Beneath the Apple Leaves(46)
“Is that why you carved your name in the apple tree?”
“Oh, you saw that?” She smiled and shrugged. “I love that tree. Couldn’t even tell you how many apples I ate from that one tree. You’d think I’d have cider running through my veins instead of blood.”
“Eveline loves that tree, too. See her out there every day picking up the fruit and polishing them like diamonds before she puts them in the apple chute.”
Andrew finished his sandwich just as Will and Edgar trotted up with their long fishing sticks. Will handed his to Andrew. “Can you tie the line for me?”
“Me too,” Edgar said, accidentally jabbing the tip of his rod against Andrew’s leg.
“Sure.” Taking the fishing line, he measured it up to the top of the first stick and then paused. His fingers played with the line, rolled the thread despondently between them, unable to make a simple knot one handed. The boys waited, shuffled feet in impatience. Andrew pushed the fishing rods away. “I can’t tie it,” he said scornfully.
Lily scooted next to his side and quickly tied a line and hook to each stick, handing them back to Will and Edgar. “Thanks, Lily!” they called, and ran off to the edge of the water.
Andrew relapsed into an insulted silence. Lily held her hands in the skirt of her dress as they watched the little boys splash in the water, scaring away any fish they hoped to hook.
“Claire and I used to fish down here, too,” said Lily, her face fallen, her voice siphoned. “Sometimes we didn’t have anything to eat except for the fish and turtles we caught down this way.”
The reeds tapped against the hollow sticks, now starting to brown and become brittle. Lily’s face turned somber, softened with the faraway thoughts. “Claire used to hunt as good as any man. Could pluck a rabbit or squirrel without missing a shot.”
Will pulled hard at his line, pulled up a clump of old branches, searched the black leaves for his worm. “But after our father died, she couldn’t hunt anymore. Couldn’t stand the sight of blood.” The cool wind blew Lily’s collar so the fabric fluttered under her chin. “Couldn’t even kill a chicken after that. She tried, once. Left her screaming for days. Sometimes we had nothing to eat except for your apples and a couple of potatoes. Ate them raw out of the bin a few times.” She licked her bottom lip as if she could taste the baseness of them. “Guess that’s why she married Frank. To keep me from starving.” Lily picked up a small rock and hurled it to the water. “Guess that’s why she’ll never leave him.”
The words from Andrew’s conversation with Pieter trickled between the notes of Lily’s speech. She’s Lily’s sister. She’s also her mother. “Have you and Claire always been close?” Andrew ventured.
She nodded and then shook her head as if the two sides of her mind argued. “Claire’s the only one who’s ever been there for me. Ever.” Her features scrunched in a pained moment. “She raised me from the day I was born, but . . .”
“What?”
“It’s hard to explain. It’s like standing in a crowd of people and feeling more alone than if you were the only one there.” She swallowed. “How it felt growing up, I guess. Claire was always there but gone at the same time. Like a ghost who was seen but fading away.” Her voice trailed and she bit her lip. “Part of me was always afraid that if I got too close or if I didn’t try to make everything right or if I said the wrong thing she’d disappear straight from my fingertips.”
Andrew watched her. Take care of your family. Always. His father’s voice came from the willow leaves above. Andrew wished he could have been there for Lily, wished he could have brought her warm stews and bread melted over with butter. Wished he could have made fires for her when she had been cold, held her to him when she was scared. Wished he could have taken away the scars of her birth and the wounds of her raising. The severed arm stung then in pulses. He couldn’t even tie a knot, let alone build a life for this woman.
Lily pulled the picnic basket over and stationed the wicker between them. “Want another sandwich?”
“No.” Andrew bent his fingers around the ball of fishing line left by the boys, tossed it under the tree.
Lily kept her arms locked around her knees, stared off at the frogs that hopped onto the warm stones and then off again, making small ripples with their back legs. “The boys don’t care that you can’t tie a knot.” She turned to him. “I don’t, either.”
“You wouldn’t understand.” Andrew sighed. His jaw clicked once below the smooth skin. “Don’t know what it feels like not to be able to do something so simple. Something everyone else in the world can do.”
“Actually, I do.”
Andrew turned to her, the lovely face twisted in humiliation even as she tried to smile through it. “I don’t know how to read.”
*
The feed stockpiled in the hayloft of the barn looked enough to sustain a herd, but Wilhelm and Andrew knew they’d be lucky to get two months out of it. To conserve, they sent the cows to graze in the farthest patches of the property, let them cross old property barriers outlined with crooked stone walls and enter into the woods to forage. Then, each evening, Andrew, Edgar and Will would hunt down the wayward cows, turning it into a game of finding the black-and-white-spotted spies hiding in foreign territory. They’d find Maggie, the lead cow, and walk her back to the barn; then out of the recesses the other cows would follow like children trailing their parents into church on Sunday.