Poison Apples (29 page)

“What! Who?”

“Our little friend with the guitar? Back at the orchard? Had something to do, I think, with those cows getting slashed. I saw her with a knife the morning after it happened. Looked like blood on it, too.”

“No. Opal? I thought of that, actually. But she’s so petite. How could she? And why? Why would she do that?”

“Jealous,” he whispered, and kissed her ear; and then, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her. She’s harmless enough, just a little mischief maker. Of course, you never know when she’s telling the truth—or a big plump lie.”

“Harmless? Slashing our cows?” she cried. They were her cows, too, hers and her mother’s. She was furious at the girl. If Opal were to appear in the doorway right now, there was no telling what she’d do. Grab her, yank her hair, knock her down. “Oh ... oh!” She stood up, balling her fists. “I hate that girl!”

“Now, now,” he said. “Calm down. I shouldn’t have told you. Don’t say anything to her. Let me take care of it. Get on your shirt like a good girl and let’s go. Please? Please, now, Emily, love?”

Love. He’d never mentioned the word “love” before. She looked at him and he gazed back at her; his face was full of sadness again, and she felt she was the only one who could help him, bring him back to some kind of peace.

She threw her arms around his neck. “I love you,” she said, “I do love you, Adam,” and he hummed in her ear, but didn’t say the words. But it was all right, she could wait.

Chapter Fifty-eight

Emily wasn’t home yet and Ruth was worried. “Did she call? Did she leave a message?” she asked Sharon, who was backing out of the refrigerator, holding up homemade chocolate ice cream.

“I just had to have some, Mother. Jack’s home with the kids, I can’t eat it in front of them. You put sugar in this, Mom, too much. It gives the kids a high.”

“I might mention that this is my freezer. Who asked you to come and eat it anyway? And I asked a question. About Emily.”

“Mother, I just got here. Ten minutes ago. I’m leaving in another ten. Ice cream, Vic? Colm?” She smiled pleasantly at the two males. Or was it insinuatingly? Sharon was fond of Colm; she couldn’t understand why Ruth wouldn’t marry him. Of course, Vic and Colm accepted Sharon’s offer without waiting for Ruth’s approval. She wished Colm and Sharon would go home. She just wanted to be alone. She wanted to worry in peace.

Sharon put a bowl of ice cream in front of her and she ate it before she realized she didn’t really want any.

She was in such a funk! When Sharon finally did leave and Vic trotted up to bed, she saw she hadn’t checked the answering machine. Of course. There was probably a message from Emily, an explanation.

It wasn’t Emily, it was Pete. “Ruth, I’ve seen the lawyer. I’ll be more generous than he suggests. A mere hundred thousand for my share of the land. Shall we say, monthly payments, to be finalized in two years’ time? That’s a generous offer! But there’s an alternative, Ruth. You know that, Ruth. Think of Vic, think of Emily.” And the machine beeped off.

She stood there, stunned, her finger still shaking above the button. Colm was behind her, holding her around the waist. “Is it what I think it means? He wants you to buy him out? He wants a hundred grand and he might as well ask for the moon?”

She let him hold her. She needed that. “The moon,” she said, “you’ve got it exactly. Will you go up and get me a piece of it, Colm?”

“For you, anything,” he said. He led her into the living room, to the old shabby sofa, sat her down. For a moment she felt safe, secure: She was in her own farmhouse, she could hear the cows serenading the night. What was Pete planning to do if she couldn’t come up with that moon? Would he foreclose? Drive her out? “What can he do, Colm?”

“Nothing,” Colm said. “He won’t do a goddamn thing. Not over my dead body. We’ll get an appraiser, see what the farm’s worth now, how much half is. How many acres—total?”

“Two hundred sixty. I rent fifty of it out for sheep.”

“You could rent more, you think? Just for a time? To make the first payment? I can throw in a little. I’ve got some stashed away in the bank. Course, I was planning on a cruise, you and me, to celebrate our honeymoon. ...”

“That bloody moon again.”

He smiled, squeezed her shoulders. “You can get a loan.”

“Huh. I’m still paying off the last loan, to build back after the barn fire. The loan before that for the forage harvester. We’re dirt-poor, Colm. Who’s going to loan us anything more?”

“But I’m clean. Dad and I can take out a loan. Building improvement? Dad likes farms, he likes you. He wants me married. He wants grandchildren! He’ll go along.”

“I smell blackmail.”

