Beneath the Apple Leaves(52)
He loved her then. Beneath the grief, he loved her—the softness of the hair at his neck and under his jaw, the scent of her skin, a scent of the mingling of nature and flesh, of wind and air and life. Lily seeped into his bones, flowed into his blood. And he loved her. The warmth of her skin did not stop at his neck but spread across his flesh and deep into his marrow.
But Andrew did not want to love this woman. It was not a love from Cupid’s most tender arrow, but a thrusting spear. Lily would be another cut, another scar, another part of him that would not last—another piece that would slip from his floundering grip. She would enter his life, make him love her, and then she would disappear and the pain would be worse. He could not grieve again.
Andrew turned, let her hair tickle over his cheek. He opened his mouth to tell her to leave, but instead his lips grazed her temple, warm skin against the thin line between his lips. Her face rose and his closed kiss slid across her forehead to her sealed eyes and down her nose. In the quiet, her neck leaned back and her lips met his, traced the shape of each other, as the blind run fingers over Braille, until their lips parted and fell into the pattern of their kiss. And Andrew pulled from this kiss even as he fell into its depth; he loved her even as he cursed the longing and desire. He ran from her even as his hand slid up her back and etched the angles of her shoulder blades.
He didn’t want to love her.
Their lips were slow and tender, wrapped into the silence, and filled the cold room with warmth that tingled across each nerve. Lily slowly broke the kiss, pressed her forehead against his.
He didn’t want to love her.
She met his downcast eyes and slowly, tenderly, pulled his head to her neck and hugged him tightly until he wept.
CHAPTER 27
The mighty black steam engines of the Pennsylvania Railroad strained unnaturally when placed in reverse. Pistons worked on overdrive, the wheels grinding like gritted teeth as the beast forced backwards for shunting, coupling or switching tracks. And the men of the train would watch from the window as a world dripped by in withdrawal, listen to the engine moan and struggle. All the while, the smooth rails in front stretched endlessly, beaconed for full steam and speed.
Since the day of Andrew’s accident, Wilhelm’s life had skulked in retreat and he had swallowed it all. For a man must swallow many things. In fact, it is not the strength of his muscle or the reserve of his power but his ability to swallow that which is distasteful to him without making a face that truly makes him a man.
So much in a man’s world must be swallowed and endured. An overcooked and gristly piece of stew meat must be chewed to keep the wife from throwing a skillet at his head. Tears of grief over dying sons must be gulped and accepted as fate. And through life, a man gets quite good at swallowing until the throat stops moving and he chokes to death.
The rancid sighs of the old house unsettled Wilhelm, and when he couldn’t fight his way back to sleep he rose and dressed in the shadows. On the small nightstand next to the bed was the toy train that Pieter Mueller had crafted for Edgar. The former brakeman of the Pennsylvania Railroad smelled the pine, still fresh and the color of cream. He inspected the train, a relic that would be played with and then set upon a table to be forgotten. The railroad had been him—Wilhelm Kiser. The hefty brake housed in the caboose, his arm—an extension of his body and all he had worked for. Now he was as wooden and lifeless as this toy.
Wilhelm Kiser was born and raised a farmer—a few years in Germany, the rest in America. But the land had not been kind to the Kisers. To his father and mother, the land was no haven of bounty. And from his first memories, Wilhelm hated farming life—the digging, planting, the smell of animals, and the flies and the waking up before dawn. The land had been a curse and he had watched his parents disintegrate under the sun. He watched them wither behind the plow as a slave bends to the whip, and he grew to hate this land as a heartless master and couldn’t wait until he could flee to start fresh. And he did. Wilhelm worked himself up the railroad chain from loader to fireman assistant to fireman to brakeman. And he took comfort in that wooden chamber, for it was strong and moved fast and was all things masculine. If females were flowers and puffy clouds, a man was steel and smoke, and Wilhelm guzzled in the soot as if it were iron for the blood.
Wilhelm placed the toy train back upon the tiny table. The day neared dawn and the first curves of frost lined the windows, promising a frigid fall morning. The black of this hour always seemed unnatural when the beds still held warmth. Nothing was right to this time of day; a body had no right to be out of blankets and out of slumber. Even the birds and the mammals knew this period existed for rest, perhaps more important than the minutes of midnight. But here he walked, taking the pail to the goddamn barn to sit on a cold goddamn stool to squeeze at a cow’s goddamn teats. And he felt the hand choking his neck, made it hard to swallow, made all that was digested want to come back up.
Wilhelm headed out to the barn, past the enormous apple tree that seemed to judder as he passed. He looked up into the bare boughs, a few old apples still clinging to the limbs, and he gazed at the tree, the strength of its girth. And emotion bubbled—emotion akin to reverence and jealousy as this creature of bark and leaves cradled his dead sons amid its mighty roots.
Wilhelm entered the dark barn and lit the lantern, sat down on the icy stool and bent his back. He took the warm teat in his grip, the cow flinching from his ice-cold hands. But he didn’t care. Just a goddamn cow. And he pulled and squirted, pulled and squirted, the metallic splatter of milk rhythmic in the pail. And here he sat—in reverse.