At Sunday lunch, Jim’s dad almost chokes on a mouthful of mashed potatoes. His mom said she wanted to visit her sister in Florida over Christmas. His dad swallows. “No way in hell I’m driving to Florida.”
Jim winces. It’s September and his parents are fighting about Christmas. Cool air comes through the open dining room window behind his dad. In the backyard, autumn sun falls on the redwood picnic table on the slate gray patio. It could be in a Hopper painting.
“But I haven’t seen Eileen for three years,” his mom says.
“Have them come here,” his dad says, “stay in some motel.”
“Are you kidding? Come to Chicago in December?”
Beyond the picnic table, green grass reaches red and yellow mums along the white fence. Include the window and the wallpaper with twining roses, and you have a Matisse inviting you to life and love outside.
“Don’t you Jimmy?” his mom says.
“What?”
“Want to go to Florida.”
“Leave him alone,” his dad says. “He wants to stay here.”
“Okay, don’t go to Florida,” his mom says. “Jimmy and I’ll go.”
“You go. Fly if you want to. Jim stays with me.”
“It’s better if he comes with me.”
His mom stands up and puts her hand out for Jim’s plate. “Don’t forget, today you pick apples for the Russells.”
He gives her his plate. “I know,” he says, eager to get away.
“You got him that gig?” his dad says, handing his plate to Jim’s mom.
“I ran into Greg, and he said the boy who helped them in the yard quit, so I suggested Jimmy.”
“They’re batty old birds.”
“Don’t listen to him,” his mother says, going into the kitchen. “They’re good people.”
“Didn’t say they weren’t. When do you have to be there?”
“Two-thirty,” his mom calls from the kitchen.
“Better go,” his dad says. “It’s after two.”
Jim puts on a jacket, goes out the front door, and skips down the steps. The trees are in their autumn beauty, pale yellow, burnished gold, a crimson maple next door. A lesbian couple lives there. Jim likes hearing the love in their voices when they work together in the yard. Distant clouds are dark in the northwest.
Jim rings the Russells’ bell. To the left, they have a side yard with two apple trees. Thick bushes along a chain-link fence block the view into that yard.
The wooden door opens. Mr. Russell, in white button-down shirt and gray pants, stands behind the screen door.
“Is that Jimmy?” Mrs. Russell says.
“Meet me in back.”
“O Greg let him in.”
“He can meet me in back.” Mr. Russell closes the door.
Why go around back? He walks up the narrow walk along the side of the house and rings the bell. Mr. Russell comes out and opens the porch door.
“Mrs. Russell wants to say hello,” he says, grudgingly.
Jim follows him past clay flower pots and a metal outdoor chair. Their kitchen has a wide window behind a large double sink. A photo of a young boy in a white button-down shirt and gray pants is on the wooden table. Another photo of the boy in a white T-shirt and blue shorts is on the double-door refrigerator. Mrs. Russell, with white streaks in her brown hair, sits in her wheelchair with a red plaid blanket over her legs.
“Hi, Jimmy,” she says, smiling. “Come to pick our apples?”
“Yep.”
“A beautiful day to be outside.”
“Sunny and cool. Some clouds in the northwest.”
“That means rain,” Mr. Russell says. “Okay, you’ve said hello, let’s get to work.”
“Autumn’s my favorite season,” Mrs. Russell says.
“Mine, too.”
“Are you through?” Mr. Russell says.
“You’re in high school?” Mrs. Russell says.
“Senior year.”
“Tommy would be a senior now,” she says wistfully. Jim guesses Tommy’s the kid in the photos. “Are you going to college?”
“A lot depends on financial aid.”
“Can he start?” Mr. Russell says.
“Do you have any idea what you want to study?”
“Art history, maybe English.”
“I was an English major.”
Mr. Russell remembers Tommy took apples from the ground and put the good ones in one basket and the yucky ones in another as he had been told. Sitting on his dad’s shoulders, he picked apples and handed them down to his dad. Greg liked the warmth and weight of his son.
“Come on, Tommy, let’s go,” he says, moving toward the back door.
“What’s the hurry?” Mrs. Russell says.
Mr. Russell stops. “He has to finish before it rains.”
Mrs. Russell remembers Tommy loved her reading poetry to him. He’d sit next to her on the sofa and lean his head against her, which felt wonderful. He could read before he went to kindergarten.
“All right. But let’s talk before you go, Tommy.”
Going out the back door, Mr. Russell says, “You don’t have to talk to her before you go.”
Following Mr. Russell, Jim thinks they’re funny calling him Tommy. Friends of mom, they’re nice enough, especially Mrs. Russell. It’s an adventure, and he can use the money.
