David*Macinnis*Gill.com

This story dates from 1996, with revi­sions done in 1998. I wanted to write about grief and its lin­ger­ing effects on the peo­ple left behind. The title comes from the myth of Tan­ta­lus, who could smell the fruit but never taste it.

My dad, Alli­son thought as she took the Corvette off of cruise con­trol, is a philosopher. Not a Descartes or a Machi­avelli. More like a Will Rodgers, a man who stud­ies every day life and finds mean­ing in it. If she’d had a penny stock for all the times her dad had said, You get what you pay for and pay for what you get, and don’t believe any­thing you hear and only half of what you see, she could have paid off the car twice over.

Alli­son left the inter­state at the Smoky Moun­tains exit and was head­ing up the wind­ing roads to Townsend when she noticed that some­thing was not quite right. Fall had always been her favorite sea­son. Crisp air. Burn­ing leaves gath­ered with clat­ter­ing rakes that swooped and scraped the ground. Bags full of bright yel­lows and reds like blood drops from dog­woods or multi-colored pin oaks or orange maples. But that Fall, the leaves ignored the pageantry and turned from green to ugly brown with­out so much as an after­thought and lay at the bot­toms of the naked trees.

She punched the accel­er­a­tor and the Corvette cut around a hair­pin turn. The val­ley rolled out below her and she kept to the road and refused to look down. Between Gatlin­burg and Townsend, she watched for her par­ents’ inn. She knew her Mom would be cook­ing her apples and a hun­dred bushel bas­kets would be lin­ing the mud room out back. The kitchen would be sweat­ing apple cider and apple but­ter and apple this and apple that.

Alli­son smelled the apples even as she pulled into the dri­ve­way of the inn, a hunt­ing lodge her par­ents had trans­formed into a bed and break­fast. She car­ried her bags to the porch.

“Wel­come to the Great Smok­ies,” Mom’s trust­ing voice came through the tran­som and when she opened the door, the scent of cook­ing apples tum­bled past her.

“Ally!” Mom opened her arms. “I thought you’d never get here.”

“Whoa, you’re giv­ing me the Heimlich.”

Alli­son stepped back and shifted the bags to keep her bal­ance at the top of the stairs. Her mom danced after her as Alli­son twisted away and held the suit­case between them. When her mom finally caught up, she hugged her as hard as she could, giv­ing three quick pats between the shoul­der blades, a Dad-hug.

“It’s so good to have you home, Ally.”

She touched her daughter’s face with cinnamon-stained hands that cra­dled the chin in their fla­vor. The hands drew away but they held onto an unseen stem that con­nected them. Her hands abruptly smiled with her voice, “How was the drive?”

“Fine. Can I get in the door now?”

“You got here fast.”

“After what you told me on the phone, what did you expect?.”

Mom picked up the bags.

“Those are too heavy for you. Let me do it.”

“Non­sense.” She dis­ap­peared into the house with the bags. Her voice became an echo. “Hooper will be happy you’re home.”

“I wish I were,” she whis­pered. Alli­son lin­gered at the thresh­old like a drop of cider on the rim of a wide-mouthed jar, almost ring­ing the bell to let her Dad know he had company.

“Com­ing?” Mom’s voice came from the fourth step, her face barely above the mahogany balus­ter as she held the bags and waited for her daugh­ter before she would climb up to the top.

“Let me get in the door first. Hey, you got a new rug. My, we are com­ing up in the world.”

“Just some­thing to spice up the place. You like it?”

If her mother had seen the way Alli­son chewed on her bot­tom lip, she would have known her daugh­ter was lying when she said, “It’s beau­ti­ful. It’s good to mix things up a little.”

“Glad to hear it. I know how much you hate things to change.”

“I don’t hate change,” she whis­pered. “I just hate it when you’re the one who changes things.”

She fol­lowed her mom to the first room on the right.

“We thought the blue was perkier than the laven­der. What do you think?” Mom said.

Alli­son said noth­ing and looked out the win­dow at her car parked in the gravel drive. I’d give any­thing to be head­ing back to Char­lotte in that thing, she thought.

“Are you lis­ten­ing, Ally?”

“Just think­ing.”

“No harm in that.” Mom fixed the bed and firmed up the pil­lows. She stood beside her daugh­ter and tied back the drapes. “Isn’t the sun­shine beau­ti­ful?” Then she put the bags on two lug­gage stands pulled from the closet.

“I’m get­ting the royal treat­ment here.”

“Nothing’s too good for my girl.” She turned down the quilt. “Why don’t you get a lit­tle rest? You must be worn out from your trip. Kick off your shoes and stay awhile.”

Alli­son turned away from the win­dow. “Mom, how could you? That’s your canned phrase for guests. What am I, a tourist?”

“Non­sense. And if you keep mak­ing that face, it’s going to freeze there, and you’ll be stuck with it, and what would all of your boyfriends say about that?”

“Fine. Be that way. Make snide com­ments like you always do.”

