The Apple Orchard

Twenty-One



Tess pictured her mother, young, alone and pregnant, getting the news from the highway patrol. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her throat thickening and her eyes burning. She looked over at Isabel. To her surprise, Isabel was dry-eyed. It must have been hard to hear, a story about her father sneaking away from her mother to meet with his pregnant mistress.

“So what was his plan? Did he intend to sell the egg to the gallery and give you the money?” asked Tess. “If he did, that would mean he was incredibly naive, or he didn’t understand the true value of the egg.”

“I think so. I mean, I want to think he was trying to help me. We can only speculate.”

“What about the friend?” asked Tess. “Carlos Maldonado, the guy you made the phone call to.”

“He died, too. A drowning.” Isabel quickly found a link online to the archive of the Archangel Trumpet, the town’s weekly newspaper. Older articles had been scanned and presented as images showing newsprint that was yellowed and brittle with age. There were two photos of equal size displayed on the page. Erik Johansen and Carlos Maldonado. The headline boldly proclaimed: “Double Tragedy Strikes Local Families.”

“My lord,” Isabel said softly. “Look at the date. Carlos Maldonado died right after our father, and four days before you and I were born.”

The juxtaposition of their birth date and a horrible dual tragedy gave Tess a chill. Staring at the picture of the man who had fathered her, Tess felt an overwhelming sense of loss. I wish I’d known you, she thought. I wish you could have known me. Maybe he’d made some lousy choices, maybe he’d screwed up Shannon’s life, but judging by all she’d learned of him, he’d made his parents happy. People around Bella Vista had loved him.

And then there was Carlos Maldonado, about whom she knew virtually nothing.

“So his friend died, too,” Tess said. “Was it some huge, tragic coincidence, or were they related?”

Isabel read the paper’s explanation of the connection:

“‘The day after Erik Johansen’s fatal accident, tragedy struck again, this time at the Maldonado family. Carlos, who had been best friends with Erik since boyhood, drowned in an irrigation pond on the family property. The county coroner’s office ruled it an accident. He leaves behind his parents, Ramon and Juanita Maldonado, his grandmother Flora Maldonado, his wife, Beatrice Maldonado, and his daughter, three-year-old Lourdes.’”

She stared at the list of names. “Lourdes? As in Dominic’s ex-wife, Lourdes?”

Isabel nodded. “The same.”

“Okay, that blows my mind.”

“Here’s my mother’s obituary,” said Isabel, scrolling to a page dated four days later.

Francesca Johansen—Isabel’s mother, Erik’s wife. It might well be Isabel herself, smiling up from the page. They had the same deep-set, soulful eyes, thick, wavy dark hair, generous lips and patrician noses. The three of them looked at it for a long time, each lost in her own private thoughts.

“I was in Berkeley,” Shannon said softly. “Just back from Erik’s funeral.”

“Whoa. You went to his funeral?”

“I...I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was in shock, and I... It was something I needed to do. I didn’t know anyone, just introduced myself as a friend of Erik’s. I expressed my condolences and went away. Could be Magnus knew more about me than I realized. Perhaps Erik had said something.”

Isabel shut the laptop. “What a mess he made.”

Shannon placed her hand on Isabel’s arm. “He wasn’t a terrible person. None of us was. He was young, younger than you two are now. He made a stupid mistake. With me, and with Francesca. His legacy is something amazing, though. Look at the two of you. You are the legacy. You’re both in the world because Erik did what he did, so there can be no regrets.”

* * *

In the morning, Tess found Shannon in front of the main house, standing on the stoop with her suitcase. Battered and worn in spots, it was the same one she’d used for years.

“You always leave,” said Tess, trying to stifle a too-familiar sinking feeling.

“I have a job. I have responsibilities.”

“You have a daughter.”

“I have an incredible daughter.” Shannon stuffed her hands into the pockets of her tunic-length jacket. “And about Dominic Rossi—I’m hardly the one to give advice in this department, but I just want to say, if it turns out you really like this guy, then let yourself like him, Tess. I wasn’t the best role model for making a relationship work, but you can do better.”

