Hannah walked through the orchard, her dusty feet bathing
in the grassy dew.
It was early, long before the hot sun would bake the
pathway into a concrete thoroughfare teeming with workers and wagons and
ladders. She cradled the rusty Bartletts in her gingham apron, relishing the
earthy sweetness with one finely-tuned nostril while loathing the scent of
their fullness with the other.
She liked to pick in the morning, just a few beauties to
line up on the farmhouse plank table and a few more to use in the day’s
culinary experiment. Pear mincemeat today, she decided. It would join the other
pints and quarts, zinc-ringed and glass-topped, lined up on the open shelves
above the granite sink in her summer kitchen. Pear honey, pear chutney, pickled
pears. She loved those jars, the fruits of her labour, their amberness clear
and unmarred by pretentious labels, testament to her thrift and diligence, her
ingenuity and foresight.
A crackling sound brought her back to the orchard. A
rabbit, she supposed.
Two chubby, bare
legs popped out between trees. Rebecca, Hazel’s child. She had dressed herself
in a floaty, yellow, smocked sundress, and wore it inside out, her freckled
arms swinging with four-year old exuberance.
Hannah ran to greet her. She knelt down letting the pears
scatter on the grass while she scooped her up.
“What are you doing out here, you little buttercup?”
“Pears. I want to pick pears.”
“Do you want to pick or eat?” asked Hannah, rubbing a
pear on her apron and offering it.
Rebecca took it in her hands and bit. She laughed, pear
juice dripping from her nose and chin. Hannah joined in, taking a bite and
laughing a shared girl-laugh, then twisted her niece around and set her on the
grass in front. She hugged the little shoulders, feeling her thighs warm as
Rebecca’s bottom nestled between her legs.
They sat under the pleached canopy, rocking back and
forth, watching the morning sun begin to filter through. Crows scolded
overhead, then swooped down to forage in the ground fall, sending tiny wrens
flitting about. Rebecca’s fingers pointed here and there, but she stayed put,
snuggling back and listening as Hannah hummed.
“Rebecca! Rebecca Jane! Where are you?”
Hannah stiffened as her sister stormed down the path.
“You little brat! You had me worried to death!” Hazel
yanked Rebecca up and swatted her three times, then dragged her screaming,
stopping only to glare at Hannah.
“You’re as bad as her. It’s no wonder you don’t have any
kids. You can’t be trusted with them.”
Hannah sat, stunned, the words, despite their source,
burning a hole through her chest and into her womb. She gathered her pears, now
dull and lifeless and walked with calculated steps through the arbour, around
the herb garden, up the stone steps and into the kitchen. She placed them in a
large pudding bowl on the table and picked up a paring knife.
She began to peel, separating skin from flesh, long slow
strokes starting at the stem end and curving around full ripe bellies. Their
bodies, naked and pristine accumulated on the table and she took them one by
one, cut out their hearts and chopped them into little pieces.
She turned to the stove, sliding fruit and raisins,
cloves and honey into the enamel kettle, folding and mixing with practised
hand, oblivious to the clomp of heavy steps on the cobblestone floor behind
her.
She jumped when she felt a bony hand on her shoulder but
melted when she realized whose it was. Walter, her father, bless his heart, was
soothing and undemanding. She swore there was a healing that flowed through his
hands, springing from the orchard he tended, growing through his worn brown
Kodiaks, branching along the breadth of his stocky frame and leafing out as
fingertips, green and vibrant, dripping with aloe and heart salve.
He had affected her that way since she was a small child,
able to hold her tight and send the night terrors fleeing, or walk beside her,
hand at her back, massaging her forward into the dark corners and blind alleys
of adolescence. He had twined his fingers in hers when they buried Daniel in
the orchard and she breathed for the first time in three days, aware that at
twenty-one, she was old enough to be a mother, but all she wanted at the moment
was to be his little Hannah.
She turned now and wept on his neck, crying for the child
of her youth, for the lost possibilities, the tiny hands. She cried for her
barren womb, its frosty walls steeled against new beginnings.
The door squeaked, then slammed as her husband Ben walked into the
kitchen and over to the cast iron stove. He poured himself a cup of the dark Mennonite
coffee.
