Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

But Molly did not shout at him. “I’m sure as I’m ever gonna be that it’s yours,” she replied evenly.

He knew that was the most honest answer he would get. “Do you want…” Robert could not finish his sentence.

“How do you know I actually want something from you?”

Robert noticed that Molly had at last dropped her cheerfulness. It was a relief.

“I’ll do right by you,” he said.

“What does that mean? You know, you ain’t even said you’re glad to see me. Are you glad?”

“I-”

“I think you ain’t glad. That’s what I think.” Molly was getting that look again that he hated, that made him feel a metal band was strapped around his chest and tightening. But she was also angry.

“I am glad. But-”

“You don’t want me here, do you?”

“Molly! Stop. Just-” Robert held up his hand. “Just let me speak.” He held Molly’s eye, and she became still, her hands folded over her belly.

“My sister Martha only just arrived two days ago. I haven’t seen her in eighteen years. In fact, I didn’t even know if she was alive or not.”

“You didn’t?”

“No.”

“What about the rest of your family? Your parents?”

“They’re dead.”

“You never told me that. When did they die?”

“Eighteen years ago.”

Molly raised her eyebrows.

Robert hesitated. Then, because she was waiting for more, he finally spoke aloud the words he had never said before. “They-they killed each other when I was a boy.” The words cut through the air like a knife through meat-resistant, and then gliding effortlessly.

Molly stared at him. “Say that again so I’ll know I’m hearin’ right.”

“They killed each other.”

“How can two people kill each other?”

Robert sighed, then told her in as few words as he could what had happened in the orchard. He could feel the splinter of sadness poking at his heart. “I ran off afterwards. Never went back.”

“Good Lord.” Molly sat still, twisting her hands in her lap. She was not easily shocked, but Robert saw that the Goodenough family had managed to stun her.

“I left Martha behind,” Robert added. “I can never forgive myself for leaving her. In fact, I shouldn’t have left her today.”

But Molly was already beginning to recover, and anger was overtaking her surprise. “Why in hell’s name didn’t you ever tell me this, Robert Goodenough? I told you about my Ma and Pa and my brother and sister, but you never said a thing about yours-jest told me silly stories about your medicine man and the wooden leg when you had all this in your past!”

“I’m sorry, Molly, but I don’t talk about it to anyone. It’s easier that way.”

She was glaring at him, and he knew he owed her more than that. “If I don’t tell people about it, I don’t have to think about it, and it can be like it never happened.”

“But it did happen.”

“Yes.”

“Then don’t you know that anyway? Underneath all your silence, you know it’s still there.”

“Yes.”

“Ain’t it better to be open about it? Then at least you’re honest, so you don’t have it diggin’ at you, deep inside.”

“Maybe. We’re just different, I guess.”

“I guess.” Molly’s anger had burnt out as quickly as it flared. She took his hand. “Lord, I feel real bad for you, Robert. This world’s full of sorrows, ain’t it?”

They sat for a while, and Robert let her hold his hand.

“The Bible’s never brought me a whole lotta comfort,” Molly said presently, “but I can see how these trees might. They been around a lot longer than any of us with our foolishness, and they’ll still be laughin’ at us in a few hundred years, don’t you think?”

“Yes.” It was easier to agree than to explain what he really thought. Back when he’d first seen the giant trees, Robert too had marveled at their age and what they had witnessed. Now, though, he did not see them as witnesses at all. Trees lived in a different world from people. However much he pruned their branches, picked their fruit, collected their cones, dug up their seedlings, they did not respond to him. Even his horse responded to him more than trees did. They were not made to. They were not selves. It bothered him when people gave them human qualities when they were so clearly not human. That was why he did not like the sequoias’ being given names; the Old Bachelor was a tree, not a man. Yet he knew he still slipped into that trap too. For instance, he had been stupidly pleased that Martha had chosen the Orphans to sit under, though the trees were not orphans.

But he let Molly turn the trees into witnesses of human folly, and then he said, “Molly, I need to go back to Murphys. It don’t feel right leaving Martha.” It was easier now to say these simple words.

Molly accepted them with more ease too. “Go back to her,” she said. “Make that flea-biter gallop faster than he ever has before.”

“You can come down with me if I can find you a wagon.”

“Naw, I’ll jest hold you back. I’ll be down in a day or two.” Molly stretched her legs out before her and pointed her toes. “Right now I’m gonna set here a bit and look at the trees.”

The gray was not an eager horse, but he had a sense from his rider that now was the time to gallop. They flew down the mountain in an hour and a half.

But Robert too had a sense, and it was of a dread that grew faster than he could ride.

He stood in the doorway of the hotel bedroom, looking at the bed soaked with blood, at Martha’s head turned towards the door as if expecting him, at her open eyes like two candles blown out, at Billie Lapham next to her with his handkerchief over his face, crying, and he thought, There is a God and He is a very harsh one, giving with one hand and taking more with the other so that I am even emptier than when I started.

He removed his hat and went up to the bed and took Martha’s hand. It was only just starting to cool. “If you are still in this room,” he said, “I want to tell you that I never should’ve left you in the Black Swamp. I did it because I was scared and I was only thinking of myself when I should have been thinking of you too. I was just a boy, but I should’ve looked after you and I didn’t, and I will be sorry for that for the rest of my days.”

There was a wailing sound behind him, and when he turned, Nancy was standing in the doorway with Jimmy in her arms, wrapped in Martha’s shawl. “I’m real sorry, Robert. I truly am.”

“What happened?”

“Hemorrhage. The doctor said it happens sometimes when something’s left inside the mother that should’ve come out. She was fine, chattin’ away with me while the baby slept, then suddenly there was blood everywhere. Billie ran for the doctor, but it was too late.”

Jimmy cried louder. “I know I shouldn’t be holdin’ him ’cause of my illness,” Nancy said, “but Billie ain’t in a fit state to. He always was soft.” She gazed fondly at her weeping husband. “Here.” She walked over and held out the baby. “Go on, take him,” Nancy chided when Robert hesitated. “You’re all he’s got now.”

Robert took Jimmy, propping him in the crook of his arm as he’d seen Nancy do. The transfer made the baby go quiet for a moment and open his eyes. It was the first time Robert had seen them open. They were not brown or blue yet but a muddy mix of the two, and they could not focus, but Robert could see they were Goodenough eyes. He stared at Jimmy and it was like looking at his family all pressed into one face, young and old, man and woman, boy and girl.