Tess felt a flood of warmth in her cheeks. “Romantic advice from you,” she murmured. “That’s a new one.”

“I mean it, Tess. I’ve been watching the two of you together. I never...let myself be vulnerable. You have the chance. I wish...” She shook her head. “I have to go. Really.”

Tess took a deep breath. For once, she was going to speak her mind with her mother. “I get it. But before you go... I’ve never said this before, but sometimes I need you, Mom. You. Not your expertise at your job, or your excuses. You. When I was little, I used to think there was something wrong with me, that you were never around.”

Shannon smiled wistfully. “Now you know better. There’s not a thing wrong with you. It’s me. I know it’s not very helpful, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry I kept things from you, and sorry you had to find out this way. I know it’s no excuse, but I truly did think it would be better if you didn’t know.”

“I just don’t understand how you could think that.”

“It can be worse—knowing. My father was never married to my mother.”

“So you’ve told me. But at least you knew who he was.”

“I’m glad you think so. But growing up in a small Catholic town in Ireland, it was impossible to avoid the gossip.” She winced as though the pain was still fresh. “I never told you this, but my father had a wife and several kids.”

Tess frowned, digesting this new information. “Wait a second, what?”

“He was married when my mother took up with him. And, yes, I’m sure my mother realized how wrong and foolish she was being. He made all the promises a man makes to his mistress—he was going to leave his wife, and my mother, she simply needed to be patient while he negotiated his freedom, divorce being a tricky business in Ireland at the time...and like the worst of clichés, she fell for it.”

Tess stared in disbelief, trying to rearrange her thinking about the grandmother she’d known. “Nana? She was always so levelheaded.”

“Not when it came to my father. I spent my early years in Ballymun, outside of Dublin, and back in those days, the shame was horrible. I had to go to the same school, the same church as my father’s ‘legitimate’ family. It was torture.”

Tess could too-easily picture her mother in the close-knit clannish community of Ballymun, being jeered at and shunned. Prior to this, all Shannon had ever said of her early years was that at the age of thirteen, she’d moved with her mother to Dublin. Nana had founded Things Forgotten. It had never occurred to Tess that they’d been fleeing a terrible shame.

“I’m sorry you suffered,” she quietly told her mother. “But that doesn’t mean I would have.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I didn’t want to take that chance. I never wanted you to feel the way I did in Ballymun, so that’s why we moved around so much, why I was always leaving. Tess, can you forgive me?”

“You were trying to protect me.” She felt frustrated, though. Her career was all about unearthing the past, yet now she was discovering whole gaps in what she knew about her own history, more than she’d ever suspected.

Just then, Isabel came out through the foyer. “Oscar said you’re leaving.”

Shannon nodded. “He’s giving me a ride to the Santa Rosa airport.”

“I see. Well, it was very nice meeting you. Promise you’ll come back.”

“Of course. I wish I’d been of more help.” Shannon gave Isabel a brief hug. Then she turned to Tess and hugged her, too. “I raised a smart daughter. You’re going to figure this out, one way or another.”

* * *

Tess studied the shadows haunting Isabel’s eyes. A sleepless night was etched there, in those dark half-moons.

“You okay?” asked Tess.

Isabel nodded, pulled her shawl around her. Despite the bright morning sunshine, the days were getting shorter, chillier. “Yes,” she said. “You?”

“I’ve had a lot of practice at telling my mother goodbye. I just wanted to make sure you’re not, I don’t know, upset by the things she told us.”

“What happened, happened. And like she said, we’re in the world because it happened.”

Tess suspected they were both feeling weighed down and emotionally exhausted by the drama and tragedy of what had happened in the past, not just to their father, but to both their mothers.