“No, no, Ruth. Honest to God. No strings attached.”

“Humph. Anyway, I won’t let you do that. Not with your dad’s business. If he goes bankrupt, who’ll bury the dead? But... I could sell some of the cows. They’d bring in a few thousand.” She sighed. “But not enough. Not enough to buy him out. He wants this farm. So he can sell it. Build houses on it. That’s all he wants. To sell his own heritage! Sell his ancestors down the pike. Imagine his father, his grandfather, looking down on this. They’d walk the universe for an eternity. Isn’t that what Hamlet’s father’s ghost did? Emily was just talking about it. Couldn’t rest while his murder was unsolved? Well, this is the same thing. Another little death. Another little homicide.”

“We’ll find a way. We won’t let him do it.”

They sat there, unspeaking. Until the phone rang, and it was Emily. “Mom, I’m at Holly Brown’s house. Oh, I know you know—I went to the fair with Adam. But his car broke down. And we ran into Holly, and I went home with her. Adam’s staying up there till he can get his car fixed. I can’t ask Holly to bring me back tonight, Mom.”

“What? Holly Brown? Who’s she? Where does she live?”

“Her father wants the phone now, Mom. I’ll be home for chores. I’ll be there by seven. I promise. I mean, I’ll try. Mom, I’m fine. Night, Mom.” And the phone clicked off.

There were sixteen Browns in the local phone book. Ruth couldn’t call them all—not at this late hour. “She’s all right. She called you, didn’t she?” Colm assured her. And she had to believe him. She had to believe Emily.

Chapter Fifty-nine

“Let’s go to Montreal,” Adam said.

“Wha?” Emily squinted at her watch. It was six in the morning, the light was just starting to filter through the thin window hangings. She sat up, caught the echo of what he’d said. “Montreal? But you said we weren’t going. I told my mother I’d be home by seven. I lied to her about Holly. We’re late already!”

He propped himself up on an elbow, looked hard at her, waggled his head. “You’re just a kid, aren’t you? Tied to Mama’s apron strings. Can’t think for herself.” He yanked her up by the upper arms, pushed and pulled her in a crazy dance around the room.

“You’re hurting me, Adam. Let me go!” Tears were welling; it was so silly, so babyish of her, but she couldn’t help it.

He threw her back on the bed. He was annoyed—she’d seen that temper once or twice before. She didn’t want to be thrown about. Annoyed herself, she sat up, pulled on her socks, while he leaned against the wall and watched her. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll take the baby home. This time. I forgot, actually—I have some mail coming in. I need to pick up my check. But then we’ll go to Montreal. You and me. Tomorrow night. No, Wednesday. Wednesday’s my afternoon off. We’ll go then— spend the night. You can pack a suitcase. With a lot of clothes. Say you’re coming.” He stood over her, a blond giant. She was strangely afraid of him. She had a chemistry test Wednesday, but she didn’t dare say so.

He dropped to his knees, embraced her thighs, buried his face in her lap. “Come with me, Em, Wednesday,” he begged. “We’ll have some fun, do some stuff, a little life. I need you, Em. Say you’ll come with me, Emily—love. Say yes.”

She put her face down into his hair. It tasted like beer and cotton candy. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll come.”

What else could she say?

Chapter Sixty

Late Sunday afternoon after work, Emily discovered Opal down by the pond where the geese lived. The girl didn’t know Emily was there; she was throwing out bread crumbs and then sketching the geese when they rushed to feed. Emily stood gazing into the pond a moment. She needed to steel herself. It was the first of two confrontations for that day: She hadn’t gotten home until eleven—Adam had insisted they go out for breakfast—and then her mother had lit into her. Luckily she had called Holly Brown, and when her mother finally made contact with that family, Holly vouched for her. Emily didn’t like to lie, it wasn’t her nature. But it wasn’t her fault, either; if she could have sat down with her mother, made her understand about Adam, she wouldn’t have had to lie. But she couldn’t do that; her mother was so ... so Neanderthal.

And now there was this second confrontation. For her mother’s sake, actually; her mother would thank her when she knew. It was something Emily just had to do, ever since Adam had told her about Opal. She was nervous, she stretched up on her toes, drew in long, deep breaths, then faced Opal.

Opal didn’t look up, she just kept on sketching. She was dressed in black tights with a long loose shiny pink sweater. She looked glamorous, self-possessed. Emily’s heart was racing.