The garage door grates as Mr. Russell pulls it up. A Buick SUV on the left. In the empty bay, shallow baskets made of wood laths with wire handles.
“Take some.” They carry baskets across the backyard and down a short, steep slope to the back tree in the side lot.
“You’ll need the ladder.”
In the garage, against the wall leans a wooden ladder curving inward from its wider bottom to its narrower top. Mr. Russell picks up the lowest rung and, as the ladder slides down the wall, Jim grabs the highest. Mr. Russell shows Jim how he has to lodge it against the trunk or a thick branch so that it won’t slide left or right.
“Wait here.”
Where would he go? The yard’s empty except for the two apple trees. The leaf-laden grass needs cutting. Red and white mums and some purple flowers grow along the side of the house. Mr. Russell returns with a beige woven bag. You put the long handle around your neck, letting the bag hang at your side. When you climb the ladder, you put apples in the bag, then transfer them to a basket. By the way, Mr. Russell says, the apples are McIntosh, good for cider.
“Tommy should be picking these apples,” he says. “I was back from a business trip, and Mrs. Russell was coming to pick me up at O’Hare. She had Tommy with her in front, not in the back in his car seat, where he belonged. She wanted him near her. She always wanted him too close, never let him have his own space. Spoiling him. The light turned red, but she didn’t stop. Stoned hoodlums smashed into the passenger side, and Tommy didn’t have a chance.” He looks toward the thick bushes along the back boundary. He turns to Jim. “If that’s not bad enough, you saw, she’s in a wheelchair. Can’t have children. Should have put Tommy in his car seat.” Yes, yes, he attached Tommy’s seat to the back seat, he secured the tether. His eyes glisten and Jim’s afraid he’ll cry. “But what are you going to do? People make mistakes. You learn to live and forgive with it.” Jim wonders at his saying that. “He was such a beautiful boy and smart. He’d be finishing high school like you and going to college. She always wanted him too close, suffocating him.” He pauses. “You’d better get to work. Start with the apples on the ground and keep the yucky apples separate from the good ones. And careful on the ladder. We don’t want to have to visit you in the hospital.”
Mr. Russell heads for the house. Jim bends over, picks up apples, puts them in a basket. He zips his jacket up a little so that it doesn’t get in the way.
“Hey!” He looks up. Mr. Russell is walking towards him. “I told you.” He stops. “Keep the yucky ones separate.”
“Sorry.” Jim dumps out the apples.
Mr. Russell walks back to the house. Jim starts again. He looks up. Mr. Russell’s at the back door watching him. He goes inside. Jim bends backward and his back feels better. On his hands and knees, he flips good apples into one basket, bad apples into another. He likes the Sunday afternoon silence.
After he’s cleared the ground, he picks apples he can reach. Good, they come easily away from the branch. He likes how they feel, cool, smooth, and firm. As he works, a genial warmth flows through his veins. He takes off his jacket and lays it on the grass. The work is monotonous, mind numbing. He doesn’t think about Florida or anything other than picking apples. He puts the ladder against a sturdy branch, trying to imitate Mr. Russell making sure that the two legs are even and well planted and moving the top a little to the right, to the left, until he feels the ladder is firmly fixed. With the woven bag slung around his neck, he climbs, his arches feeling the round ladder rungs. He likes being up among the leaves and apples. They’re not mossed cottage trees, but they’ll have to do. Another step up and he looks around. A window is open on the second floor of the red-brick bungalow next door. The Morgans live there. Not much in their backyard: white plastic table and chairs on an empty patio. Behind the apple-tree lot, three beautifully twisting trees in front of a yellow stucco house. It reminds him of paintings by Cezanne, houses behind trees. His first time coming down, the bag swings, tugging at his neck, almost pulling him off the ladder. He holds the bag with his right hand across his body and the ladder with his left. He slides apples into the basket and likes their smell.
About to go down the ladder with a bag of apples, he hears a woman singing opera. Diane Morgan on the second floor of the bungalow next door. He stops among the green leaves and listens. Addiodelpassatobei. He doesn’t understand. He goes down the ladder and listens to her heart-breaking voice, sad yet serene. He feels he’s in the song she sings of sorrow and loss. Then he feels joy. The singing makes everything beautiful, the apples hanging like red ornaments, the green leaves rustled by the wind, the cool, clean wind itself. He feels happy and whole and free. But he can’t stand there listening all afternoon. He goes back to work.
After a while, she stops. He sees her at the window.
“It’s beautiful!” he shouts.
She sees him and laughs. “Thanks. What are you doing?”
“Picking apples. … I love your singing.”
“Thanks.”