Tess had quickly grown to care about this woman; they’d gone from being strangers to sisters, bonded by their worries about Magnus and his estate. Isabel’s need to hold on to Bella Vista was a tangible force; it was clear even when Isabel was engaged in the simplest of things, like sweeping off the stoop or walking down to the crating warehouse.

Isabel turned toward the house. “I feel the need to bake something. How about you?”

Tess gave a little laugh. “Never been tempted, thanks.”

“You probably think it’s silly, all the time I spend in the kitchen.”

“Not at all,” Tess said swiftly. “I’m envious, in fact. The way you take care of people here is remarkable to me. I love how you cater to their most basic needs in such a beautiful way. It’s your gift, Isabel.”

“Thanks.” Her smile was fleeting, a little bashful.

Tess thought about her mother, and how disconnected she was, and a shiver passed over her. Please don’t let me be that way, she thought.

“I need to do some thinking, make some calls,” she said. “I’ll see if the Trianon gallery is still in business. And we should talk to the Maldonados. Do you think they’d be open to that?”

“Possibly. I can give them a call, invite them over.”

“I feel like going to see Magnus,” said Tess. “It’s kind of strange, but sitting there with him...it helps me think.”

* * *

By now, the people in the reception area knew Tess, greeting her with pleasant nods as she made her way to the elevator. Ironically, the maternity floor was one below the ICU. When the elevator stopped there, she caught a glimpse through the nursery window of little bundles, wrapped like special gifts, in their clear bassinets. Today, an exhausted-looking but smiling Latino man got into the elevator with her. He held a toddler by one hand and in the other was an empty baby carrier. Though he said nothing, Tess could feel his pride and excitement at the prospect of bringing home a new baby. The little kid with him bounced up and down on the balls of her feet and whispered something in Spanish to her dad.

What a magical time in the life of a family, thought Tess, and she felt a surprising twinge of something that might be envy. Or yearning. With Dominic, she was feeling things for the first time, and it was risky and exhilarating and impossible to resist. She felt so torn between the life she thought she wanted and the life she’d glimpsed here. It was so unlikely but at the same time so seductive.

The elevator stopped and she smiled at the man and the little girl as they got out. Then the doors swished shut, and she was whisked to a different world, one where worry and desperation hung in the air, mingling with the smell of disinfectant. Stripped of all privacy, the mostly elderly patients lay in their mechanical beds, surrounded by monitors, drip bags, oxygen tanks.

Don’t let it end here, she thought.

She stepped into Magnus’s suite. His vitals were noted on the whiteboard, and the lights had been dimmed, the blinds of the single window shut against the day. She took a seat on a rolling stool by the bed.

“Hey, Magnus,” she said, having taken to speaking with him as if he could hear her. “I could really use some help here. I feel as if Isabel and I have collected a bunch of puzzle pieces, but we’re having trouble putting everything together.”

The sigh and hiss of a pump was the only reply. Since he’d been taken off the ventilator, he looked more human but frail and vulnerable, as if he could slip away at any moment. She studied his face, the pale skin lined, the white hair tousled. She fancied she could see the face of the boy in the old photos, and the proud young husband, the grieving father, the indulgent grandfather. The man who’d had a child out of wedlock.

She wondered what his voice would sound like...and if she’d ever get to hear the sound of his laughter.

Lately when Tess came to see him, her impulse to obsessively check her messages wasn’t quite so strong. The hospital was one of the few places where she got a good signal, yet sometimes she was content to just sit here, to listen to the rhythm of his pumps and monitors and think about everything—or nothing at all.

“I’m losing my edge, out here in the country,” she confessed. “I should really go back to the city and get on with my life.” She placed her hand on his. The wrist was encircled with bar-coded hospital bracelets. His skin was warm and papery-dry. “Something’s keeping me here, though,” she continued. “Actually, a lot of things are.” She squeezed his hand. “And you’re one of them.”

She looked up the Trianon gallery and discovered that it was still in business, and that Mr. Christiansen was still in charge. When she called, she was told he was gone for the day.

