The Cherry Harvest (29 page)

AS KATE TOOK THE SHEETS DOWN
from the clothesline in the side yard, she tried to picture a happy future for Ben and Josie—together in the cottage, laughing children around them, lacy white curtains fluttering, a fresh lake breeze wafting into the kitchen where they would enjoy hearty suppers. Mother might want them to move up to the house, but Ben—he'd have his new leg—would build an addition on the cottage instead.

A quick movement caught Kate's peripheral vision: Karl emerging from the root cellar! She watched as he straightened his tan shirt and trousers, smoothed his hair. He glanced about. When he saw her, he stopped short. She stared at him.
What was he doing down there?
He smiled and waved, as if nothing was amiss, and marched off across the orchard.

Her thoughts were distracted by the sound of a motorboat. Yes! There was Josie, coming to talk with her after all. Kate ran toward the front yard, but hesitated when she saw Ben swinging out of the barn on his crutches. Josie tied up the boat and walked slowly, head down. Ben waited at the foot of the dock. They spoke for a few moments and then went to the cottage.

Kate returned to the clothesline, keeping an eye on the path along the shore, waiting to see what would happen next. She unclipped a sheet from the line and dropped it into the clothes basket along with the wooden clothespins.

Time. People said that time healed everything, but how did that work? Would Ben ever be his same old self again? Or would he be different . . . forever?

How could she expect Josie to take that chance, to spend the rest of her life with someone who might never heal? But if Josie didn't marry Ben, what would become of him? And the orchard . . . his future . . . he couldn't run it alone.

Before Josie, plenty of girls had wanted to be with him. But that was the old Ben, the fun Ben. Not this angry, aggressive Ben. And if Josie left him, he'd be angrier still. Crazier maybe. Who would want to live with that? Who would help run the farm when Mother and Father could no longer do it?

Kate froze with the answer.
It would have to be me!
She brought her hands down from the line, dizzy with the thought. She hugged herself. She wanted her own life, an exciting life she could write about. She didn't want to give up school and come home to take care of things, as Father had. And Clay . . . he certainly wouldn't want to live on a Wisconsin farm, not with the whole world to explore.

Oh, Josie, please say yes!

Kate heard raised voices. She looked up.

“Let me go!” Josie was rushing from the cottage, running along the path toward the dock, sobbing openly, her dark curls flying askew, her pretty blouse hanging off one shoulder—was it unbuttoned, or torn?

Ben swung quickly after her, his shirttail flapping outside his trousers. “Josie!” His voice sounded rough, pleading. Was he crying?

At the end of the dock, Josie got into the boat and pulled on the cord and the motor growled.

“For better or for worse,” Ben wailed.

“I can't! I just can't!” she called back before speeding away.

Kate left the sheets and ran to the dock. “Ben!” She reached out for him.

“Leave me alone,” he shouted, pushing her aside.

Helpless, Kate backed away and watched him hobble off into the barn.

CHARLOTTE WAS STERILIZING CANNING JARS
when she heard the thud of Ben's crutches on the back porch. She stopped herself from opening the door. Let him do it.

He came into the kitchen, unsteady, his face full of hurt.

Charlotte wiped her hands on her apron. “Ben, I've spoken with your father, and the prisoners will be gone by the end of the week. We won't need to see them ever again.”

He looked away.

“What is it?”

He stared out the window and shook his head.

“Come, sit.” She pulled out a chair. “Have a ripe tomato. So sweet. I saved some fresh ones for dinner tonight.”

“Ripe tomato,” he sneered. “That's what she is. That's all she is.”

“What are you talking about?”

He leaned against the kitchen wall, closed his eyes, whispered, “It's over.”

Charlotte stopped, her heart pounding.
Please, God, tell me this isn't about Josie
.

He stared down where his leg should be. “She doesn't want me.”

“Oh, Ben, that can't be!” Charlotte shook her head. “It's just a little lovers' quarrel. You've been apart so long, you need time to get to know each other again.”

“She doesn't want me anymore.”

“Of course she does. She's confused. I'll go over there. I'll talk some sense into her.”

“No, you won't!” he yelled, his face close to hers.

“Ben!” She stepped back in alarm and caught her breath. “Josie doesn't realize . . .” She spoke rapidly now. “You're strong and capable. Your children will have a good future—”

“It's over,” he said firmly.

“It doesn't have to be over . . .” She paused at the squeak of a door, the wood box opening from the outside.

“What was that?” Ben jerked forward.

