Beneath a Thousand Apple Trees (4 page)

I
n the early morning hours of what was to be our fourth day at Mrs. Gentry's, there came a pounding on the door. We all sat up in bed—Merry and me in Polly's old feather bed, and Prescott in Herbert's old room next to ours. Mrs. Gentry hurried out of her room, while pushing her right arm through her flannel robe and firmly telling us to stay put. As she approached the front door, she glanced up at the shotgun hung above the frame as if to reconfirm that it was there for the using.

“Who is it?” she demanded in a tone that was several octaves lower than her normal voice's pitch.

“Miz Gentry, it's Calvin Guinn. Are my young'uns in there?”

The three of us jumped out of our beds and were out in the living room before he even finished his sentence. We knew that voice! We'd waited for that voice! And it now spoke to us through the dead-bolted front door. Mrs. Gentry unlocked it and we flew into Papa's arms. I suddenly heard someone weeping and realized that it was my strong, never-flinching brother. I'd never seen him cry before, and it came out as almost a groaning whine. It was animalistic in its sound; in its rawness and pain. Looking back on it much later, I realized that Prescott had been even more heavily burdened and frightened by the abandonment than Merry or I. Surely the road of uncertainty that perhaps lay ahead of us would be traveled with him in the lead; providing for us, protecting us, and, hardest of all, loving us, not as a young, carefree brother does, but patiently and compassionately, as a parent is expected to do. He was barely twelve, and those slight, thin shoulders had borne the weight of enough worry in those several days to fill up a boy's entire childhood.

Papa seemed to understand this, and uttered reassurances as he kissed him repeatedly, just as he did Merry and me, but the difference was that Papa had never kissed Prescott before, not that I had seen anyway, and that moment of tender affection and understanding between them spoke many unsaid words. Once the hugging and kissing and crying had stopped, we all looked wrung out and exhausted. Finding it hard to catch my breath, I watched Papa with desperate eyes. The next words he might speak would shape our lives ahead.

“We're goin' home.” His words were quiet, but firm.

Oh, Lord God of all that's good and right! Sweeter words were never spoken. We were going home! We were wanted, missed, and loved—at least by Papa. We were Calvin Guinn's children, and we were staying that way.

“Children, go gather your things,” Mrs. Gentry instructed, exhaling quite loudly as she did so. “And close your bedroom doors so's your Papa and I can have a few minutes to talk before you head on.”

We did as we were told, but no one said anything about not pressing our ears to the door. We figured that their words involved us, so the conversation should be ours to hear, too.

“Where's Anna?” Mrs. Gentry asked in a demanding way.

“She's in Morganton, at the state hospital there. She's done gone soft in the head, Miz Gentry. She came home the mornin' she left the young'uns with you, and she picked up Walter and Albert's blankets, walked out to the barn and wouldn't come out of there for nothin'. She wouldn't say a word, neither. Nary a one. I first tried askin' her what she'd done with the young'uns, but she just stared off into space all stone-like. I got real panicky then, and started hollerin' that she'd damned well—pardon the word, Miz Gentry—better take me to 'em, or she'd be askin' the devil himself for a coolin' drink of water before the day was through. She just kept a-starin'. I tried callin' that Doc Pardie, but he was too much into the cups to come out to help, so Willa finally got her to drink a calmin' elixir, and then Anna slept a full day and a half. When she woke up she still wouldn't, or couldn't, talk; just kept a-starin' at the wall, or whatever she was lookin' at and finding so damned—pardon the word, Miz Gentry—so interestin'.

“Finally, Pardie come and looked her over. Said she needed some serious help to get her fixed up. Said she needed to be over in Morganton. Lord, but we had a time gettin' her there. Guess the words “state hospital” burrowed through to that convoluted brain of hers, and she started a-screamin' and a-kickin' and swearing to Jesus Christ Himself, that she wasn't goin'. I told her I'd divorce her if she didn't. And I also told her I'd beat the tar outta her and
then
divorce her if she didn't tell me where my young'uns was. So, she's there in the crazy ward, and I'm here in your kitchen to fetch my young'uns.”

“Lord, Lord, Lord!” Mrs. Gentry said, shaking her head. “All this death and dyin' and craziness. Dear God in Heaven! I know it was hard on ya, but ya did the right thing—both in the threats and in the decision to take her away.”

“Oh, no, Miz Gentry, those weren't no
threats
. Those was
facts
! If'n she didn't tell me where the kids was, I was gonna beat her 'til she sprouted wings and flew over here to get 'em herself. Now, don't get me wrong; I ain't never lifted a hand to her—to no woman, for that matter. But no woman has ever tried givin' my young'uns away neither.”

“Thank the good Lord it didn't come to that, Calvin,” she said kindly, shaking her head again and gently patting my father's arm, which hung rigidly down at his side with his fist clenched. “She's where she needs to be,” she assured him once more. Then, “Children, are you ready?” she called.