“I’d better get going,” she told Magnus. “I’m getting too emotional, hanging out with you. Just...please get better, Magnus. We’d love to have answers from you, but it’s more important just to know you’re here.” The moment she spoke the words, she felt a wave of emotion that left her breathless. This man was a stranger, but he was so important to her.

When she returned to Bella Vista, she discovered Isabel in her manic-baking mode. The kitchen was filled with the aromas of butter, vanilla and cinnamon. She’d created Danishes and rugelach and crispy twisty things that promised to glue themselves promptly to Tess’s hips.

“How’s Grandfather?” Isabel asked, dusting flour from her hands.

“The same.”

“Was his color good?”

“I guess.”

“What do you mean, you guess? Did he look pale, or—”

“He looked like a guy in a coma, okay? I mean, it’s not okay, but...” Tess snapped, suddenly irritated with Isabel. “Listen, if you want to see how he’s doing, then go see him.”

“You’re right, I need to do that. I’ll go later, take some ginger molasses cookies to the staff.”

Tess felt a mixture of exasperation and admiration. “Man does not live by cookies alone, Isabel. I’m not like you. I can’t make myself believe that a well-cooked meal is going to fix what’s wrong with me.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Isabel muttered. “Please. I never got to have some big life in the city—”

“You never ‘got’ to?” Tess wanted to tear her hair out. “Right, you were forced to suffer here at Bella Vista, in the bosom of a family that adored you.”

She flinched.

“Have a cookie, Tess.”

“No, thank you.”

“They’re good for what ails you.” She held out a perfectly baked cookie on a spatula. “A peace offering.”

“I don’t need a peace offering,” Tess stated. “And what makes you think anything’s ailing me?”

Isabel’s eyes turned dark. “You won’t let anyone get close to you, Tess. Not your mother, not me, not even Dominic, and he’s crazy about you.”

“Baloney.” Yet her heart skipped a beat at the notion.

“You travel the world, running from...what? From yourself?”

* * *

Tess’s cheeks were still hot with fury when she left the house. She had to get out, had to go...somewhere. Away. Away from Isabel and her grief and desperation, and from the fact that when Tess looked into her sister’s eyes, it was like looking in a mirror. This was something she’d never had to deal with before, and she wasn’t sure she liked it, the fact that she was inextricably tied to someone who was nothing like her...yet at the same time, everything like her.

Like Isabel, Tess was scared, too. She was scared of living a lonely life. Both sisters feared the things they couldn’t control; the unknown made each of them nervous. But unlike Isabel, Tess was not going to give up on herself, hiding from reality. Nor did she want to be the person her mother had become, traveling through life alone the way her mother did, never forming a deep bond with anyone. Maybe that was what filled her with crazy daydreams of Dominic. Something was coming over her, something real and powerful, like some kind of madness, or like a dream.

Walking, Tess decided as she struck out for the far edge of the property, was underrated. There was something in the rhythm and movement of a purposeful stride that loosened the clench of anxiety in her stomach. In the city she walked to get from point A to point B. Here at Bella Vista, she didn’t have a destination in mind. She just needed to move. Wearing a bulky sweater she’d found in the hall closet, she crossed the fields on foot.

The weather was uncharacteristically foul, the sky heavy with brooding clouds whose bellies bulged with unshed rain. A wind like the siroccos of Italy swept down through the valley. The return stack orchard heaters, propelled by slowly rotating wind machines, breathed warmth into the chilly air of late autumn. She felt the crackle of dry grass and fallen leaves underfoot.

The steep hills of San Francisco had always challenged her lung capacity, but lately, out here in the fresh air, she felt as if she could walk forever.

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t care what her purpose was or how far she felt like walking. As she wended her way down through the orchard, the rain-swollen clouds crowded the sky, obliterating the light. Within minutes, the occasional droplets thickened to a steady downpour. Twin veins of lightning split the horizon, quickly followed by a roar of thunder.