Her mom clutched a pil­low to her stom­ach and let go of the pil­low case that she had held open with her teeth.“Why are you so defen­sive? Did I say some­thing about your relationships?”

“There. You did it again.”

“Really, Alli­son.”

From down the hall, Alli­son heard her father cough. She put a hand on her mother and passed with­out speak­ing. Her mother grabbed the hand to hold her there. She slipped free with ease.

“I’m going to see my Daddy.”

“No, I haven’t told you enough. Don’t go in there.”

They swept into the mas­ter suite. Beside the win­dow that leaked sun­shine into the room, in a bed of cold metal, a tube in his nose from an oxy­gen machine beside him, Allison’s dad slept cov­ered by a hand-sewn quilt and a bril­liant blan­ket of light. Fresh-shaven, his den­tures out and his chin almost touch­ing his nose, he looked like one of the wax heads in Gatlin­burg, except he wasn’t mov­ing, even mechan­i­cally, and no canned words came out of his mouth. Just the sound of a rat­tle when he inhaled and the smooth hum and click of the air machine reminded them that he was still alive.

Alli­son backed into the hall. Her whis­per was as sharp as a par­ing knife. “He looks awful. Why did you let me go in there?”

She ran to her bed and dropped onto it. Her mom stroked her hair and kissed her head and Alli­son could smell the nut­meg in the apron.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be like this.”

“Alli­son?” Her Dad called from down the hall. His voice was a rat­tle. “Is that you?”

“He’s call­ing me.”

“Stay here.” Mom went to shut his door. “No, Allison’s not here yet, dear. Would you like a drink of something?”

After she had tended to him, Allison’s mom led her daugh­ter by the hand to the round oak table in the far cor­ner of the kitchen, where they sat down with some hot cider.

Alli­son took one look at the cin­na­mon stick in the cup. “Can I have some cof­fee please?”

“Cof­fee?”

“Think I’ve lost my taste for cider.”

“One cof­fee com­ing up.”

She sighed and served the cof­fee black in an over­sized stoneware mug that Alli­son drank from quickly, though the cof­fee was too hot for her taste. Then she remem­bered last night when she had answered the phone and heard Mom’s voice and knew some­thing was wrong. Except for the cat curled up in her lap and the half-empty bot­tle of Chardon­ney on the night stand, she was alone. Then the phone rang with Mom’s ring and the cat jumped onto the night stand and Chardon­ney spewed everywhere.

“Is every­thing all right Alli­son? You sound upset.”

Alli­son told her she was fine while she blot­ted the rug with a sock, swept the stand clean, and wiped her hands on the cat. “And to what did I owe this pleasure.”

“I don’t know how to say this, Ally, so I just will. Your Dad is sick. He has cancer.”

Can­cer, she had thought, what kind of can­cer, how do you know this? Why didn’t you tell me sooner, you’re crazy, he’ll be all right, he’s going to die, why me, why me? “What did you say. Mom?”

“Can­cer,” she’d said, “Lung can­cer. It’s spread to his brain. The doc­tor says it’s stage four already.”

“Stage four? What’s stage four? What hap­pens at stage five?”

Behind her Mom’s voice, she had heard pots clang­ing in the kitchen. Mom was busy can­ning, putting up apple but­ter in wide-mouthed mason jars clat­ter­ing in the sub­mersed pot racks. “There is no stage five, dear.”

And then Alli­son didn’t hear the pots clang­ing and she didn’t feel the wet rug or the cat purring. And she didn’t feel or think any­thing when she had called in to work after pack­ing and then dri­ven to see her daddy and to prove to her­self that he was really sick.

Now at the oak table, the mug cra­dled in her hands, she repeated, “There is no stage five, dear.”

“What did you say, Ally?”

“There is no stage five, that’s what you said last night.”

“Yes, I might have.”

Mom set out a head of ice­berg let­tuce, some cold cuts, and the loaf of Roman Meal she always stored in the fridge to keep it fresh. ““You don’t look so good. You really should lie down.” She cut into the ripe tomato with a par­ing knife then quar­tered it.

“Look, Mom, I’m a lit­tle rusty on the small talk, so let’s quit danc­ing around this.”

“Would you like a sandwich?”

“Mom! Lis­ten to me.”

She rinsed the knife before putting it in the drainer. “Fine.”

She brought her­self and her sand­wich to the table. “Fine. We’ll talk about this. And when I say some­thing you don’t like, you will not walk out on me and you will not run to your father for com­fort because he can’t com­fort you now. Okay?”

Alli­son nod­ded so she wouldn’t have to talk. She didn’t like the sound of her voice when she was angry. It broke like cracked ice and she sounded like child.

“You know how he’s been hurt­ing. We thought it was that fall he took last Spring when was prun­ing, but the pain kept on and just got worse. Finally he went to the doc­tor and they found this tumor, well these tumors in his lungs and shoul­der. Even his brain. I don’t know how he stood it.”

“That’s ter­ri­ble. How long have you known?”

“A week or so.”

“A week?” said Alli­son, “You’ve known for a week? What took you so long to call?”