“What’s with her?” he asked, pointing his mug in Hannah’s
direction.
“It’s okay,” said Walter. “She just burnt her finger.
She’s all right.”
“Let me see,” said Ben, reaching out to grab her elbow.
“No. never mind,” said Hannah, wrapping her finger in her
apron and turning to the stove. She knew he meant well, but it wasn’t as if he
could make everything better.
She stirred round and round the kettle, scraping the
bottom and breathing in the soothing pear fumes, conscious that his eyes were
burning a hole through the back of her cotton print housedress and widening
longingly over the curve of her hips.
“I’ll be in the south orchard,” he said. “Bring lunch
about 12:30. None of that fancy stuff, just a couple of meatloaf sandwiches and
a thermos of tea.”
Hannah continued stirring.
“Do you hear me woman? he said.
“She heard you right enough,” said Walter. “She’ll be
there.”
Ben swallowed the last of his coffee and slammed the mug
on the table.
“What? You talking for her now too?" he asked, coming
toward him.
“Leave it alone, Ben. Leave it alone,” said Walter.
Ben stepped back, and then walked out of the house, his
jaw rigid and hands shaking.
Hannah lined up hot jars on the maple bench and began
funnelling steaming mincemeat into their wide mouths. She filled them, wiped
their rims, then adjusted the rubber rings and lids and screwed on the bands,
sealing in the late summer sweetness, saving it and keeping it safe. She washed
her sticky hands and dried them on her apron, then turned to the table where
her father sat watching her.
Walter reached out a hand and she grabbed it.
“I’m okay now, Dad. Really. Best get on with your day.”
“Guess I better” he said, standing up. “Boys ‘ll be
needing the picker before long and I’ve still got the belt off.”
“Here. I froze some water for you. It’s going to be a
scorcher.”
He took the jugs and kissed her cheek, leaving her in the
doorway, arms folded across her chest. She watched him limp through the yard,
stopping twice to set the jugs down before rounding the corner of the machine
shed. He’s getting old, she thought.
She went back through the kitchen and stared at the
golden jars. So much accomplished and it was barely 8:30. She took off her
sandals and stepped up into the main house, glad she was alone with a whole day
stretching out in front of her. She hurried through the house, whisking away
clutter and dusting furniture and knick knacks, and then retreated up the back
stairs to the attic bedroom.
It was so peaceful up here. You could look out the small
octagonal window and see acres of orchard in every direction, a legacy from her
grandfather, Morris Jensen. She knew him from photographs and newspaper
clippings: Poor Immigrant Farmer Turns Desert into Dessert.
He was a legend around here and an inspiration. He and his wife Janna suffered losses too, three children dead before their first birthdays; yet they struggled on together, tilling rocky soil and planting row upon row of tiny slips they'd brought from Holland, making a life and a home for their eight other children and turning the valley into an oasis of hope for other disenchanted settlers.
Hannah wondered how Grandma Janna survived those cold winters before the orchard matured and the fruit was ready for picking. What a miracle it must have seemed, that first golden pear, rich reward for the long hard years. Everyone took it for granted now. The orchard was there, plain and simple, always was, always would be. It had provided a living for three generations and would be there for years to come.
But not for a child of hers.
She lifted the lid of the black leather trunk and took out the white christening gown, the one Daniel had worn and she herself and Walter, tiny pearl buttons, rows of tucks and pleats and bands of homemade lace sewn on the finest, thinest lawn fabric. She could picture Janna sitting here at the window, surveying the fields and sewing her heart into each perfect stitch.
Hannah traced her fingers around the neck and into the sleeves, feeling for substance, for a sense of the child, rosy and laughing that had last filled it. She draped it on her chest and rocked, singing All the Pretty Horses and remembering Daniel's sweet baby-powder smell, the folds of his neck, and his heart beating fast against hers. She could see his tiny feet, pink and curled, still too small for the little brown workboots Ben had brought home the day he was born. She imagined him in the orchard toddling through the rows or straddling Ben's shoulders and reaching for a pear.
Ben's lunch! She sat up panicked, then tuned into the shouting outside. She ran down the stairs and into the yard and choked as she breathed in a mouthful of acrid black smoke.