“Let's go into the parlor.”

Ben moved toward the open window and peered out. “One of those Nazis!” He hissed, pushing in front of Charlotte. He yanked open a drawer and started rummaging through it. “Stay down. I'll take care of him.”

“No, Ben. It's not . . . What are you looking for?”

“Shh!” He quietly closed the drawer and opened another.

“It's all right, Ben. While you were away, he helped me with chores—”

Ben stopped, eyes wide, mouth agape.

Charlotte glanced out the open window and shook her head at Karl. “Not now.”

“Charlotte—”

“What did you call my mother?” Ben barked through the screen.

“You must be Ben—”

“He knows my name?” Ben's face was tight, veins bulging on his neck. “
Fick dich!
” he yelled out.

“Karl, please go,” Charlotte said.

“Karl?” Ben snapped. He opened another drawer. Flatware. Closed it, opened the next.

Karl looked at Charlotte, then headed off toward the barn.

“What's happened here? What the hell's going on?” Ben yelled.

Charlotte turned her back to Ben, moved toward the rear cupboard, gently opened a drawer, and slipped the revolver into her apron pocket.

Ben slammed a drawer and held to the counter, breathing heavily.

When Charlotte reached out for him, he evaded her and went into the parlor, crutches thumping angrily on the wood floor.

Through the window, Charlotte saw Karl entering the barn. She moved cautiously, quietly, from the kitchen to the dining room to the front hall, and slipped out the front door. She hurried across the yard. Chickens clucked and scurried. Mia bleated. Kate's rabbits jumped to the far side of the pen.

Late-afternoon sun filtered dimly through the barn windows, creating a patchwork of light on the floor. It took a moment for Charlotte's eyes to adjust. With the animals outside and the stalls empty, the barn was quiet. The dusty scent of hay drifted down from the loft. Ben's whittling knives and carving tools were scattered across his workbench along with an open pack of cigarettes.

“Karl!” He was hanging the ax on the wall alongside the pick and saws and butchering tools. “Karl, you have to stay away from the house!” She ran to him and grabbed his arms, frantic.

Ginger Cat scampered from out of the shadows and dashed away. Kate's Mama Bunny scratched nervously at her bed in the hutch.

Charlotte looked into Karl's eyes, pleading. “You need to go. Keep close to the other PWs. Stay by the guards.”

“Let me talk to Ben—”

“Go now!” she cried.

From outside, she heard the goat bleating.

“I don't know what he might try to do . . . I don't want anything
to happen to my son.” She touched Karl's hard cheek. “I don't want anything to happen to you.”

He took her hand, his face close to hers. “Charlotte—”

“Get away from my mother!” Ben stood at the open door, his face in shadow.

Charlotte rushed toward Ben to block his way. He swung forward, dodging her. She took a step and tripped on his crutch and fell to her knees. The revolver slipped out of her apron pocket and clattered onto the wooden floor. Charlotte reached for it, but Ben dove onto his stomach and grabbed it. He whirled away from her and sat up, his two hands on the gun, pointed at Karl.

Karl put up his hands. “Ben, I am not your enemy.”

“Tell that to my dead buddies, you Nazi bastard!” Ben's eyes were steady on Karl.

Karl moved slowly forward, arms open in front of him. “The war is over for us.”

“That's what you think!”

Karl eyed the butchering tools.

No!” Charlotte cried.

“I've killed plenty like you!” Spittle flew from Ben's twisted mouth.

“You and me—” Karl said.

“Shut up!” Ben's words were controlled, the revolver focused.

“Your family, they've been kind to me . . .”

“Yeah, I see that.” He glanced toward Charlotte, then back to Karl. “Well, that's over.” He cocked the revolver.

“Ben—” Charlotte cried, rushing forward.

Karl lurched toward Ben, grabbing for the gun. The two men struggled, rolling on the floor, wrestling.

“Stop!” Charlotte cried.

A shot exploded in her ears.

And then something else. The cry of a wild animal. A wounded animal.

He was lying on the wooden floor, clutching his chest.

“Ben!” Charlotte bent over him, searching for the wound.

He was gasping for air.

“Shh. It will be all right, Ben.”
Oh my God oh my God . . .
She unbuttoned his soaked shirt. Blood pulsed from a hole in his chest.
Oh my God . . .
Tears clouded her vision. She slipped her apron over her head and held it against the wound. “You're going to be fine.”

Pulse . . . pulse . . . pulse . . . and then a sucking sound.
What's that?
His breath rattled, irregular.

