the cuts. “Oh, I see it!” In the air, Edgar traced the line of the incision. “Looks just like it, got lines like smoke an’ everything.”

Andrew watched the curious faces that held no pity. Consciously, he released the tension that hunched his shoulders and stiffened his neck, his body loosening like a deflating balloon. In spite of himself, he cracked a smile, the strange curve foreign, nearly forgotten. He allowed the boys to stare at the ravaged flesh, their inquisitive gaze softening the sting, a slight salve to the harsh words spoken down in the kitchen.

Wilhelm Kiser might see him as a cripple, but—Andrew thought gratefully—these boys only saw a Pittsburgh landmark.





PART 3

All good things are wild and free.

—Henry David Thoreau





CHAPTER 13

Plum, Pennsylvania—1917



Lilith Morton stretched her arms wide, ran down the slope of the bristled farmland, the gusts pushing her to the valley, then uplifting her to the highest mounds. And she ran with the air, then ran against the thrusts so it pressed against her cheeks and whipped her wild hair in knotted wisps. She was a hawk—a kestrel. She was free and as she surged with the wind she held her breath for the moment when her feet would rise from the earth and her body would reach the sky.

In her flight, the bread wagon rattled on the main road. She knew this without looking, had heard the familiar chains and squeaky wheels for as long as she could remember. She knew that perched on top were old man Stevens and his Negro wife, Bernice. Lilith knew they couldn’t see her from the road, but she was suddenly self-conscious, her wings clipped. She was not a hawk. She was a lanky girl of seventeen with tangled hair and muddy dress who wanted to live in the trees and sprout wings.

She plopped onto the ground and plucked the sticky burrs and thorns off her sleeves and hem. The August heat seeped into her skin. It was a heavy heat that slowed the world, made the body want to rest and bask in thick warmth. Grasshoppers jumped around her hips, their dull green bodies clicking as wings stretched and then retreated. The honey-and bumblebees buzzed from long dandelions to nearly hidden violets. When she was a child, she would hold the bees in her palm, convinced that they would see that she was good and would not sting her. She was stung every time.

Lily twisted a goldenrod stem around her finger and gazed at the deserted farm. She remembered a time when the old clapboard house had sparkled white. Now it was gray and peeling, with only spots of dull cream, like snow melting over a road of gravel.

She rose from the patch of weeds and bugs, traced the line of the broken slate walkway to the ancient apple tree that leaned precariously over half the yard. Her old boots were long accustomed to finding the knots and bevels in the ridged bark and she climbed easily. Her knees scraped but had long ago grown numb against the rough grain. She stood upon the thickest, lowest branch and reached above to hoist up and continued that way until she sat in the crook of the highest limbs. Her back rested against the trunk as if in a man’s lap, the strong arms protecting on either side.

The leaves speckled shadows across her light dress and across her skin. The sparrows and finches flew back to their perches, now fully used to her visits and handfuls of sunflower seeds. She reached for one of the apples, just starting to ripen under the sun, and plucked it off, leaned into the wooden arms and chewed the crisp, tart apple slowly, shielding her eyes against the spears of sun that peeked through the limbs and tickled her eyelids and forehead.

A barn cat slunk along the perimeter of the lifeless house and stretched front paws forward and arched her back, the tummy low and flaccid from birthing litters. The calico flopped on her side and licked a front paw, then squinted at Lily in the tree and meowed. Lily threw the shreds of baked chicken from her pocket, the cat instantly upon them, chewing with back teeth. Lily sighed. This place was her home. She shared it with the birds and the bugs, with the wild cats and the weeds, and the sun and the moss and the old trees. But this was the last day. This farm was hers only for today and no more after.

A bell rang far above the valley, shuddered in its clanging way across the hills. The chime hollered her name as clearly as if it had been a voice: Lily! Lilith, it called, time to come home! She closed her ears and her eyes, felt the warmth of this place leaving quickly. She took another bite of the apple, glanced down at the dilapidated farmhouse below. From up high she could see the moss on the far end of the roof and the spotted siding, holes where woodpeckers had started and then robins had built stick homes and wasps hung their paper nests the size of slop buckets.

The bell rang again and the apple tasted sour. She threw the core to the ground, where it bounced. Her sister would be worried, but for once, she didn’t care. This was her space, her own corner of the earth. The farmhouse she imagined was hers and hers alone, her own garden, her own everything, to be made new and fresh and beautiful again.

But it wasn’t her place or her tree. The new owners were coming in a day and wouldn’t take too kindly to a skinny bird girl perched in their tree. She rolled her eyes. Her arms would never be wings, just scrawny limbs that hung without vigor.