Great, she thought, feeling an icy trickle of rain down her back. Her heavy sweater fast became a dead weight on her body, heeled boots slipped through thick mud. A gust of wind shivered through the trees, adding drama to the downpour.

She headed for the nearest shelter—Eva’s old fruit store at the roadside. With its wooden gingerbread construction and railed wraparound porch, it was a welcome refuge from the storm.

The building wasn’t locked, so she let herself in through the creaky door in the back, recoiling from a thick swag of cobwebs. “Lovely,” she muttered. “This is all just so lovely.”

The rain sounded like machine-gun fire on the tin roof of the building. Shivering with cold, she peered through the shadows. The space was vast, much bigger than it looked from the outside, with sloping display tables, rustic shelves and fixtures on the walls. She spotted a potbellied woodstove and some hurricane lamps, a long counter with a big cash register of tarnished brass. Despite the dust, the vintage wrought iron fixtures and hand-lettered signs exuded an unassuming charm. Beneath the cobwebs and heavy air of neglect, the shop seemed suspended in time, as if it were under an enchantment. Large picture windows, one of them scored by a diagonal crack, framed a view of the sagging front porch and the road. Maybe she could flag down a car. Except that on this dreary afternoon, no one seemed to be around. The light was fading fast.

She decided to wait it out here in the abandoned building. If Isabel got worried, so be it. Teeth chattering, Tess peeled off the sweater, which now reeked of wet wool. Maybe the electricity worked, if she could just find a switch. She took out her cell phone to use as a flashlight. Getting a signal at Bella Vista was impossible, but the flashlight app offered a bluish beam, just enough to spot a field mouse skittering across the floor.

With a squawk of surprise, Tess jumped up onto a stool by the counter. Ugh. Rodents.

Then she noticed something on the screen of her phone—one bar of service. Maybe she could make a call, get someone to come rescue her.

Her finger hovered over the number to the main house, but she hesitated. Fresh off a quarrel with Isabel, she didn’t want to have to beg for help. Instead, she dialed Dominic. Of course she did. There was no pretending she didn’t want to see the guy.

* * *

A gleam of headlights swung through the storm. It was nearly dark now, and Tess’s fingers were numb. When Dominic came into the shop on a swirl of wet wind, she flashed on Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and started to shiver again.

“Nice day,” he said, looking around the place.

“I thought so,” she replied. “Thanks for coming. The mice and I kept hoping the rain would slack off, but it’s not letting up. Yes, there are mice, which is why I haven’t gotten off this stool.”

He found an old box of kitchen matches and lit one of the hurricane lamps. It exuded a plume of oily smoke, and its yellowish flame bathed the place in a golden glow. “You’re soaked,” he said.

“And freezing. And miserable.” But so happy to see him, she couldn’t help smiling.

He lit a couple more lamps. “Your lips are blue.”

“I told you I was freezing.”

“Jesus, Tess.” He took off his jacket and slung it around her shoulders. She welcomed the enveloping warmth of his body heat.

“I appreciate this. Did I pull you away from something important?”

“The bank at quitting time. No problem,” he said.

She deflated just a little. She’d fantasized—momentarily—that she was important, the kind of important that made a guy drop everything and dash away to find her. She wasn’t sure she’d ever been that important to someone. It was a terrible thing to want to be, but she couldn’t help herself.

“So how’d you get caught in the rain?” he asked.

“I had to get away,” she confessed.

“What’s the matter?” He grabbed her hands and rubbed her cold fingers. “Besides the obvious, I mean.”

“It’s hard, having a sister.”

“I’ve told my sister so, many times.”

Having a sister was wonderful...but hard. It was different from having a friend. Friends tended to come and go, but once she’d discovered she had a sister, someone who shared her father, her DNA, possibly a whole hidden history, she couldn’t not have her.

“Is Isabel okay?” Dominic studied her.

“Everyone asks that about Isabel. Maybe if we all quit tiptoeing around her, she’d stop being afraid of her own shadow.”

“What happened?”