The sucking stopped. “See, it's better already.”
Please, God. Please!

His gasping stopped.

“Ben?”

Nothing.

“Ben?” Charlotte looked into his eyes. His wide blue eyes. His beautiful blue eyes. They stared back at her. Darker now. Empty. “Ben!” she cried. “Ben!” She shook him. Blood bubbled from his lips.

Then the screaming came. Loud and close. Her own voice screaming.

“Charlotte—” Karl touched her shoulder.

She glared up toward him. “You killed him! My baby! You killed my baby!”

“Charlotte,
nein!
” His eyes on the revolver.

She grabbed the gun. Pointed it at his heart.

Screaming from the barn door. Steps rushing toward her from behind. “Mother, nooooo!”

GEESE FLY IN FORMATION
. All afternoon, maybe yesterday too, their plaintive calls haunting the sky. How do they know when to leave? How does anyone know?

The air is chilly, the shadows long. Charlotte steps through brittle garden vines. She remembers planting fall vegetables—beets, radishes, squash—but she doesn't recall harvesting them. Her mind searches for the memory but finds only static, like a radio tuned to a bad station. Like in the cold white room where they tied her to a gurney and put wires on her head and a strap of leather in her mouth—“bite down”—and her head exploded in a fiery rage. Smoldering white.

She spies the end of a squash protruding from under a thicket of gray crumbling leaves. She stoops to pick it up. Decaying juices ooze onto her fingers. She drops it, wipes her hands on her dress, looks off toward the barn.

The yard is strewn with red and gold leaves, maple and oak. Her steps are slow, unbalanced. Where are the chickens? The goat? She peers into Kate's rabbit pen—empty.

She pushes aside the wooden barn door. Heavier than she remembers. She scans the dim expanse. A dead place.

The workbench is cluttered with carving tools and gnarled hunks of wood. She picks up an oval piece, a head without a face. He hasn't finished this one yet. She touches an open pack of cigarettes. He must have left in a hurry. And a matchbox. She takes out a match and strikes it against the flint and watches the flame flare and travel down the wood and watches her fingertips blacken and holds on until the flame goes out and there's nothing left.

Her eyes follow a ribbon of light that points to a dark patch of floor.

She rushes forward and falls to her knees and scratches at the dried blood. Sobbing. Wooden slivers shooting under her fingernails. All that remains of her beautiful boy.

THE RIBBON OF LIGHT IS GONE NOW
. The window, the color of sunset.

Her face lies against the hard wooden floor, damp where someone's been crying.

“Charlotte!” Thomas's voice, coming from outside.

She crawls across the floor and scoots under the workbench.

“Charlotte.” The voice is in the barn.

She stays quiet until it leaves. She waits until she hears it again, far down the path.

“I'm coming,” she whispers. “I'm coming, Ben . . .”

She gets out from under the workbench and walks stiffly across the dim expanse, out the big door, down to the boathouse. Slow and deliberate.

The sunset ripples on the lake like blood.

She takes the can of gasoline back to the barn.
I'm coming . . .

SHE LIES ON BEN'S BED
.

Whispers come out of the walls.

Faces flit in and out. Kate. Thomas.

Doctors.

The sheriff.

When they ask, she doesn't answer.

“CHAR?”

She sits on the couch in the parlor, turns her head slowly.

“Char, let's go for a walk.” Thomas stands before her.

Would you walk with me?
Painted horses go round and round. Calliope music piping.
Tom, Tom, the piper's son, stole a pie and away did run
. Or was it a pig? No matter. She should have recited that one. Not Tommy Tucker looking for a wife. Too late. Too long ago.
And then what happened?

She looks about the room. Dust on every surface. Cobwebs in the corners.
Why would he want to walk with me now?

“C'mon, Char.” He helps her up and puts her hand in the crook of his arm.

He walks her through the living room and out the front door and down the porch steps. Morning light throws sparkling diamonds on the lake. “I remember this,” she says.

He pats her hand.

They walk slowly along the path.

She stops at the cottage. “I want to go in.”

“All right.” He leads her up the steps and through the door.

Someone has cleaned it, painted it. It just needs a little dusting.
Who's moving in?
She tries to remember.

There's a picture over the couch—a watercolor of a house with a white picket fence. Kate must have put it there. She was fixing it up, something about kitchen curtains. She gropes for the memory.
Curtains . . .

“Is Kate moving in here?”

“No, Charlotte. Kate's away at school.”