“Opal, we need to talk,” she said. “Now.”

Finally Opal looked up, like it was a Jehovah’s Witness at the door and she couldn’t be bothered. “You don’t have to shout. I have ears.”

Emily got right to the point. “You hurt our cows, you came through the gate and deliberately slashed them with a knife. Oh yes, you did, don’t look so innocent. Someone saw you. I have a witness.”

“Who saw me?” Opal said, looking so blasé that Emily wanted to grab and shake her. And when Emily just stood there, breathing hard, not wanting to say Adam’s name, Opal said, “You don’t know, do you? You’re making it up. Because I never slashed any stupid cows. I never set a foot on your smelly farm. I wouldn’t even know how to get there. I don’t know what gate you’re talking about.”

“It was Adam. He saw you.” Emily drew three quick breaths. She told about the knife, the blood. “It was a terrible thing to do! One of the cows, Gypsy, still won’t give milk. Her belly was slashed. How could you? A helpless cow!”

Opal stood up. She seemed to grow and grow; then Emily saw she was standing on a flat rock. The geese were watching with sharp yellow eyes. Opal tossed out more crumbs, then crossed her arms over her small pointy breasts. “You’re lying. Adam never said that. He couldn’t. Because it ne-ver hap-pened.”

Emily’s heart was full of fists. She almost choked on her frustration. “But he did. He did say it. Just last night. It was the truth, he swore it.” She turned away, she couldn’t look another minute at this stony-faced girl.

She felt steely hands on her shoulders, spinning her about. “Why would he tell you, anyway?”

Emily pulled her shoulders back, thrust up her chin. “We’re . . . together now. We’ve started a relationship.” That was all she was going to say. But she wanted Opal to know. Opal could keep her hands off.

Opal released her and sat down. Her voice was low and hard. “I know why he said that. He’s trying to put the blame on me. For something he did. Oh yes, something I saw. Down in the orchard, the night before those trees got sprayed. I didn’t tell on him then, but now . . . well.” She ran a pink tongue over her thin lips. “Adam was coming out of the storage shed, he had a key. He’s not supposed to have a key. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I know. He was after that spray. That paraquat.”

Emily gasped. No one went in that storage shed except Rufus and the Earthrowls. Rufus was a tiger about that. She sank down on a crate. Someone was lying here, about something. It had to be Opal. Still, she was shaken by Opal’s words. She looked down at her own hands; they looked like oblong stones in her lap.

“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Adam wouldn’t do that.”

Opal smiled her thin-lipped smile. “Then ask him. I wasn’t going to tell. But I don’t like what he said about me. About those cows. Because it isn’t true. Why go to all that bother anyway? Why would he say that about me?” She was holding a black pen in her hand, twisting it. Her hands were trembling, she seemed on the edge of tears.

“I don’t like any of it, what’s going on here in this place,” Opal went on. “It’s voodoo. Those blacks set it on; they do voodoo down there in the Caribbean, my mother says so. They got Adam to do that spraying, oh yes. If one of them died, it’s their own fault. I know. I had one for a boyfriend once. Oh, he was mixed, he was mostly white, he had a black grandmother. He was handsome. I thought I loved him.” The pen dropped on the ground, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Emily sat down on a stone, her hands gripping her knees. She didn’t want to listen, she wanted to go home. Yet she was drawn into the story.. . .

“He got me pregnant, you know, and it was okay. I was going to keep the child, I was going to marry him. He said we would. We made plans. I told my mother.”

“That was brave,” Emily murmured, thinking of her own mother, whom she’d have to face again when she got home. She’d told a lie; now she’d have to make it right, or it would eat away at her. She suddenly felt like going home, taking a hot bath, getting squeaky clean.

“She helped make plans, it was going to be in the church—she’s strict Catholic, you know, so I agreed. Aureliano agreed, we got everything ready. We had a party the night before. The next day was the wedding. Then that night, after the party— Aureliano dropped the bombshell. He couldn’t do it. He was already married. Oh, he hadn’t seen her in two years, she lived down in Jamaica. Jamaica! But she wouldn’t divorce him, her religion wouldn’t let her. He wanted to tell me before that, he said, but he didn’t want to upset me.”

“So he waited till the day before your wedding?” Emily couldn’t believe it. “How awful! So what happened?”

Opal was quiet a moment. Then she said, “What could happen? I ended it. What was the point of going on with the relationship?”