“I went to see Magnus and when I got back, I snapped at her and now I feel terrible.”

“Sounds like a pretty normal exchange between siblings.”

“Does it? I wouldn’t know. I really want us to get along.”

“Everybody gets along with Isabel.”

“It’s just...I’m starting to care about her so much.”

“What’s wrong with caring about someone?”

“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, but it’s not easy. I don’t like seeing her hurt, or scared, and I can’t fix it for her.”

“A word to the wise,” he said. “Nobody can fix another person. But everybody tries.”

“Ouch,” said Tess. “I assume this means you tried fixing someone.”

“You’re starting to know me pretty well.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t look so smug. It’s not a stretch. I’m a guy, remember?”

“Like I could forget that.”

He grinned. “Grab your stuff and I’ll give you a ride.”

“All right.”

“Unless you want to hang out here.”

She was surprised. An opening? “To tell you the truth, I’m curious about this place now. I wouldn’t mind exploring. What do you know about it?”

“I haven’t been in here in years,” he said. “I liked coming here as a kid. There was always something to eat, always something interesting to look at, like a puzzle of bent nails or one of Magnus’s boxes, things made of beeswax from the local hives.”

“Isabel said her grandmother used to be in charge of the shop.” Gratefully she buried her nose in the fleecy lining of his jacket. I’m such a goner, she thought, lost in the scent of him.

“During the harvest season, it was a busy place. Eva sold produce from the orchards, local honey, baked goods, freshly pressed cider.... Man, I’ll never forget her cider and homemade donuts. As I recall, you’ve got a thing for donuts.”

“Ha, ha. Isabel must’ve inherited her talent in the kitchen from Eva. Why didn’t the place stay open?”

“It was Eva’s baby. She organized it into a co-op for growers and artists. After she got sick, no one else was around to take it on.”

“That’s a shame,” Tess said, looking around at the empty shelves and display tables. She shivered and drew the jacket tighter around her.

“I’ll make a fire,” he said, helping himself to wood from a bin by the stove.

“That’s too much trouble,” she said, feeling silly for wanting to linger here with the rain battering the roof.

“What, you don’t want a fire?”

“Of course I want a fire,” she blurted.

“Then sit tight and let me make one. I like making fires.” He whistled as he laid old paper and kindling in the stove and opened the flue. Within a few minutes, the place was alight, and warming up quickly.

“My grandmother had a shop,” she said, looking around, filled with nostalgia.

“You kept her desk,” he said. “You used to play around it when you were a kid.”

“I’m impressed that you remember me telling you that.”

“I remember everything you told me. You’d be surprised how much I think about you, Tess.”

“Really?” She wondered if it was even half as much as she thought about him. The wind whipped past, banging the battered sign outside against the eaves. “It’s strange to think Eva had a shop, as well. One of my earliest recollections was of watching the hand-painted sign swaying in the wind against a stormy sky, kind of like today.”

She could still picture it perfectly in her mind’s eye. Things Forgotten was written in gold leaf script on black. Underneath, in smaller lettering, it said “B. Delaney, Proprietor.” The memories were powerful, imprinted on Tess’s heart, and she felt a wave of sentiment as she thought of that girl long ago, dashing in from the weather to a hot cup of tea.

“Two shop-keeping grandmothers,” Dominic said. “It’s in your blood.”

Looking around the derelict building, she pictured the shop, revitalized. At present, the space was a great hollow box, waiting to be filled from the wood-planked floor up to the hammered tin ceiling. She was quiet, listening to the fire and the rain on the roof, imagining the shop she would have. “Nana had exquisite taste,” she told Dominic. “Her clients came from all over.”

“And your grandfather?”

“Nana never married,” Tess said, thinking about what her mother had shared about the shame and hurt of growing up the mistress’s daughter. “She had bad luck with men.”

“What about you?” he asked. “Do you have better luck?”

Her standard answer was that she did just fine without a guy in the picture. Instead, she said, “That depends.”