Beneath the Apple Leaves(59)

Wilhelm Kiser veered off the side of the road, the wheels bouncing dangerously across the rocks before he set the brake. “You listen here and listen good. I’ve never laid a hand on one of those women!” His voice rose fiercely. “Never once!”

Andrew wasn’t afraid, met the man’s fierceness with his own hard gaze.

His uncle pulled away first, eased the car back onto the main road. “Though I guess I could see why you’d think that,” he admitted, and leaned back into the seat. “Look, a lot of the rail men visited places like that. Lost more men on the line from syphilis than accidents. A man gets lonely being en route for weeks at a time.”

He turned suddenly to Andrew. “But I swear on my life, on my boys, I’ve never been with one of those ladies. Never cheated on Eveline and never would. You got it?”

Andrew nodded, the relief expanding his chest. From there, they fell into their own reverie as they passed the morbid, stinking factories and fetid skyline of the city’s heart. As they paralleled the railroad lines, a Pennsylvania steamer barreled past. Wilhelm followed the train through the glass, stared at its trail in the rearview mirror until the caboose disappeared under a tail of black smoke, his face forlorn and sagging.

“The accident wasn’t your fault,” Andrew said softly.

The man’s grip tightened on the steering wheel and his knuckles whitened. His Adam’s apple rose and dropped in his throat.

“I don’t blame you,” Andrew said. “Never have.”

Wilhelm turned his head to the window, bit his bottom lip. “Not a day goes by I don’t blame myself for what happened.” His voice sounded as an echo that bounced upon the recesses of his mind, a long-buried regret birthed into words.





CHAPTER 30

Lily tasted blood in her mouth. She wiped the corner with her finger and the red tip confirmed it. Frank had hit her before, but it had been when she was still a child, when she had cried from the slap and run hiding into the woods.

Her cheek stung and throbbed, but she would not cradle it for comfort. She was no longer a child. She tasted the blood again, the iron of her own blood, and was not afraid. She turned her head back in line and stared stonily at her brother-in-law until he budged.

“Why you got to push me, Lilith?” Frank scratched his forehead. “Why you got to be so goddamn stubborn?” He lifted a hand again and feigned restraint. “If I tell you to do something, by God you better listen to me!”

“Hit me again, Frank,” she ordered. “I’m never going to listen to you, so you better hit me again!”

He stepped forward now, his face high above her own. She breathed heavily through her nose to keep up her confidence. She leaned back as to not break focus with her intent, to not waver from his look.

Frank Morton smiled. He reached out and smoothed down her hair tenderly. She recoiled, the touch making her skin crawl. She’d gladly endure a thousand smacks to those fingers dancing on her cheek.

“I won’t ever hit you again, Lilith,” he clucked. “Never again.”

Now she felt a child. Now she wanted to cry and run hiding into the woods. He sensed her fear and inched closer, rubbed his finger down her neck. “You’ve always been prettier than your sister. Smarter, too.”

Her chin quivered, her body frozen in fear and disgust.

“I could take you if I wanted.” He drew a line under her neck to her collarbone. “Know I could.” He chuckled. “And you wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing about it.”

“I’d scream,” she hissed, her voice barely audible.

“No, you wouldn’t.” He rubbed her arms knowingly. “You’d scare Claire. I could do anything I wanted to you and you wouldn’t make a peep, would you?”

Tears began to flow over her rigid face, her mind blank, curled in terror. Her legs begged to run. Run. Run.

Suddenly, he let go and stepped back. “But I’m not going to lie with you, little Lily.” He winked and started to walk away. “A moonshiner knows enough not to get drunk on his own stock.”

*

Despite his most noble attempts, Andrew could not shake the experience in Pittsburgh with that woman. His blood flowed hotter. The nerve endings under his skin vibrated and the urges pulsed and left him too restless at night to sleep and too agitated during the day to think straight. And when the desires ached to a near pain, he would chop wood until his hand blistered and the ax shuddered. Then he would look at the thick forest and wonder if there would be enough wood to get him through another day of longing.

But it was not the wanting of the prostitute within the stone house. The ache called for a woman whose name sat carved beneath the apple leaves. Lily hadn’t come in over a week and he missed her, missed the smile and the fresh scent of her skin. And before he knew it, he found himself picking up the ax again.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Eveline asked to his inquiry. “Frank stopped by and said Lily needed to help Mrs. Sullivan for a while.” She folded a sheet in her hands. “Woman hasn’t been well, apparently.”

That evening after chores, Andrew headed down to the widow’s house. He pulled down his cloth cap and kept his hand warm in his pocket.

He rounded the lane to the old woman’s charming homestead and rapped on the door. “I’ll get it,” Lily’s voice echoed from inside. She looked startled when she saw Andrew. As a shield, she put her hand to her cheek.