Beneath the Apple Leaves(23)
Lily glanced at the ditch not too far off from where the laundry was hung—the last place she ever saw her father, shot in the back and bleeding to death in the mud. She turned her view and concentrated on the milk in the buckets, turned the memories of red blood to white. She picked the pails up and brought them to the house carefully, setting them near the door so she could strain the cream after supper.
*
Frank Morton shoveled the last of the eggs into his mouth and wiped his lips against the napkin. He wore his new silver-tipped boots and his favorite beige Stetson atop his head. He looked a fool, thought Lily. Frank deemed himself a cowboy. Thought himself handsome in his polished boots and spurs, though she was pretty sure he’d never been on top of a horse in his life. Women found him attractive—this she knew—but for what reason she hadn’t a clue. But she saw the way the ladies glanced at him in the general store and the way the wives of his clients hung upon his stupid words and his awkward swagger.
Claire pulled out another pie from the oven and placed the pan on the window ledge with the others, the syrups bubbling from the fork holes.
“How many pies you making?” he asked.
“Seven.” She took down one of the cooled ones and began to slice. “Figured you could bring a few down to the new neighbors.”
“I’ll do that,” Frank decided.
Lily picked up his plate and fork and dropped them in the wash bucket roughly. “Why they want that beat-up Anderson place anyway?” she asked, her tone sour.
“Beats me.” Frank leaned back and rubbed his belly. He was midway through his thirties and his torso was starting to show it. “Traded that house in Troy Hill without even seeing the place.”
Lily poured the hot water over the dishes. “Traded it even?”
“Just about. The rest paid for the movers and the livestock coming.”
Claire sliced through a fresh pie and placed it on a small plate, handed it to her husband. “You told them about the farm?” she asked tentatively. “I mean, you let them know what kind of shape it’s in, right?”
“I can’t believe it.” Frank whistled loudly. “My own wife thinking I’m trying to swindle folks.”
Claire blushed hotly. “I’m sorry. I-I-I didn’t mean that.”
“Course I told them!” Frank cut into the warm pie, blew the steam rising from the cooked cherries. “Could have said I was selling him a snake pit and don’t think it would have mattered. Never saw a man looking to leave the city so fast.”
He chewed carefully, opening his mouth wider than normal to cool the fruit. “Heard something happened on the man’s job with the railroad. What I heard in town, anyway. People saying it had to do with him being a Kiser and all.”
“What’s his name got to do with anything?” Claire asked.
“He’s German, Claire.” Frank rolled his eyes. “Spies comin’ in all the time. Last thing you need is some German infiltrating the rails, wrecking them to pieces like in France. You heard about the Black Tom explosion in New Jersey. Those German agents destroyed all the munitions headed to the Allies. Could do the same to the railroads in Pittsburgh. End up crippling our side of the war.”
Frank chewed the pie, stuck out his tongue with the heat. “Can’t believe we’re getting another goddamn German in this town. A Kiser no less.” He shook his head. “How come we got so many Germans on this street?”
“Only the Muellers,” Claire interjected.
“Air gonna smell like sauerkraut.”
“I like sauerkraut,” said Claire.
Frank growled under his breath. “Don’t always have to take things so literal.” He stood and adjusted his belt buckle. Then, spitting on the tips of his fingers, he wiped the dirt off the silver of his boots and admired one and then the other. “All right. Off to meet the new neighbors. Claire, hand me one of those pies.”
CHAPTER 17
Eveline cleaned up breakfast, relieved the eggs they had brought from Pittsburgh only suffered minor casualties. A distant rooster from a distant farm called through the open window. Eveline stretched to the sound, let the long screech settle upon her ears. And in its pause there was quiet and she strained her ears as if the void were a tease. No trams. No clanging cars along the brick city streets. No pigeons defecating on the dirty windows. Silence. She breathed deeply, had slept with the window open, and this morning her sheets were not lined in soot and her lungs were clear. She wiped her eyes and no black smudges dyed her fingers. The heaviness from their arrival lifted. She had been tired; the trip, long. Today was a new beginning.
Eveline turned her eyes to the cracked plaster along the ceiling, heard her husband’s footsteps as he moved furniture and hammered wood along the baseboards. Wilhelm had become a different man since the accident and she knew that moving to the country and leaving his job, his house and his comfort felt like applying leeches to bleed him. But he would see the life the land would bring and he would rise from the earth just as the great oaks did. One day he would thank her; his eyes would shine again; his skin would darken from the sun instead of from choking soot. And he would know himself as a man not by the steel beast that he could brake, but by the land he could tame and nurture.
Eveline left the kitchen and stepped into the parlor to the large windows that winged the formal fireplace. She’d hang the curtains today, she decided. Clean the windows and then hang the rose-colored valance and the long lace curtains below. She’d pick wild phlox and put them in a vase on the table. There was much work to be done, but today she would make the house feel like a home.