“You know your father. He didn’t want to worry you.”

“Some favor.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“I know that Mom. Worrying’s the last thing on my mind. I just can’t stand to think he’s hurt for so long.”

“Well, thank heaven for small favors there. They gave him mor­phine as soon as they found out. Now he wears this patch on his back that doses him. He sleeps most of the time, but he does have delu­sions sometimes.”

“What kind of delusions?.”

“About work­ing on Army trucks mostly. He’s dropped my trans­mis­sion twice this week.”

Alli­son laughed and took the empty cup to refill it and then stood by the win­dow to watch the birds at the feeder, spar­rows mostly, then a small car­di­nal and his mate, even smaller and pale against his lively red plumage. They cracked sun­flow­ers seeds together, pil­ing the hulls higher, eat­ing in uni­son. A blue jay swept onto the feeder to chase the car­di­nals away. He pranced around the feeder with his beak work­ing, scat­ter­ing the hulls, pick­ing around for a few spare seeds. He shrieked delight then flew away to a nearby tree where he could keep watch.

“Ass­hole.”

“Excuse me?” Mom said from the sink where she rinsed her dishes before set­ting them in the strainer.

“Talk­ing to this blue jay out here. He’s an ass­hole. He won’t let any­body else eat, but he’s not hun­gry himself.”

“That’s a blue jay for you.”

“Why do you put out seed if you know he’s going to hoard it?”

Her mom sighed. “So how long are you staying?”

“Don’t know. It depends.”

“I see.”

Alli­son let her breath out in mea­sured doses. Always want­ing to pin me down, aren’t you, she thought. “I’ll stay as long as it takes or until I’m in the way.”

“Good, it will give us time to talk. By the way, I’ve got some things the hos­pice doc­tor brought.”

“Hos­pice? Surely he doesn’t need those peo­ple. They take care of ter­mi­nal cases.”

“True.” She passed some papers to Alli­son. “These might help you under­stand bet­ter. I know they did me a world of good.”

Alli­son read the first line of a pam­phlet. “The death of a hos­pice patient is not an emer­gency? Then what the Hell is it, a cause for cel­e­bra­tion?” She threw the papers on the table. “Excuse me, Mom. Got to use the lit­tle girl’s room.”

When she’d gone upstairs and used the bath­room, Alli­son walked down the hall and knocked softly on her dad’s door.

“Dad? Still asleep?”

He didn’t answer, so she tip-toed in. Seated beside him, Alli­son put his hand in hers and felt the palms and the veins on the back. They were not cold and she could catch the pulse in them by sim­ply rub­bing the backs and lis­ten­ing with her fin­gers as the blood filled the ves­sels again. She leaned back in the rock­ing chair and still feel­ing the pulse knew he wasn’t dying. His heart was good. But his nails had yel­lowed from nico­tine, the tips grown thick and uneven and his fin­gers were white, even on the palm side where the white began to grow up the length of his arm, under­neath the loose shirt that cov­ered the empty hull of his chest.

“So what do you have to say for your­self?” she said.

His eyes deep in the sock­ets did not open. The skin on his face was blem­ished as if it had been bruised by the breath­ing tube that had worn groves into his cheeks. When she moved the tube aside, she could see the sores scab­bing over. The twitch of the line woke him, his hand going to the tube and expertly work­ing it deeper into his nostrils.

“Dad, are you in there?”

She waved her hand over his face and his eyes popped open. He snatched her wrist with one hand and her thumb with the other.

“She’s a lit­tle out of align­ment here, Ray.”

His left hand a socket wrench, her thumb the engine part, he ratch­eted her into place and tight­ened her bolts, then laid her repaired hand down on the com­forter. She gig­gled before she real­ized that he was not play­ing a game but that he was back in Korea under­neath a Dus­sel­dorf. His hands searched the air between them until she offered her hand again, but then she with­drew it when he tried to fix it.

“Tell McArthur to stick that in his corn cob pipe and smoke it.”

“Daddy? What’s wrong?”

She put her head up on the com­forter that had been hand-stitched from scraps swapped by her mother for a case of apple but­ter. On the dresser at the foot of the bed she saw the box made of teak that her dad had brought back from Korea. Inside it was a ragged wal­let stuffed with receipts and notes and four pieces of hard candy.

No one would mind if she sneaked a candy but she unwrapped it qui­etly so as not to wake her father who she thought had set­tled down to sleep again. But the candy was sour apple and she spit it out into her hand.

“Yuck. I hate sour.” She rat­tled the candy wrap­per at him as she bent over the bed. “Did you spike these with something?”

When he reached for her hair, she expected him to adjust her ears, maybe set their tim­ing but he just twisted the ends in his fin­gers and pat­ted her three times.

“So,” his voice a wind through the dry leaves, “what do you have to say for your­self, get­ting into my stash?”

“Hey there, stranger. How you doing?”

The smile he mus­tered lasted until he moved in the bed. “Been bet­ter.” Veins spread like branches across his cheeks. He nod­ded at the candy wrap­per. “See you found my surprise.”