She leaves the window and sings. He listens carefully. Dovesonoibeimom… No, he doesn’t understand but no sweeter voice was ever heard. He loses himself in her singing and his work doesn’t feel like work.
A woman’s voice, probably her mom, “Come on, Di, we’re going now. We’re late.”
“But,” a man’s voice, probably her dad, “she has to practice for the recital. It’s crucial.”
“Your grandmother’s expecting you.”
“Surely she’ll understand,” her dad says.
“It’s okay, daddy. It’s okay.”
“Of course, it’s okay. Close the window and let’s go.”
Jim doesn’t like it. Her dad’s right. Why can’t her mother let her perfect her art?
Diane comes to the window. Jim claps to show his support. She laughs, does a playful curtsy, and closes the window, leaving the air thick with dead silence.
Up in the green world, leaf shadows dance on his shirt and jeans. A squirrel creeping along a branch sees him and freezes. It twitches its nose. Jim twitches his. It jumps to another branch and disappears. Jim goes up and down the ladder and slides apples into baskets. Remembering Diane singing with full-throated ease helps. He enjoys standing on the ladder with the cool wind sifting through the leaves, the cloud shadows moving across the wind ruffled grass. The red bricks of the bungalow glow in the clear air and afternoon sun. Someone should paint that light. Monet? Hopper? The challenge would be to get Diane’s singing into the painting.
Mr. Russell in a brown tweed jacket comes out the back door wanting to check on Tommy. From the bottom of the porch steps, he watches him climb the ladder, pick apples, put them in the canvas bag, bring them down. With his little rake Tommy raked leaves alongside his dad on sunny autumn Sunday afternoons. Greg had to smile at how, tensing his lips, Tommy focused so seriously on raking leaves. Of course, Greg couldn’t let him see him rake the leaves he had missed. It was a good time to talk, to ask him about school, whether he was making friends. He walks toward Tommy about to go up the ladder.
Seeing Mr. Russell coming down the short, steep slope, Jim stops.
“How are you getting along?” Mr. Russell says.
“I’m finishing this tree.”
“Good.”
“Mr. Russell? What was Diane Morgan singing?”
“That’s Mrs. Russell’s department. She’s good, isn’t she?”
“Totally beautiful.”
Mr. Russell warns him that Mrs. Russell will want to get him alone and talk with him before he leaves. Blaming herself, she thinks boys like Jim are Tommy. That’s bad for her, very upsetting. Jim should say he doesn’t have time, has to go home, his mother needs him. Jim wonders why Mr. Russell wants to keep him away from Mrs. Russell.
Mr. Russell starts for the house. He remembers next weekend Mary will be visiting her sister in Beloit. He stops and turns around. “Say, Tommy, would you like to come back the same time next Sunday? We could rake the leaves, mow the lawn, watch some football?”
“Sure.” Except the football. And calling him Tommy.
“Good. I’ll let you get back to work.”
Jim starts on the front tree. On his hands and knees clearing the ground of apples, he hears tapping at a window. Mrs. Russell opens the window and motions. He walks over.
“You were talking with Mr. Russell,” she says. “What about?”
“He wants me to come back next Sunday to rake the leaves and mow the lawn.”
“He does, does he? Are you going to?”
“Why? Shouldn’t I?”
“No, go ahead, but you can’t always believe what Mr. Russell says. Ever since Tommy, he has had trouble with his memory. He might think you’re Tommy. He tells stories about me and Tommy that aren’t true.”
“Mrs. Russell, did you hear Diane Morgan?”
“Isn’t she great?”
“Totally. What was she singing?”
“The ones I remember are Dove sono i bei momenti from Figaro and Addio del passato from La Traviata.”
That means nothing to Jim. “They were beautiful,” he says.
“She’s good. She’s got a recital in a couple of days to get into the Cincinnati Conservatory.”
“I hope she makes it.”
“I do too. You’d better get back to work, Tommy.”
Jim wonders why she trashed Mr. Russell and why they keep calling call him Tommy. He picks the apples he can reach. The Russells seem to be in some kind of competition for him. He has no idea what’s going on there. He tries to get in a rhythm of climbing, picking, going down.
He has to pee. He goes to the back door, rings the bell, and goes inside. As he enters the kitchen, Mrs. Russell rolls in. “Finished already?”
“No. I’d like to ….
“Through the living room next to the stairs.”
An almost silent football game is on a huge screen in the living room. Leaving the bathroom, he hears Mrs. Russell in a room off the living room.
“You’ve gone out and talked to Tommy.” Jim stops. “That’s cheating.”
“I had to check on how he was doing.”
“Of course, you say that. You invite him back when you know I’m going to my sister’s. That’s cheating, too. Well, I might not go.”