We left Mrs. Gentry's simple, snow-swept cabin with a mixture of feelings. On the one hand, it had been a place of uncertainty, filled with terrifying questions about our future, about our place in the hearts of the family we so loved. And, yet, it had been a harbor of calm and stability. A place where one could just be quiet and still while being comfortably cocooned in the safe company of a woman whose only seeming frailty was that of an aging body, but not of the mind, nor the spirit, and, most especially, not the heart.

M
ama stayed in the hospital for nine months, and returned a week before my tenth birthday. People at the Glorious Salvation Baptist Church knew she was coming home just in time for my birthday, and they connected the two events as being wonderfully divine. “The good Lord's a-bringin' your mama home fer your birthday, chil',” someone would point out. “And I
know
that's what you must 'a been wishin' fer!” No, what I'd been wishing for was the red-and-blue plaid coat with the lovely—albeit fake—red fur collar on display in Taft's front window. Lord, but I wanted that coat! But the Lord saw fit to bring me a new set of mittens instead (actually, it was courtesy of Grandma's knitting needles, and not the good Lord), and a purportedly good-as-new, powdered-up-pretty, all-too-familiar-looking-but-now-a stranger-to-me mother the day before my special celebration.

Papa had taken the buggy (a most rare occurrence, especially given the fact that it had seen far better days) instead of the wagon, and gone to fetch her in Morganton. He'd left just as the sun had begun to rise over the ridge. Wearing his Sunday suit of worn black wool, and carrying two paper-wrapped ham biscuits for his dinner, he'd climbed into the buggy and headed out. I came walking out of the bedroom several minutes later. Grandma turned from the window over the kitchen sink and told me to sit down and have a cup of coffee with her. Grandma had never offered me coffee before, claiming it'd stunt my growth, but I guess she figured if I was old enough to have to handle a mother who had no handle on things, then I was old enough to drink coffee. I poured it from the pot myself, while Grandma, having taken a seat at the table, stared into her cup as if she were reading tea leaves. She drank her coffee black, so I intended to do the same. However, upon my first taste of it, I knew that Grandma and I took different roads there. After going out to the springhouse and retrieving the small bottle of cream, I added a good dose of it, then two generous spoonfuls of sugar, only to add one more after another test sip from my cup, until I finally had my coffee fixed to my great liking. I was afraid to spill it and be thought of as a little girl—surely too young to indulge in such a grown-up concoction—so, I held the old Dogwood-patterned china cup with both hands and softly slurped the rich drink.

“Lord, chil',” Grandma said, coming out of her deep thoughts. “Don't you know it ain't polite to slurp like that?!”

“It's hot,” I countered.

“Then let it set a spell an' cool before you try to drink it,” she chided, then went back to staring into her cup.

“What's wrong, Grandma?” I finally had the courage to ask. I knew the answer, but I still felt the need to ask it to see if her fears and doubts mirrored my own.

“I was just wonderin' how your mama's gonna do, being home and all,” she said.

“Do you think she'll be . . . well . . . all right? Happy?” I asked, with my voice fading out so softly at the end of my question that Grandma had to lean in toward me to hear it.

“Well, them doctors told your Pa that she's herself again,” she said. “The only question is which self; the one before the twins died, or the one after?”

She went back to staring into her coffee cup. And it seemed as good a place as any to look for answers, so I stared down into mine.

W
e heard the buggy pulling up to the house just before dark. Everyone had stayed close to the house, even though it was Saturday. With a mixture of anticipation and trepidation weighing heavily on all of our minds, no one was their usual carefree self on this clear but chilly mid-October day. Instead, we were quiet and withdrawn, or, if we had to interact, our dialog was succinct and sometimes even curt. It was apparent that everyone was on edge about the answers that would soon be given to questions we'd asked ourselves—and each other—over the months leading up to this day. We found ourselves glancing out the windows time and time again, straining our eyes to their limits in an attempt to look as far down the sawmill road as we could in order to announce Papa and Mama approaching. We all felt we needed a moment to prepare ourselves, to take that necessary deep breath, and plan the first few words out of our mouths before she stepped from the buggy.

While I watched and waited, I silently rehearsed the many questions I wanted to ask: “Why did you do it? If losing the twins broke you, why was giving us away the means to mend you? How would that help?” And, most importantly: “Do you love us again, or was it that you never did to begin with?”

I so badly wanted to ask those questions, but I knew I couldn't. In truth, I wasn't ready to. So, I decided to play it safe and say a few polite words—nothing accusatory or offensive. But I was afraid that once I opened my mouth, the floodgates would burst open, too, allowing the depth and intensity of my anger and sadness to come boiling and roiling out. If that were to happen, then it would inevitably lead us to that thing which terrified me the most: hearing her answers to all of my many questions.

When they finally arrived, we heard them before we saw them. We were just finishing up our supper of leftover vegetable soup when the telltale squeaking of the buggy's wheels heralded their arrival. I was very aware of the fact that only Merry Beth excitedly jumped up and ran out to greet them, though I wasn't surprised. There was an undeniable bond between my mother and little sister—one that the rest of the family didn't share with either of them. Merry Beth was developing into a miniature version of our mother—certainly on the outside, and I had started to believe that perhaps on the inside, as well. For I'd seen small but undeniable indications every now and then that led me to believe that Merry Beth might very well be the apple that didn't fall far from the maternal tree.