“Boy howdy, did I ever. That candy isn’t sour, is it.”

His laugh made him gag. The cough rat­tled his chest. He sat up heav­ing. “Napkin.”

She pan­icked for the box of tis­sues then prac­ti­cally shoved a hand­ful of them against his mouth. A long stream of phlegm fol­lowed the Kleenex away from the mouth when he cleaned him­self. He col­lapsed onto the bed, drink­ing oxy­gen from the tube like a straw in water. He pushed the tis­sues into her lap. She jerked away and threw them on the floor on her way to the bath­room sink where she washed her hands. She heard him over the water.

“Do I make you sick or some­thing? Do I? Get out then, if that’s how you feel.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she called to him and sounded as blanched as her hands under the hot water. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

As she watched from the bath­room, his hands flut­tered to his face and probed for the tube, reset it, then perched on his brow, tug­ging the wrin­kles on his forehead.

“Time for my med­i­cine,” he said.

She shook her hands dry as she went to him, at the same time mea­sur­ing his mood and the dis­tance between them so that she could catch hold of his ruf­fled hands before she spoke.

“What’s wrong? What did I do?”

“Time for my med­i­cine. You deaf, sol­dier? Boy, you bet­ter get a move on.”

In the room’s fad­ing light she let go of her father when she found she had no strength to hold him still. He pick-picked at his eye­brows. His arms made a cross on his chest that spas­ti­cally rose and dropped, then he grasped his shoul­ders and started to moan. No words were formed by his voice that sounded like a low wind in the foothills.

“Dad? Dad?” She shook him to no response. “Mom!”

To keep her­self from run­ning she didn’t kick off her shoes until she got to the land­ing where she scur­ried down the steps barefoot.

Get a grip, she thought, don’t let her see you pan­icked. “Mom?”

Allison’s voice found her Mom in the kitchen. She peeked around the stoves, wip­ing sticky hands in the apron tied around her thin waist. Her smile fell when she saw her daughter’s face.

“He says he needs his medicine.”

“Thought you were going to the bathroom.”

“I made a lit­tle detour.”

Mom ran a glass of water from the sink then she drew med­i­cine into a needle­less syringe. “This is for his nerves. Is he anxious?”

“Kind of. He threw a snotty tis­sue on me and I freaked.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What was I sup­posed to do with a nap­kin full of snot?”

“Throw it away?” Her mom poured a glass from the bot­tle of sherry she kept behind the Saltines can. “Don’t worry about your father. He’s just not himself.”

“Hos­pice pre­scribed the sherry??”

She couldn’t help smil­ing after she’d drained the glass. “That’s for my nerves, dear. Be back shortly.”

“Shouldn’t he be in the hospital?”

“What good would that do him? He wants to be at home with his trees and his old house and his fam­ily. You know how he feels about hospitals.”

“But where is he going for treatment?”

“It’s too late for treat­ment, Ally. I thought I’d told you that.”

“That’s ridicu­lous. Why aren’t you doing any­thing? How can you sit back and let him die? Don’t you love him?”

Her mom stepped around her. “Don’t say another word.”

She watched her mom leave. Reluc­tantly, she stayed in the big gal­ley kitchen with its two stoves and sinks and punch-metal cab­i­net doors hid­ing pots and jars with their pat­terns of holes shaped like apples. Mom had cut back on the can­ning but usu­ally the coun­ters were lined with mason jars ster­il­ized in a water-bath and the screw lids would be stacked every­where in their square boxes.

“This is piss­ing me off. She expects me to stay here and do noth­ing and not say any­thing. Just be a good lit­tle girl and shut up.” She stalked to the front door and got her coat from the peg­board. “For­get that. I’m out of here.”

The keys were in the igni­tion and she had turned on the car. It idled in the drive and she cursed and turned on the radio loud. She looked up at the house and into the win­dow where her mom was hold­ing a cup for her dad to drink from. She turned the car off and went back inside to the kitchen and she threw her coat on the floor.

“So much for that idea. I can’t stand this. First chance I get, I’m head­ing back to Char­lotte. I will not stay here and watch him go.”

Her mom cam in with an empty cup. She looked at the coat. “Going somewhere?”

Alli­son slapped the table. “I can’t believe this is hap­pen­ing. Not to my daddy.”

Her mother went to her and held her as much as she could as long as she could until Alli­son regained con­trol. It was a long time before they spoke again, well into the din­ner that Mom cooked while Alli­son drank cof­fee and thumbed through the phone book absentmindedly.

After din­ner was fin­ished and her mom stayed to wash dishes, Alli­son dressed for bed and took a book with her upstairs to Dad’s room. She sat down and turned on the lamp. He was still sleep­ing when she noticed how red his skin was and leaned down to check his tem­per­a­ture. She felt his fore­head then his neck. His hands were just as hot.

“Mom!” She called down the stairs. “Dad’s burn­ing up. Where’s your thermometer?”

“Com­ing.”

