Beneath the Apple Leaves(22)
Five months had passed since the train accident. In a year, he had lost his father, his mother, his home, his friends, his arm, his future. He didn’t recognize this new life, couldn’t find his place in it, like he was walking in circles through a fog-filled maze.
The cat rubbed against Andrew’s maimed side. Over the months, the burn had lessened, the pain now nearly gone. Numbness had replaced the pain but made it feel dead instead. The pain held a form of life and now even that was gone.
He remembered the thick volume of poems Miss Kenyon had given him once—Dante’s Divine Comedy, a story outlining a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise. Andrew knew Hell now—fire in all its forms. He peered at the old farmhouse, listened to the gentle purr of the cat and hum of the soft land. And this was Purgatory.
Paradise. If the story were true, Paradise would follow. Andrew laughed then, elicited a surprised chirp from the feline. Not likely. He raised his eyes to the sky above the tree limbs, awed by the stars again, bright as diamonds without the smog. And he wondered, Maybe things have to fall apart in order for the stars to shine?
He was tired of feeling sorry for himself. He had one arm. He hated it, cursed it, but he had one good one left and he would focus there, try to find his way again.
“Paradise.” He said the word jeeringly as he gave the cat a long rub. “What do you think, Wormy? Anything out there for me?” The calico climbed to his shoulder and jumped to the tree behind him. He turned to see where she landed and noticed a roughly scraped spot in the bark, a circle shaved to its smooth, pale underside. He squinted to examine the solitary word carved into the wood: “Lily.”
CHAPTER 16
Lily Morton bent over the washtub, scrubbed the last bits of hay and dirt and grease from the work clothes. Her long hair hung in a plait between her shoulder blades, but the top of her light brown head was full of loose hairs, straying in every direction. She rubbed her itchy nose against her shoulder, then heaved the soaking clothes up, fed them through the wringer and hung them on the clothesline to dry. Her brother-in-law’s pants dripped heavily next to her and her sister’s dresses. With a scowl, Lily pulled up the male undergarments from the soapy water and wrung them in her bare hands like a neck and sloppily hung them in a queue, sticking her tongue out in disgust.
Leaves crunched behind the house from the barn. Her sister stumbled forward, bent over as she struggled with the two full pails of fresh milk, the precious contents sloshing over the rim. Lily ran to her side and took the pails from her hands, the metal handles leaving a red mark on each palm.
“Claire, it’s too much. You know that,” she scolded. “See, you spilled half the milk. Don’t have to carry so much at one time.”
The woman rubbed her sore hands, rubbed them more than necessary, over and over as if she were balling dough. “I thought I had them. Didn’t want to leave them in the field case they got sp-sp-spilt,” she stuttered.
Lily touched her sister’s arm consolingly, instantly sorry she had scolded Claire. She was thirteen years Lily’s senior but was childlike more times than not. The doctor had said it was from the mule kick she suffered as a girl. Shame, the neighbors had said. Such a beautiful girl. Shame that damn mule made her stutter and soft as a turtle egg. But Lily knew the truth. The only damn mule that ever kicked Claire was her father.
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lily placed her hands atop Claire’s rolling ones. “Just let me get the milk from now on, all right?” She squeezed until the toiling fingers stopped and her sister nodded.
“All right, Lily.” The woman’s mouth twitched. “I’m sorry I made you mad.”
“I’m not mad. Not at you anyway.” She looked over at the drying long johns and stuck out her tongue again. “Can’t you at least get Frank to wipe his bum for once in his life? Looks like his underclothes been run over by wagon wheels that got stuck in the mud!”
Claire broke out in giggles, laughed so hard she had to cover her mouth. Lily laughed, too, loved to see her sister happy and smiling. “Can’t you slip a diaper on him when he’s sleeping? Pin it on good and tight?”
Claire doubled over. “Stop!” Tears of laughter squeezed from her eyes. “You better hush. He’ll hear you,” she warned between giggles.
“He’s not hearing a thing.” Lily put her arm around her sister’s slight shoulders and mocked seriousness. “Except his own noises echoing in the outhouse.” The women erupted with giggles again, their heads locked together in devilish mirth.
Claire had raised Lily, even if it was like being reared by an infant. Lily’s father took no part in her upbringing. His eyes were dead. Seemed he wanted to make everything else dead, too. Seemed he wanted to beat the life out of anything that had life running through it.
He always smelled of drink. When she was a child, she didn’t know the smell of whiskey, just thought it was the smell of men, that all fathers smelled like that in mouth and skin. Only later, when she ran into men coming from the saloons, did she recognize the scent and it made her feel frail and sad at the same time. But she always had Claire. It was Claire who fed her and changed her, rocked her and slept with her at night. It was Claire who took the force of their father’s blows when he was missing his dead wife and cursing his life, blows that left Lily’s sister simple and scared of anything that moved.