In her usual fashion, Merry Beth had defended Mama's actions, and had explained Mama's abandonment as an event that, though hard to understand, was in some way warranted. She'd told both Prescott and me that she was sure “Mama hadn't meant nothin' mean by leavin' us with Miz Gentry. Maybe it was just somethin' mamas had to do once in a while.” I tried to explain the truth about it time and again, and Prescott had as well, but nothing we said seemed to penetrate her fortress-like defense of Mama. One afternoon, Grandma overheard the volleying back and forth between Merry's pathetic excuses and our frustrated and snide remarks in response, and she walked out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a faded-pink dishtowel, and told Merry Beth to go feed the chickens. Merry Beth told Grandma that they'd already been fed, but Grandma said that we needed extra big eggs for a cake she was planning on baking, and the chickens might give us what we needed with a little extra feed. It was an obvious ploy to get Merry Beth out of earshot, and once she was, Grandma tore into us with a fury I'd never seen in her before, much less aimed at us.

“What the devil is wrong with you two?” she angrily asked. “Don't you know that there'll be no healing in this place if there ain't forgivin' first?”

“Seems to me that's a tall order,” Prescott replied, which startled me because I'd never seen him speak so belligerently to Grandma.

Her head actually snapped back, as though she'd been slapped. But then she quickly walked up to him, looked him fiercely in the eyes, and said in a frighteningly hard, monotone voice, “Son, that woman may be your mama, but she was my daughter first. Don't forget that. She hurt all three of you—
all
of us—I know. And don't think she don't know, too. But something crawled into that woman's soul when her babies died, and she couldn't conquer it. It was a monster, and a thief—a thief of her time with her children who are still here. And it was a monster that changed her into someone we didn't know, someone who couldn't do nothin' but hide in the corner of a barn and howl like a wounded animal, and give her own children away rather than have them stolen away, one after another. That monster, that thief, has a name, and it's one I don't never,
ever
, want you two to forget, because it crawled inside of you two as well, and it's still a-living there now. And its name is Grief. If you don't kill it with forgiveness and love, and lots of it, it'll continue to eat this family alive, until none of us are left to feed it.

Prescott and I were stunned. We were shocked by the anger of her words. I realized much later on that it was an anger born of the deep hurt that filled her. But there was also the agonizing frustration of not being able to fix any of it, or any of us. Grandma had held it all in until it could no longer stay contained, and we were witness to the cracking of her solid, strong, resilient self when it finally came crashing down in an avalanche of emotions.

She seemed as stunned as we were. The three of us just stood there for several seconds staring at each other, until Prescott, unable to hold her gaze any longer, looked down at his mud-spattered shoes and muttered, “Sorry, Grandma.”

And, still watching her, I followed with a softly uttered, “Me, too.”

Tears that had welled up and begun to slip out of Grandma's reddened blue eyes were quickly swiped away with her pink dishtowel; then she curtly nodded her acceptance of our feeble apologies and stiffly began to clear our supper dishes. As she did, I noticed that her frame seemed suddenly smaller and that her shoulders were slightly hunched over, whereas they never had been before. On the contrary, she was a stickler for good posture and was constantly correcting me on mine. She'd told me that even though I had a limp, if I held myself tall and straight, it would be less noticeable, and whatever small limp remained wouldn't count much if the rest of me didn't seem overly concerned or affected by it. But, as she walked back into the kitchen that afternoon, she looked as though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, and the fear, sorrow, and anger that made up that weight was taking a toll both physically and emotionally on her.

My thoughts were startled back to the present as Grandma cleared my soup bowl from in front of me. “Let me help you, Grandma,” I offered, quickly rising from the table. Doing the detestable job of washing dishes would buy me a bit more time before I had to face my mother of many faces.

“No, Rachel. You and Prescott go say hello to your ma,” she directed. I wondered if she was just trying to give Prescott and me a few minutes alone with our mother first before she went out to see her, or if Grandma needed that tiny extra slice of time to ready herself, too.

We heard faint and muffled voices and footsteps on the front porch. We turned to face the front door, and as we did, Grandma reached out and placed her hands on top of Prescott's and mine, both of which gripped the edge of the table tightly. “She needs you both,” she said, “now more than ever before.” That one sentence, made up of a total of only nine words, totally dispelled any small notion that I might have had that the mother we had once counted on, leaned on, looked to, and loved was very likely no longer there. And, even if she was, I knew that she would never have enough power to undo that deathblow image I had of her telling Mrs. Gentry that she was leaving us. In that one desperate act, she had fractured the almost indestructible bond between a mother and child. And though I knew she would always be my mother, and that I would always care for her, I also knew that the once warm and kind, fiercely protective “Mama” I had been given at birth was forever gone . . . along with my unconditional love for her.