Her mom brushed past her on the way to the bath­room where she got the ther­mome­ter out of a box in the med­i­cine cabinet.

“How hot is he?” Alli­son said.

“Hun­dred and two and climbing.”

“What’s the hos­pice doctor’s number?”

“It’s the orange label on the hand­set.” The ther­mome­ter beeped. “One hun­dred three point four.”

The num­ber dialed, Alli­son sat on the edge of the rock­ing chair and waited for the nurse on the other end to answer, while her mother dabbed at his face with a damp wash­cloth and pulled back the com­forter to give him more air. His body was like a sack of bones and he reminded Alli­son of the pic­tures of the sur­vivors of the Nazi Death­marches. She had to give the phone to her mother when they answered. She could not talk.

When Mom fin­ished with phone, she said, “they’ll be here in a cou­ple of hours.”

“A cou­ple of hours? Is that a joke?”

“They have other patients.”

“And I’ve got only one daddy. Give me that phone. I’m call­ing an ambulance.”

“You shouldn’t do that. Your father won’t like it.”

“I don’t really care what you say he wants.” She dialed for an ambu­lance and gave the address. “Now we’ll see what some real doc­tors can do.”

“He’s not leav­ing this house.”

In thirty min­utes the Rural-Metro ambu­lance pulled into the drive and the para­medics were led by Alli­son to her father’s room. Her mother smiled and greeted them.

“He’s got a high tem­per­a­ture and he’s got can­cer,” Alli­son told them when they asked ques­tions. “He’s needs to be in the hospital.”

A blue-shirted para­medic checked her dad’s breath­ing and the other wrote down the infor­ma­tion in a metal notebook.

“Some rat­tle in his chest,” said the examiner.

“He has pneu­mo­nia,” said Mom. “You all shouldn’t have come. Hos­pice will be here soon.” She slipped by the para­medic and straight­ened her husband’s bedding.

“Is hos­pice respon­si­ble for his care?” said the writer.

“Yes.”

“No,” said Alli­son, “they’re not doing a damn thing for him but let­ting him die. Take him to the hos­pi­tal so they can do some­thing for him. Now! What are you wait­ing around for?”

The blue-shirt said, “we can’t trans­port except in an emergency.”

“What do you call this?”

Her dad woke cough­ing. He sucked the line for air and sat half up. Mom held tis­sues to his mouth. Alli­son caught the men exchang­ing nods and said, “Dad, the ambu­lance is here to get you.”

He shook his head and that made him cough until he was bent over. Mom rubbed his back.

“Ask hos­pice for a suc­tion device when they come,” the writer said. “It’s bet­ter than tissues.”

Her father caught his breath and after look­ing at his daugh­ter, waved the men away. “I ain’t going to no god­damn hos­pi­tal. Y’all get the Hell out of my house. Didn’t nobody here call y’all.”

“Your daugh­ter did, sir.”

With unsteady hands he pushed the tube into his nose and turned way toward the win­dow and he breathed in the oxy­gen like it was water and his thirst could not be quenched.

They packed their things. “There’s not much we can do for him. Sorry.”

“I know,” said Mom.

Alli­son waited until they were on their way down­stairs before she rushed after them. She pulled her coat on over her night gown and slipped on a pair of the galoshes. On the porch she yanked the coat of the blue-shirted man. “Where are you going? Get back up there and do your job.”

“Ma’am, your father’s a can­cer patient. We don’t deal with that kind.”

“So you only do car wrecks? Do you know how stu­pid you sound?”

The writer stayed on the porch and sig­naled the other man to go. “I know your hurt­ing. I lost my mama awhile ago, and that was hard because there wasn’t any­thing I could do for her, even when she got so bad she screamed for mor­phine. And Hell, I’m trained to deal with this. Why don’t you just wait for the hos­pice people?”

“Get away from me. Get your use­less ass off the property.”

She watched the ambu­lance drive away. After a few min­utes of pac­ing the porch, she was calm enough and cold enough to go back in. The door was locked. She reached for the buzzer twice and wanted to beat on the door but she felt ridicu­lous being stuck out­side in her night­gown so she zipped her coat and snapped the col­lar tight around her ears and over her mouth. Her hands nested in the deep pock­ets, she left the porch and walked around the house to check the back door.

Behind the mud room on the small back porch, bushel bas­kets were stacked five high. There must have been a hun­dred. Alli­son looked at the back door, then at her father’s orchard. She stepped down off the porch. Beyond her the path turned to packed dirt and branched away in all direc­tions. Leaves cov­ered the paths and she kicked them aside as she walked. The apple trees swayed like rick­ety dancers too stiff to move and she hun­kered into her coat to hide from the wind.

When she was six, her father had rolled her around out here in her birth­day wagon. The work­ers were strip­ping the trees clean and her dad piled the wagon full of her favorite Granny Smith’s. The stom­achache she got from them taught her to hate any­thing sour.

Another time, her dad fixed up a haunted for­est for Hal­loween and she and her friends screamed and laughed at the dum­mies hang­ing in the trees. She her­self had almost peed in her pants when her dad dressed up like a skele­ton chased them back to the house, kids scat­ter­ing like loose pebbles.