The kitchen window is bare. “I need to make curtains.”

Thomas smiles. “That would be lovely, Charlotte. A sewing project.”

She picks up a wooden figurine. This one has a face . . . it looks like . . . Josie . . .

“Ben?” She glances about. “Ben! Where's Ben?”

“Charlotte, let's go—”

“Ben!” The voice is screaming now.

Thomas is carrying her back to the house.

SHE STANDS BEFORE THE PARLOR WINDOW
. She reaches out and touches it, the War Mother's Flag, blue with the white star. Ben's flag.

And then it comes again, heat rising in her veins, the trembling, blood swelling up, pulsing fast.
His eyes staring from the casket deep in the ground that will soon be frozen. Staring at her
. She falls to the couch, rocking and rocking, moaning.

When she looks up again, the window is empty. Something is missing.

“Thomas?”

IT'S QUIET NOW
. The house quiet. Even the birds have left.

When she reaches for Bingo, he jumps away.

On the other side of the window a breeze rustles the maples. Leaves flutter in a rain of red and gold. Kate likes to rake colored leaves. Pretty little girl in pigtails dragging the rake around. Following her father. He tosses her into the air and she squeals with glee. He reads her nursery rhymes. She learns so quick. “She can make a cherry pie / Quick as cat can wink its eye . . .” But she never cared for making pies. Kate and Thomas making rhymes together.
He stole her away from me
.

Charlotte hears the back door open, close. Thomas. Heavy rhythm of his step. Water pumping in the kitchen sink. Wood thumping into the stove. Smoky aroma, cherry wood.

Cherries. Cherry pies. Cherry jam.

The cherry trees are bare now. She stares out at the orchard. Thomas's orchard.

“Char.” Thomas stands in the doorway. Not as tall as he used to be. What's happened to him? “Come in to supper, Char.” Then he's gone.

She smells fish, rice with butter, tomatoes. Hears his chair scrape against the kitchen floor. Utensils clicking on his plate.
Not waiting for me
.

She heard him talking with someone about that place, Clarington Home. Not a home at all. No, a gray cluster of low buildings out by the railroad tracks, high stone wall, crazy faces behind barred windows.

Kate, it was Kate he was talking to. Kate and Thomas. Conspiring against her.

She's afraid of them now.

Pretend.
Pretend I'm just fine
. She takes a ragged breath and rises and holds to furniture and walls.

The kitchen smells warm. A plate of food at her place, a glass of water.

“Rainbow trout,” he says. “Fried the way you like it.”

She slouches onto the seat of her chair. Thomas puts down his fork, stands, takes his plate to the sink. Then he's back, sitting across from her. He empties his pipe into the ashtray and refills it, scratches a match against the box. Cherry-scented puffs float into the air.

“Why don't you kill me,” she whispers.

“Eat, Charlotte.”

She picks up her fork, takes a bite. It tastes of fresh fish and butter and salt. She should like it. But it doesn't matter now. She chews slowly.

“I sold the farm,” he says.

What farm?

“Artie, he's got a cherry orchard up near Sister Bay, remember?
He'd like to have this place.” Thomas sucks on his pipe.
Puff . . . puff . . . puff
. “Got two sons. Doesn't want to break up his land. One will stay with him, the other will live here.”

Not in Ben's room. That's my room now
.

“Good that Artie's willing to take it on this time of year, seeing we're going into winter.”
Puff . . . puff . . . puff
. “ 'Course I'll leave him everything in the root cellar. Kate did all that canning after—”

“Kate? Where's Kate?”

“You know where she is, Char. Down at the university.” He sucks on his pipe. “She'll be back, Thanksgiving break, help me pack things up, take whatever she wants.”

Pack things up?

Blood rushes, heat in her veins, dizzy. She clenches her fists to stop it. Thomas doesn't like to hear the moaning. Fingernails cutting into her palms.

Thomas tamps down the ashes in his pipe, relights it. Puffs for a while. Puts it down. “I found a place for you.”

“For
me
. . . ?” She stares at him.

“Charlotte.” His hand reaches across the table and closes on hers. “Please understand . . .”

She moans.

Thomas takes a red handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose, wipes his eyes. “They have the help you need.”

She lets it come, the blood racing and the dizziness and the moaning, she lets it happen. And rocks and rocks. Because it doesn't matter anymore.

After a while it's quiet again. Her hands in her lap.

Thomas empties his pipe. Puts it on the table and stares down at the ashes. “I never did want this farm.”