Beneath the Apple Leaves(65)

Lily placed the flatirons back on the stove to heat again. Claire sat next to the table lamp and mended buttons on the shirts. The coins tugged again; a draft blew from the old windows, tapped her across the shoulder blades, and she bit her lip. Lily watched her sister carefully before beginning, “Winter’s going to be a hard one, don’t you think?”

Claire shuddered. “Sounds like the hardest one yet.”

She picked up an iron and spit to test the heat, let it rest a bit more.

“I get to feeling it in my bones, you know?” Claire rubbed her fingertips together. “Get all numb by the nails now.” She grinned. “When we were kids, we’d run around in the snow with only our dresses and boots. Remember that? Don’t even remember feeling the cold. Funny how that is.”

Lily agreed, picked up the iron and let the humid, wet air trickle to her face and gush her pores. “Be nice to head south, don’t you think?” She glanced furtively at Claire for any sign of unrest. “Florida’s nice all year. Heard people got lemon and orange trees growing in their backyards. Be nice making fresh juice, wouldn’t it?”

“Ah, that’d be nice.” Her sister smiled into her needle and thread.

Lily draped the shirt over the chair and picked another from the pile. “We could do it. You and me.” Her heart beat slowly, cautiously. “Just for a visit maybe.”

She shook her head. “Frank can’t leave; you know that. Got too much with the business.”

“I know. But was thinking just the two of us could go. Wouldn’t be gone long.”

Claire glanced up and knowledge hinted behind the slow eyes, recognition. But then the child returned and nearly stomped. “No, no. Frank wouldn’t like that. Me going away like that. You know how he gets, Lil. He wouldn’t like that at all.” She pulled the moth-eaten sweater tighter around her middle.

A knock came to the front door and Claire stood, craned her neck to see the outline of the porch. “It’s Andrew,” Claire said merrily. “And he’s got flowers.”

“I don’t want to see him.” Lily threw the shirt on the chair, retreated to the corner.

“But he looks so handsome, Lil—”

“Just tell him I’m not here.”

The door knocked again. “You sure?” Claire asked.

“Please, just make him go away.” Lily curled farther into the wall, her lashes wet.

Claire stepped out of the room and the door to the porch opened, creaked loudly. “Lily can’t see you now, I’m afraid,” mumbled Claire.

Lily couldn’t hear Andrew, but his presence filled the house, made the pain of what he did that much harder.

“J-j-just better if you go,” her sister flustered. “I don’t know. All right. I will. Thanks, Andrew. Best to your family.”

The door creaked again. Claire found Lily and handed her the bouquet of white and purple mums, the woody scent filling her nose and weighting her chest with missing.

Claire’s expression mixed with remorse and confusion. “Why would you slight him like that, Lily? He do something mean to you?” Claire waited for an answer, but none came. “Should have seen him. Looked like he lost his best friend in the whole world.”

Lily pushed the flowers at Claire. “You keep them. I don’t want them.” She picked up the hot iron again and the steam stung her eyes, made tears form when she was using every reserve to keep them down. Her stomach ached and twisted.

Claire put the flowers in a vase, set them on the side table. “Pretty, aren’t they?”

Lily’s fingers covered her mouth and her lips opened. “Keep an eye on the iron, Claire.” Her voice doleful, weak. “I need some air.” She hurried outside, passed the remnants of her tiny vegetable garden, the old lettuce leaves translucent and lacey from morning frosts. The tiny barn tilted menacingly to the right, the low splintered roof a poor shelter to their two cows. Lily entered the stall, rubbed the nose of the black beast.

She remembered when Frank bought the cow and how she gave birth soon after. Frank sold the calf a few days later and the mama brayed endlessly in grief for nearly a month. Lily had hid her head under the pillow and cried with the low mourning, vowed to never let a calf be separated again.

She placed her forehead to the cow’s. “I’m sorry.” She wept into the soft fur, the wet nose thick with breathing under her chin. “I’m sorry what we do to you.” And she wept for the cow and she wept for the calf and she wept for not what was taken away from her life, but for what was never given.

The cow snorted and backed up. Lily dried her eyes on her shoulder.

“Lily?”

She spun around. Andrew stood in the open door, tall and handsome, and her soul burned to run into his arms. But she knew what he had done and so she stepped back. His presence, the very sight of him, deveined her.

He inched forward. “You’ve been crying,” he said. She shook and Andrew didn’t understand. Didn’t understand the look of hatred upon her face.

“I don’t want to see you anymore,” she hissed. The vicious words shocked him, left him cold.

“Why?” he challenged, his figure unyielding. “If you don’t want to see me, I won’t bother you again. But I want to know why.”

“I heard things at the game, Andrew,” she huffed, and wouldn’t look at him. “About you.”