And when she was fif­teen and in love for the first time, her boyfriend carved their ini­tials on a pine sapling on the back row of the wind­break her dad had planted. Now she searched for that tree. It had grown steadily along with the other pines tow­er­ing over the orchard that had once dwarfed them. At eye level, where a blem­ish exposed the pine’s heart wood, she found her ini­tials, mis­shapen but still beside the boy’s. She tried to pic­ture the boy as the man he’d become and saw noth­ing more than the silly grin full of braces that had cut her lip when they kissed. She moved on to the right side of the orchard. The house was beside her, though far away, and she watched it in the dis­tance on her way to the old caretaker’s cottage.

Now she lifted the unlocked hasp and pushed the door open. The lights till worked. The tools the work­ers used to main­tain the orchard were stacked on racks in the front room and the floor was stained with mud and clut­tered with twigs and leaves and nee­dles that made a path to the kitchen. An elec­tric cof­fee pot and a small microwave had been left on the counter. She used to play house here when she was lit­tle and serve her dad play tea. When she was older, she helped her mom feed the work­men here and kept the cof­fee pot full. Her dad taught her to like cof­fee and to light the kerosene heaters they warmed their hands on. Back then the cot­tage was full of life and work, but now it seemed lazy and empty and the heaters were no longer burn­ing. She sat in the mid­dle of the kitchen floor and watched the lines in the linoleum as the day ended and night came on.

When her rump was too cold to ignore, she grabbed at the fix­ture and the light rolled back and forth across the empty room. Then she caught the bare bulb and put it out. She left the cot­tage and pulled the door to, shoved a dead branch into the hasp to hold it closed.

Her father never locked the cot­tage, even though there was a hasp on it. Many days, they’d stand together at the door to watch the work­ers in the trees or car­ry­ing their lad­ders or climb­ing down them, their bags full of picked fruit. Then they would pour them into the bins where they’d be sorted out for mar­ket. The blem­ished ones were culled out for her mom to use.

One day all of this will be yours, lit­tle girl, her dad would say and open in his arms as if the orchard were a kingdom.

“What I never told you, Daddy, is that I didn’t want it. Never did, even back when this was one big playground.”

When she’d taken a few scuf­fling steps from the cot­tage, she stopped. The trees looked dead and the leaves were gone, and the fruit the trees had borne was long gone, prob­a­bly being spread on somebody’s toast somewhere.

This is all use­less, she thought, he worked his whole life to build this place and now he’s dying. What a waste. The trees didn’t care about him, either. They would bloom next spring with­out him and some­body would rent a neighbor’s bees to pol­li­nate the crop and the fruit would grow and mature with­out him, and some­body would be hired to do the pick­ing and the prun­ing and every lit­tle nuance that he’d per­fected would be done by some­one else. He had raised this orchard from noth­ing, and now it didn’t need him. What a shame he couldn’t see that.

Then for some unknown rea­son, she thought of the first time she’d helped rake up the Fall leaves and how her dad had let her jump into them head­first and how she’d come out laugh­ing. Her dad leaned on the rake and watched smil­ing as she scat­tered the pile in all direc­tions. Now, she smiled her­self and turned in her tracks and to go back to the cot­tage to get a rake.

The night was clear and she could see well enough to find the ground. In a clear­ing nearby she gath­ered a moun­tain of leaves into a huge pile. She took a run­ning start and jumped in feet first.

“Ow!” She grabbed her rump and rolled on the ground. “Either I’m fat­ter or these leaves aren’t as cushy as they used to be.”

After she had gath­ered up more and stacked them high above her head, she belly-flopped and shrieked. Leaves filled up her mouth so that she came out spit­ting and laughing.

“More leaves. Got to make it higher.”

The pile grew. Each time she dived in, she became more manic and each time she came out gig­gling like a lit­tle girl. She was sweat­ing now and she pulled off her coat. In her gown and galoshes she ran around the pile and sang, her hot breath vis­i­ble in the wind that cut through to her skin.

“One more time!”

She went in head first. A stick at the bot­tom scraped her cheek and she shrieked and rolled out from under the bot­tom. Frag­ments of leaves dec­o­rated her hair along with the twigs and gum­balls that stuck to the gown. She found no blood on her cheek but winced from the salty touch.

“Ouch! Good move, dumbass.”

Her first temp­ta­tion was to call for her mother but she knew she could never explain all the leaves on her night gown.

“She’ll just fuss and tell me I’ll catch my death of cold.”

On the way back to the house, her knees started to ache and she real­ized her arms and legs were criss-crossed with scratches. Her tail-bone hurt, a left-over from the first jump. The cheek quit hurt­ing but now her faced itched. She left the coat open though the wind was blow­ing harder and cussed her­self for being so care­less, so childish.

