The human body can withstand so much. I have read accounts of people who have survived extreme cold, brutality, bludgeoning, terrible burns. I have read the testimonies of these survivors. They all make it sound so simple, really, the ability to keep on living.
We all stand on the upper part of the driveway, where the gravel is a little thin. Sam has just carried Rebecca to the car. Oliver is standing a respectable distance away. Joley stands in front of me, holding my hands, trying to get me to look at him. Hadley is not here, and I cannot forgive myself.
It is a beautiful day by any other account. It’s cool and dry, with a see-through sky. All the apple trees have fruit. I don’t know where the birds have gone.
Joley smiles at me and tells me for the hundredth time to stop crying. He lifts my chin. “Well,” he says, “under any other circumstance, I’d say, ‘Come back soon.’”
My brother. “Call me,” I say. I don’t know how to tell him the things I really want to say. That I couldn’t have lived through this without him. That I want to thank him, in spite of the way this has turned out.
“Tomorrow,” Joley says, “go to the post office in Chevy Chase, Maryland. There are two. You want the one in the center of town.” He makes me laugh. “That’s better.” I don’t mean to, but just knowing Sam is in the foreground, my eyes dart over to his. Joley hugs me one last time. “This is my going-away present,” he whispers. He takes several steps towards Oliver. “Hey, I don’t think you’ve had a chance to see the greenhouse here, have you?” He claps his arm around Oliver’s shoulders, and pushes him, forcefully, down towards the barn. Oliver turns around once or twice, reluctant to leave us like this. But Joley isn’t about to let him off the hook.
So then it is just Sam and I. We move a few feet closer but we do not touch. That would be dangerous. “I’ve packed something for you,” he says, swallowing. “In the back seat.”
I nod. If I try to speak, it’s all going to come out wrong. How can he look at me? I have killed his best friend; I have broken all my promises. I am leaving. I can feel my throat swelling up at the bottom. Sam smiles at me; he tries. “I know we said we weren’t going to do this. I know it’s just going to make it worse. But I can’t help it.” And he leans forward, wraps his arms tight across my back, and kisses me.
You don’t know what it is like to touch him like that, our skin pressed together at the thighs, the shoulders, the cheeks.
Everywhere Sam is, I feel a shock. When he pushes me away, I am gasping. “Oh, no,” I say. He holds me at a distance, and that is supposed to be the end.
I have to stop shaking before I remember where I am. The little MG we bought in Montana is sitting next to the blue pickup truck. We are leaving it with Joley. Joley is leaning into the window of Oliver’s Town Car, speaking to Rebecca. I am not sure she is up to traveling. I would have liked to give her one more day. But Oliver feels she ought to be home. She ought to recuperate where she doesn’t have to think of Hadley every time she looks at something, and in this he is right.
Just then I am sure I will faint. I can’t feel my knees anymore and the sky begins to spin. Suddenly Oliver is beside me. “Are you all right?” he asks, as if I can answer that in one simple sentence. “Okay,” he says. “Then this is it.”
“This is it!” I say, repeating his words. I can’t seem to come up with any of my own. As I slide into the passenger seat, Joley gives Oliver directions back to Route 95. I unroll my window.
Oliver starts the car and puts it into gear. Sam moves so that he is standing across from my window, at just the distance where it is easy for us to look at each other. I do not let myself blink. I concentrate on his eyes. We are imprinting each other, etching an image so that when we meet again-ten months, ten years from now-we will have no choice but to remember. The car starts moving. I crane my neck, unwilling to break first.
I have to turn around in my seat, looking over Rebecca’s head through the lines of defogger tape, but I can still see him. I can see him all the way past the welcome sign for this orchard, past the mailbox.
Then I realize how it will be. Like metal pounded to a thin foil, spreading in distance but not compromising its strength. It has simply changed shape, changed form.
Oliver has been talking but I haven’t really heard what he’s been saying. He is trying so hard; I have to give him credit. I open my eyes, and there is my daughter. Rebecca stares at me, or maybe right through me, I cannot tell. She pulls a blanket back from the floor of the car. Apples. Bushels and bushels of apples. This is what Sam wanted me to have. I find myself silently mouthing the names of the different fruits: Bellflower. Macoun. Jonathan. Cortland. Bottle Greening. Rebecca takes a Cortland and bites hard into its side. “Oh,” Oliver says, looking in the rearview mirror. “You took some with you, did you?”
I watch Rebecca with this apple. She peels back the skin with her teeth and then sinks into the white flesh of the cheek. She lets the juice drip over her chin. Just watching her, I can taste it. When she sees me looking, she pulls the fruit away from her mouth. She offers the other half to me.
As I take the apple from her our hands touch. I can feel the ridges of her fingertips brush against mine. They seem to fit together. I raise the apple to my mouth, and take a huge bite. I take another bite, not having finished the first. I stuff my cheeks with the meat of this apple as if I have been starving for weeks. That’s why he sent them. Even after Sam’s apples are gone, they will remain part of my body.
As Rebecca watches, I toss the core onto the road, staring at the hand that so easily let it go. It is missing a wedding band. I left it at Sam’s. Of all the things for him to have.
I wonder what Oliver and I will do when we get home. How one goes about getting back on track. We cannot pick up where we left off. I will not be able to put Sam out of my mind entirely when I am with Oliver. But then, did I ever really forget about Oliver when I was with Sam?
I was in love with Oliver once, when I was a different person. I did not know then what I know now. I saw him standing waist deep in a pool of water and I pictured a life together. I had a child with him; remarkable proof of being in love. She is the best of both of us. Which means that there is a very good strain in me. And a very good strain in Oliver.
You can take dead trees in an orchard, and bring them back to life. You can take two different strains of apples and they will bear fruit on the same tree. Grafting: the science of bringing together the unlikely; of bringing back what it past hope.
Oliver squeezes my hand, and I squeeze his back. This surprises him; he turns to me and smiles hesitantly. Rebecca is watching all this. I wonder what she sees when she looks at us together. I roll up my window and turn sideways in my seat. I want to be able to see both Oliver and Rebecca.
Oliver slows at a toll booth. Already we have reached a highway. I smile confidently at my husband, and at my daughter. Rebecca breathes in deeply and reaches for my free hand. Oliver turns west towards California. Rebecca and I are both passengers this time, and together we follow the jagged, winding line of trees on the highway. I turn to watch her taking in the change of scenery. It is the first time I can remember having my eyes wide open while I look at my future.