"What's going on?" she yelled above men and machinery, covering her mouth with a corner of her apron.
"South orchard! Picker caught fire. Whole back ten is up in flames."
"Have you seen Dad? And Ben?"
"Walter's hurt bad. Haven't seen Ben. Must be there somewhere. We're just back to fill the water truck."
Hannah ran to the house, grabbed the keys to the half-ton, some towels and a jug of water and then flew out the door and into the truck. She sped off, gravel flying, down the driveway and turned up the side line. She pressed harder on the accelerator, feeling she was making no headway, and prayed thngs weren't as bad as they looked.
The sky was even blacker over here. It was hard to see, and she almost missed the turn-off at Slater's corner. She skidded to a stop, backed up and pulled in by the trucks of neighbouring farmers. She ran toward the first field where men were beating the wall of flames with blankets and soaking it with buckets of water.
The picker stood like a charred sculpture in the middle and all around it were the bodies of trees, de-limbed and crisped, reeking a mixture of burnt firewood and baked pears.
"Where's Dad?" she shouted.
"Over there." Fred Slater pointed to the workers' lean-to.
Hannah stumbled over fallen branches, her eyes stinging and body blackening with grimy soot. She reached Walter and fell to the ground by his side.
"Dad. It's Hannah. I'm here Dad. Everything's okay now."
He opened his cracked lips and looked at her, his eyes starting to tear.
"The orchard...." he said.
"Don't worry. We'll save it," said Hannah
Walter relaxed and reached for her hand. She curled her fingers around his aware that this was his final gesture, yet still half-expecting his touch to electrify and empower her like it always had. She hung on, stroking his hand until he dropped it and let out a sigh.
Hannah got up.
"He's gone," she said, surprised at her composure.
She walked away and turned to the orchard, covering her face with her apron and ignoring shouts to stay back. Ben was in there somewhere. She was terrified of what she might find but at the same time sensed a strange peace beginning to settle over her.
She navigated the rows by memory, working her way up and down, horrified as she realized how much was lost already. She would not lose Ben too.
The fire line was just ahead and she called out to the men passing buckets of dirt and water.
"Ben. Ben!"
But the fire threw back his name in a searing wind that burned her face and sent her stumbling backwards.
She collected herself, dirty and exhausted, turned and began skirting up the machine road to the east hoping to come in on the other side. Her heart thumped, pounding out forgotten memories of the early days, and ticking off missed chances of more recent times. She stopped at the fork, stooping over and holding her sides just long enough to catch her breath, and started again, sweaty ash dripping in her eyes, her legs scratched and bleeding.
" Lord, help me find him," she begged.
She rounded the east ring and stopped, mouth open, as Ben moved in slow motion toward her. His hair was singed on one side, his face red raw, hands blackened, pants and shirt torn and filthy.
But he was alive.
And in his arms he carried his love...... a tiny white casket, dirt still clingng to its sides. He set it on the ground at her feet and leaned into her. They hung on, swaying together and laughing and crying and wiping each other's faces.
They walked around the perimeter, each holding a handle, their precious cargo in between. The wind had started to die down and the air felt cool on Hannah's skin. She looked through the smoke, now greyer than black and could make out shapes up ahead.
A cheer went up as they stepped out of the haze into the clearing where women stood with picnic baskets, children clinging to their skirts, and men stooped to drink from water jugs. Hannah could feel the relief and sadness in the air.
She remembered with a stab.
"Dad. Dad's dead, Ben."
She set down her end of the casket and hurried through the crowd. He lay where she had left him, his head propped on towels, arms folded across his chest. Hazel sat on the ground beside him, head between her knees, back heaving with sobs.
Hannah bent to touch her shoulder. Hazel looked up.
"He loved you best Hannah. He always did."
"Only because I needed it, because I was weak."
"No, because you shared his heart, his passion for this place. It's always been just a bunch of trees to me." She picked up a blistered pear and tossed it. "I'm sick to death of pears." She sat silent for a moment. "You, Hannah, have the healing. I can feel it in your touch."
Hannah got up and looked back at Ben who stood by himself, guarding Daniel. She walked toward him, eyes fixed on his, hands slowly circing her belly, polishing and caressing it like the morning's first pear.
"We can always replant," she said.