As she left the orchard, she had no more thoughts and no more mem­o­ries and her fin­gers had no feel­ing. The path returned her to the porch and the empty bas­kets. The back door was unlocked. She shed her coat in the mud rood, leav­ing it in a heap on the wood floor, and slipped off the galoshes. Bare­footed, she went to wash her face.

“Mom?”

From the kitchen she heard water run­ning and thought she heard her mom cry­ing. When she came up behind her at the sink and saw the shoul­ders start to shake, she knew Mom was at the end of her rope.

“What’s the mat­ter? Did the hos­pice peo­ple show?”

Her mom snif­fled and wiped her nose. “They did, but they.…”

“Mom?”

“They, um, said there wasn’t much they could do for him. He might not make it through the night.”

Alli­son turned off the water and timidly caressed her mom’s shoul­ders. She wanted to cry too, but she held on and did not let go until her mom turned the water back on to fin­ish the dishes.

After awhile, Alli­son said, “Is that cloves I smell?”

“It is.”

“That mulling spices?”

“It is.”

Alli­son said, “I don’t like cider, you know.”

“Care for some­thing to drink?”

From a drawer beside the stoves, Mom took out a paper enve­lope and shook it as if it were a sugar packet and emp­tied it into two mugs then ladled out the cider from a sim­mer­ing pot, fill­ing each cup three-quarters full. They car­ried the mugs to the table.

“You have leaves in your hair.”

“Really? How about that.”

Her mom looked skep­ti­cal but said noth­ing more about it. Alli­son sam­pled the cider, the mulling spices over­pow­er­ing the sub­lime apple fla­vor: cloves, stronger than in the cig­a­rettes she used to sneak into the barn and smoke. She could feel the rush after a few sips. “Whew, that’s some strong stuff. Your recipe?”

“Store bought. I know, I can’t believe it either. This lit­tle place in Gatlin­burg puts it out.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have run my mouth.”

“We have to do what we have to do. Oh, lis­ten to me. I sound like your father.” She made her­self smile. “At least you stayed.”

“Yeah. Thank heaven for small favors.”

They both laughed and drank enough to have sec­onds. The cider and the cloves made Alli­son feel warmer inside and by the time she thought about her missed sup­per, she was ready to eat forever.

“I saved you out some food, if you want it.”

Alli­son took the din­ner to her dad’s room. She ate and read a book and watched him and then slept some. After mid­night the fever broke. He woke up with his face and hair sweaty. She squeaked by reflex when he tick­led her feet.

“You’re awake?”

“You got a towel I could use?” he said.

“Sure thing.” From the bath­room she brought back a hand towel dipped in cool water and wrung dry that she used to wipe his face, hair and hands.

“How’s that?”

“It’ll do in a pinch.”

“How you feeling?”

He pat­ted the tube in his nose. “Still here. You got any­thing I could sip on?”

“Water?”

“More in mind for some Coke. Where’s your mama?”

“Sleep­ing. I’ll get you some Coke.”

On the way she knocked and eased open the door where her mom lay in bed pulled into a ball under­neath the cov­ers, her pil­low lost some­where on the floor.

“Mom, wake up.”

“Dammit, Hooper. Let me sleep. This isn’t the Army.”

“Wake up.”

The sta­tic elec­tric­ity made her thin gray hair stand straight up when Alli­son yanked the cov­ers off of her head. “I thought you were your father.”

“He’s bet­ter.”

“Let me see.”

She pulled on a house­coat and Alli­son went down­stairs. When she came back with a cup and a straw, her dad was in fresh pajamas.

“Lift your rump,” Mom said as she yanked off the old sheets and balled them up for the ham­per then unfolded a clean one.

Alli­son offered the Coke. He shook his head at the cup and showed her his shaky hands. Instead he opened his mouth to take a sip from the straw. She set the cup on the table beside him among the pre­scrip­tion bottles.

“Mom, let me help you with that.”

The four cor­ners of the fit­ted sheet were already pulled tight and they spread the cover sheet under him.

“Rump,” Mom said then they tucked in the bot­tom and made hos­pi­tal cor­ners that would be the envy of nurse. Alli­son changed the wet pillowcase.

“Noth­ing bet­ter than a clean bed when you’ve been sick,” Mom said.

“Y’all go on to bed,” Dad said in a few min­utes. “I’m okay. Go on.”

“You sure?” said Mom, but he was begin­ning to drift off. “I guess so. You want me to stay with him awhile?”

Alli­son led her to the guest room. “I’ll be fine. Get some sleep.”

With them both taken care of, Alli­son set­tled in beside the bed on a moon-less night with the clouds hid­ing the sky. She could see noth­ing out the win­dow, now that dark had come but she knew how the tops of the trees heavy with leaves, swayed like dancers in the moun­tain winds that swept down on them at night. She turned on the read­ing lamp, tucked her feet under to keep them warm and set­tled in to read.

Within a hour her dad stirred from his sleep. He was cov­ered with sweat.

“You’re burn­ing up again. I’m going to get Mom.” .

“Don’t go. Just sit there.” He shielded his eyes from the lamplight.

“Do you want me to turn this out?”

