Beneath the Apple Leaves(93)

She made breakfast and waited for Will and Edgar. They all had slept in save for Wilhelm. They were all bone and mind weary. Andrew ate in silence, shoveling in his eggs and bread and bacon without thought. Will and Edgar had little appetite and she didn’t scold them. She didn’t feel like eating, either.

After breakfast was cleared and the morning chores finished, Eveline grabbed her basket and headed to the garden. If winter came in anything like it did last year, they’d need every bean and cucumber and berry saved and jarred in the cellar.

Eveline passed the ancient apple tree, picked up a few broken sticks below it and flung them toward the fence. A step stool lay on its side at the base of the tree. “So help me, those boys don’t remember to put anything away,” she mumbled. She propped it back up and searched the ground for any other missing tools.

A chill drafted across her skin, raised the hairs along her arms and back of the neck. The creaking of a burdened tree limb ached from above. A shadow passed over her, passed behind her, passed over again. No. It was not a thought. The shadow took shape. No! Her hand gripped her heart and her scalp pricked, burned from all sides. Her body shook. She looked up. The boots pointed down. The body swayed from between the tree limbs. Wilhelm’s figure rocked listlessly with the breeze.

Her body quivered uncontrollably. Her mouth stretched open, wide as a last breath. And Eveline’s scream cut through the valley and shook the land to its very soul.





CHAPTER 46

Pieter and Fritz Mueller dug the grave next to the giant apple tree, a horizontal line above the vertical ones of the twins. Once again the Protestant cemetery closed to the Kisers. Suicide, a soul damned among the unbaptized little ones, those in limbo. But if there was one act of grace from a cruel heaven, Wilhelm would forever be united with his youngest sons.

Andrew reached the summit of the field, the corn to his waist, lost in a sea of green. He stood alone with the golden sun heating his dark hair. He stayed there for he knew not how long. He stood with only his body and that corn that he had plowed and planted with Wilhelm Kiser, a man who would never witness its harvest. And he stood without words, without comprehension, and stared upon this great ocean that waved around his body with dead hands.

The mount was the highest point of the property, a gradual incline and complete in its visual isolation. No road. No house or neighbor. No farm animal or vehicle. Only that sun and the green pinnacles and the graphed dirt directed and mapped to lines. He searched with unmoving eyes, waited with unbeating heart, for what he did not know. He knew nothing. Understood nothing. All a void. A life of slumber between the stiff stalks.

And then she was there. Across from him. Across from time. Lily.

The corn parted around her. The memory of her not being at the spring, waiting for him, was gone. The gossip of her with Dan, gone. With her apparition, all that came before wiped clean.

She was here now. All of her. The green eyes round with grief. He watched her approach, emerge fully from the green sea. Her hair flowed over her shoulders and the sun toyed with her dress, made the dull yellow shine to luminescence.

She was here now and he could have fallen into the pools of her wet eyes, into the warmth and sincerity. But everything hurt. Hurt to move, hurt to breathe. But she moved and she came near him, came closer until she was in the invisible field skimming the bodily form, that invisible skin that pulsed and had sensitivities like nerve endings.

Their eyes locked and he was too tired to pull away, leaned upon the open gaze as a dying man leans upon his bedpost. And then she was holding him. Not with her eyes, but with her arms, wrapped so tightly around his abdomen that her hands nearly clasped the opposite elbows. She leaned her warm head against his chest and he could feel the wetness of her tears through his shirt, but she didn’t cry out or make a sound, just held him there in that steel embrace. He lowered his head and kissed the top of her silky hair, soft as milkweed threads, let the texture tickle his lips. It felt so good to feel something other than pain and she lifted her head, found his lips with her own, let her tears wet his cheeks and grieve for that which he couldn’t feel yet.

“You can do this,” she whispered. She gripped his back and kissed under his ear, said with a full and deep heart, “You can save this family.”

And the weight of her words unleashed the fear, gave context to the ax that seemed to hang above his crown ever since Wilhelm died. He was in charge now. There was no more Wilhelm at the helm, and if this farm was to live it was up to him. He pressed his forehead against hers, gritted his teeth. It was too much. Too much.

“No,” she said as if she had heard him. “It’s you. It’s always been you.” The tears alighted anew. “You’ve given this family hope from the beginning. It’s always been you. You knew what made the twins sick and saved the rest of the family. It’s you who brings smiles to Will and Edgar when their life is falling apart around their feet. It’s you who Eveline leans on when she’s about to break. It’s you who cares for the animals and plants the fields.” She squeezed his sides. “Don’t you see? It’s always been you.”

He heard the words, saw the mouth that they came from, and a passion sizzled inside that was urgent and without warning. He kissed her fervently, slid his hand in the thick hair and kissed her neck, kissed the tears from her eyes.

“I love you.” She breathed the words between panting kisses. “Please know that I do.” He unclasped her dress. She found his shirt buttons, nearly ripped them out from their threaded knots.