Beneath the Apple Leaves(66)
He remembered the slurs of the baseball players, didn’t realize Lily had heard them as well. And instead of staying there for him, supporting him, she had left. The disloyalty made him fierce. “You heard what they said and you’re blaming me?”
“You’re not even going to deny it?”
“Deny what?” He rubbed his hand through his hair gruffly. He wasn’t going to apologize for defending himself or Pieter. “That I enjoyed doing what I did? That I acted like a man?”
Her face twisted in disgust and new tears threatened to spill over her eyes. “How could you?” she spluttered. “A man doesn’t do that. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Andrew seethed, put his hand on his hip and stared at the broken slats of the barn. She didn’t have a clue. “I’ll tell you what,” he stated harshly. “If tempted, I’ll do it again. Not a man who wouldn’t.” He turned to leave. “And if you can’t understand that, Lily, then I don’t want to see you either.”
CHAPTER 33
Winter barreled upon Pennsylvania, the easygoing fall finally pushed out the door no different from unwanted guests. And as fall pushed out, all was pushed in. The cows and sheep and pigs were locked in the barn, the annoyed grunts echoing through the beams as their boredom and tight quarters crowded their sensitivities. The chickens were locked in the coop, the windows so dirty that even in full sun the coop stayed in semidarkness and the chickens responded with rebellion against egg production. And the Kisers shoved within the confines of the old farmhouse, without the grace of transition, without that grace of insulating the house or chopping enough firewood or cleaning the nests and old leaves from the clogged chimneys.
Everything had to be bought, every ounce of food had to be brought in or delivered and Wilhelm watched the numbers of the bank account lessen like the backward twist of a clock.
The first major snowfall landed and did not stop. It paused and napped briefly but then started up more sternly than before. The snowdrifts blew to white pyramids scattered against the high points of the property and the farmhouse sat in a palm of snow, the fingers reaching to the bottoms of the windows.
Wilhelm hoped to put off his final run to town for supplies, but when the snow showed no signs of waning for the season he realized he couldn’t wait another day or they’d all be eating pinecones. So, he bundled himself in a wool coat and hat, layered his long johns under his trousers and stuffed the bottoms into his socks and walked to the only friend he had, Heinrich Mueller.
Wilhelm stomped through the snow that met his knees, the air panting loud and labored as he huffed down the valley, over the frozen stream and up to the main road. He already was heated beneath the wool layers even as his nostrils, chin and cheeks numbed. He looked up at the steel gray sky, at the white flakes drifting toward the earth. And they landed on his eyebrows and the whiskers of his jaw. As a boy he would have stuck out his tongue to catch the snow, but he wasn’t a boy and so the thought never crossed his mind.
A few miles to go and he stepped methodically, one foot over the other, faster until he felt chased. The old farmhouse, barely in view, faded behind the large white flakes, the distance bringing more relief than anything in his life. For a moment, he thought, I’ll just keep walking. He would walk to the train tracks, hop on a car and go as far away as the engine would travel. He would have no money, but he could start over. He could run away and ride the trains and leave that dreary farmhouse and the dead cries of the twins that still hung in his ears and Eveline’s scolding and Andrew’s arm behind like a bad smell. And for a moment there was hope. His footsteps livened. The farther he moved away from the farm, the fresher the air, and he breathed it in, let it scald his lungs with ice. And he wanted to run. Panic for freedom shrieked in his cells: Run, run, run!
Wilhelm stopped then, stared—a solitary figure amid the falling snow and the abandoned street. He observed the wide expanse where he was not trapped, where there was a future and possibilities. But then he saw his footsteps etched in the snow. Realized that he’d have to retrace the steps back. The gray of the sky permeated then, the ash sledging through his veins no different from sewage through a clogged pipe. And he did not want to run any longer, did not want to watch the flakes fall from an endless sky. The gray took over and dragged him like a lamb to the Muellers’ front steps.
“Mr. Kiser, vhat are you doing out dere!” Mrs. Mueller took to the man as if he were a naked infant left out in the cold. “Come! My vord! Come in from dat snow, Mr. Kiser!” She pulled him in with the hands and arms of a man, took off his hat and patted the piles of snow off his coat. “Heinrich! Mr. Kiser’s come in from the farm nearly froze to death! Anna, bring hot broth for our guest!” she yelled through the house.
Wilhelm was touched by the instant generosity, the instant warmth of the house, tried not to think of the direct opposite of his own living situation. “Thank you, Mrs. Mueller. It’s all right. Worked up a sweat on the walk over.”
“Nein, nein,” she harped. “Your face like a frozen tomato.” Her hot, plump hands pressed into his cheeks. “Take orf your boots and sit by the fire, now. You go now.” She pointed animatedly as if he didn’t know where the fire was.
Heinrich came in buttoning a wool sweater over his flannel. “Vilhelm!”
Little Anna came in with a steaming mug of broth and Wilhelm took it by the fire but did not sit, knowing his pants were quite wet from the snow. Heinrich hit him on the back. “Vhat brings you here, my friend?”