“Leave it on.”

“Do you want me to get Mom?”

He grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t leave me.”

“It’s okay, Dad. The antibi­otics will kick the pneu­mo­nia. You’ll be fine.”

Though she heard her voice in the room, she didn’t feel her­self talk­ing and she put the book down to offer him some Coke. He took the straw but he choked and started a cough­ing jag that left him red-faced and bent over the rail. Blood leaked from the cor­ners of his mouth. With a nap­kin she wiped phlegm and a lump of mat­ter out of his mouth and then swabbed it with a small sponge.

“Can’t swal­low.” His voice was a rasp.

“It’s okay, Dad.”

Alli­son pressed a wash­cloth to his fore­head and he lay back in the bed fid­dling with his oxy­gen tube as she washed his neck and the backs of his hands. The mix­ture on the machine was turned up to give him more air. His hands shook and his eyes turned wild for a few min­utes until the richer air calmed him.

“I’m here. I’ll be beside you all night.”

“You aren’t going to run out on me?”

“I’m not going any­where, except here with you.”

“You promise? If you go I might not be here when you get back.”

“I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

“There’s apples that ain’t been picked. They’re rot­ting out there. You take care of it?”

“I promise that, too.”

“Good, now I can get some rest.”

He closed his eyes. His breath­ing became reg­u­lar and in a minute he was asleep. She read for awhile, every few sec­onds check­ing his breath­ing, until she fell asleep too and she had no dreams. Her rest was as dark as the night.

Some­time after four she heard the bed springs creak. She saw her dad sit­ting on the edge of the bed, his hands push­ing on the mat­tress where he had gath­ered his breath­ing tube into a loop in his hand. He’d slid one slip­per on. His foot searched for the other slip­per in the dark.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m so tired.” His voice shook like a win­dow locked against a hur­ri­cane. “I have to lie down.”

“But you are lying down.”

She pulled him back into bed and com­forted him by rub­bing his neck but she felt the sharp points of his bones and had to stop. He let her tuck his legs into the cov­ers and spread the quilt on top of him.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“Nowhere now. Char­lotte some­time in the future.”

“You need to stay here. Have to take care of your mama.”

“What are you talk­ing about?”

“It’s time to cut me loose. Can I go now?”

“You’re not going any­where. You’re right here with me.”

“No. I want to lie down. The door is open. Can I go in?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Dad. Let me get Mom.”

His hand clamped onto her wrist. The grip had no strength in it. “Don’t leave me. Don’t you see the light? Can I go in?”

She heard the wind blow past the win­dow. Some­where out­side in the dark­ness, she imag­ined the trees had reached for their fallen leaves that laughed and swirled away.

Let him go, she thought, don’t hold him here if he needs to leave.

“Please, baby?”

He smiled when she kissed him and said “You go on Dad. Mom and I will be okay.” His mouth formed words with­out sound. Then he slept. His daugh­ter watched him for a very long time then turned out the lamp, and watched him in the dark­ness until she fell asleep again in the rock­ing chair.

In the morn­ing, Alli­son woke with a sore back and the thought that’d she’d been dream­ing. Her dad was asleep and breathed irreg­u­larly but he was not gone. After she pulled on her house­coat, she checked on her mom and went down­stairs to make them both a pot of cof­fee. While it was brew­ing, she went out­side to get the morn­ing paper. A few cars passed on the high­way in front of the inn. Her own car needed a wash before she started back to Char­lotte. prob­a­bly tomor­row or at most the next day. Today, she felt no urgency to leave, not until he was feel­ing bet­ter. She stepped back inside, expect­ing to hear her mom rustling around in the kitchen or at least the beep of her alarm clock. But the smell of break­fast, ham and eggs and toast cook­ing, was not there and now even the scent of the apples had faded. The house was still.

“Mom?”

Alli­son did not know why she slipped off her house shoes before climb­ing the stairs, though she sensed a need to be as still and quiet as the house.

“Are you up here?”

A small noise came from her dad’s room, not like the hum of res­pi­ra­tor nor like any wind. She found her mother beside the bed smil­ing and cry­ing. Alli­son fol­lowed her nod.

His eyes were open wide and his hands at his sides. Mom had taken the tube away. The light of day shone on his face mot­tled red and yel­low. Then Alli­son heard the machine not run­ning and she felt a taste in her mouth like mulling spices, strong and sweet and bit­ter still. He had opened a door that smelled of light and entered mum­bling, his eyes and mouth wide and nos­trils flared.

“He’s gone?” said Allison.

Her mother’s eyes were red-rimmed and they held each other, and Alli­son wanted not to look at her father, but she could not stop until she looked out the win­dow and past the orchard and into the moun­tains and the clouds that rose over it.

“I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoul­ders,” she heard her mom say from very far away.

She knew it was true. And though she could see the orchard out­side the win­dow, with­out her father, she felt like a falling leaf being swept up and cut loose with noth­ing between her and the sky.

Copy­right 2009 by David Macin­nis Gill. All rights print and elec­tronic reserved.