Beneath the Apple Leaves(98)

With the boys distracted, Pieter turned to Andrew, his face suddenly tense. “I need to talk to you.”

The look on his friend’s face brought new worries. “Pieter and I are going to work higher up the line. We’ll meet in the middle,” he told the boys. “We’ll make it a race.”

The young men headed straight along the green feathery heads until out of earshot. Pieter stopped. “I saw Lily.”

The last word Andrew expected to fall from Pieter’s mouth and there it was. Lily. Her name hanging in the fields, pumping oxygen to his heart. He set his jaw. Pushed the name away. “That’s no concern of mine.”

“She’s pregnant.”

The punch came straight and hard to his stomach, shot fire and numbness at once through his veins.

Pieter kicked at a round stone, looked to the right of Andrew into the woods beyond the fields. “Thought you should know. The baby being yours and all.”

The punch landed again and he thought his lungs might collapse. “It’s not mine.” His voice was hard and low. Dark. His Lily had shared her body with another. She had kissed and touched another man, given herself away. He thought of Dan Simpson, the man with brutish features, enjoying her and she him. Andrew never felt so sick—the second amputation of his life.

“I figured—” Pieter blinked swiftly. “Thought you two had—”

“We were never together,” he interrupted. “Not in that way.” He thought back over the months to that day in the fields, the last time he saw her, the way she turned from him in disgust. Her lies fanned, waved deception over every memory. And it was this dishonesty that crippled him more than any accident.

“I’m sorry.” Pieter blew air from his mouth; his head dropped. “Well, at least you know. Told you there wasn’t something right over there.”

Andrew lifted his boot and crushed a clump of carrots into the ground. His stomach was lead—sour and heavy. “Where did you see her?”

“In Pittsburgh.” Everything about his friend suddenly changed, his gaze contracting as if in fear. “Polish Hill. Working in a restaurant.”

“Was Claire with her?” He wanted to cement the betrayal into his history, to ensure any doubting of Lily’s true nature would be forever quashed.

Pieter shook his head and his chin twisted to the side. He wasn’t thinking about Lily or Claire any longer. Something had taken hold of his thoughts. Andrew’s flesh rose.

“Why were you in Pittsburgh?” he asked. But Andrew already knew. “You enlisted.”

Pieter nodded. “Head out for training next week.”

A breeze played with Pieter’s blond, shaggy hair. “Pa won’t speak to me.”

“I’ll help your family, Pieter.” Andrew thought about the coal mines, knew the burden of two families instead of one. A curse seemed to have settled on the houses and families along the main road, sinking each into a chasm one after the other. He wasn’t going to tell Pieter he was going away until he absolutely had to. “I’ll work with Fritz, hire out for extra hands if needed.”

Pieter flared out his arms in desperation, the anger sudden. “Come on, Andrew! You can’t manage your own farm, let alone ours! It’s too much for any of us. We’re all drowning. Like the whole world is drowning!” he shouted.

Andrew stopped him. “The war can’t last forever, Pieter.”

“Yes, it can.” Pieter met his gaze straight. “It can last forever. Can last until it plucks us off one by one.” The acrimony was hard to witness, the gaiety of his friend erased as if it had never existed.

*

Eveline shut her mind off, wrung it dry like a rag as she walked up the road and turned into the Mortons’ lane. Her hands itched, the pounding of her heart so rough that it hurt.

I can’t do this. She started to turn back, then thought about little Will and Edgar, thought about what they would do if they lost the farm. There was no hope. They’d be homeless. She had no choice. Something pinched her organs and she put her hand to her chest, thought she was having a heart attack. She was breaking, could feel it in every nerve, and she leaned her head against the peeling doorframe of the Morton house, opened her mouth into a silent howl. She thought about Wilhelm, missed him so much that it made everything snap, and yet she was so angry he had left her. So angry she wanted to break everything on the outside. She melted into the anger and gripped the old wood so hard that splinters entered her fingertips. She pushed the missing and the longing away, concentrated on the points of wood against her skin, anything to keep her standing.

Eveline didn’t knock. She opened the door. She walked over the wide-planked floor as if she knew the grains, knew where her path led, and she did—straight to Hell. She heard footsteps on the floor above and found the carpeted steps, worn and threadbare as she walked one step up at a time. A light glowed at the end of the hallway. She stood in the doorway of the small room. A large desk centered the space; a green banker’s lantern edged it. Frank sat, read a ledger, his fingers rubbing his forehead in thought. The Stetson hat hung on the chair and the imprint of the band still etched the man’s forehead.

She waited until he felt her presence. Frank looked up, startled, before a half grin curled his mouth. “This is a surprise,” he said languidly.