Their words don’t register, but Jim doesn’t like the tone of their voices, too much like his parents arguing. He slips through the kitchen and out the back door, happy to be outside with the apple tree. He puts the ladder against a thick branch and climbs. It’s a slog. His feet hurt from the round ladder rungs. His legs ache and his shoulder hurts from the heavy bag. Under a darker sky and lower clouds, the flowers along the side of house lose their luster. West wind rolls leaves across the thick grass, like ghosts, yellow and brown and hectic red. He climbs the ladder and it’s fun up in the tree with the wind, the branches swaying, the leaves slapping him. He brings down a couple of bags. He goes up again.
“You’d better stop now, Tommy.” He looks down at Mr. Russell looking up. Tommy again. Old people get confused. “It’s too windy and it’ll rain any minute.”
Each taking a handle, they carry the half basket of bad apples to the compost pile behind the garage. They bring a basket of good apples to the porch and the other good apples to the garage. They put away the ladder and Mr. Russell goes inside. Jim puts on his jacket and brings the unused baskets to the garage. It starts to rain, stray drops whipped by wind. He runs from the garage to the porch and into the kitchen.
“There you are,” Mrs. Russell says. “Did you get wet?”
“A few drops.”
Mr. Russell comes into the kitchen. “How much of the second tree did you do?”
“I was almost done. There’s maybe a basket or two left.”
“The apples you didn’t pick will be on the ground tomorrow.”
“Not Tommy’s fault,” Mrs. Russell says.
A white flash. Ripping noise of sheet metal tearing; low, crashing booms pound the house, rattle the window over the sink. Water falls, thick drops dense and fast. Lightening splits the darkness. Wind chases churning clouds, bends the backyard trees, lashes rain against the window.
“Come with me,” Mr. Russell says. “I’ll pay you.”
“Can’t you do that here?” Mrs. Russell says.
“The office is easier.”
Jim follows Mr. Russell through the dining room and living room into the room where the Russells were talking when Jim left the bathroom. Jim smells cherry tobacco. A photo of the boy in suit and tie is on a big wooden desk. Out the window, the storm has settled into steady rain. Rumbling thunder sounds farther away. Standing in front of a leather armchair, Mr. Russell takes a billfold from his jacket and hands Jim three twenties and two tens.
“That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Why go to his study to give him money he had on him?
“Are you going to college?”
“I plan to.”
Mr. Russell asks about his grades. He tells him.
“That’s very good, Tommy.” Maybe he is Tommy. That might not be so bad. “But admission people want more than good grades. What do you have in the way of extracurricular?”
“Debate team, French club, literary magazine.”
“Good. Do you do any sports? Colleges like that.”
“Not really.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Have you considered Williams?”
“No.”
“You should. I went there. A great school. By far the happiest days of my life. You apply to Williams and I’ll write a letter, make some calls, see what I can do.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Now remember what I said about Mrs. Russell. Best to leave quickly.”
Mr. Russell rushes him through the living room and gives him a large black umbrella near the front door. “Go, go, hurry.”
“He doesn’t have to,” Mrs. Russell says from the arch between living and dining rooms, “unless he wants to. It’s raining hard.”
“No, it’s not. He can’t stay. He has to hurry home and help his mother.”
Jim sees Mr. Russell cuing him to say he has to leave, but he’s not sure he wants to. Before he decides, Mrs. Russell says, “How about some apple pie? Tommy loved apple pie.”
“Sure.”
“Food’s not fair. That’s cheating.”
“Come on, Tommy, let’s have that apple pie.”
At the door to the kitchen, she turns toward Mr. Russell, sticks out her tongue, smiles.
She takes the pie from the pantry, cuts a big piece, and puts it in the microwave.
“Ice cream?”
“Sure.”
“Can you get it?”
She takes the pie from the microwave and puts it on the table in front of the photo. A warm smell of apple and cinnamon. She puts two big scoops of vanilla next to the pie.
“Sit down. Sit down.”
“Aren’t you going to have any?”
She smiles. “I’m on a diet.”
He puts away the ice cream. It feels good to sit down. He doesn’t like eating alone with her watching him like he’s like the little kid in the photo. But it’s delicious. “This is very good.”
She looks out at the steady rain. “I think fall is my favorite season because I grew up north of Boston. We spent weekends at bed-and-breakfasts in New Hampshire or Vermont. I fell in love with the wonderful colors and the muted sunlight.
“I went to college in New England, Wellesley, and loved it. That’s where I met Mr. Russell. He was going to Harvard Business School and I was a graduate student in English. We rented a car and went apple picking at a place near Acton. We had such wonderful autumn afternoons among the apple trees.” Dove sono i bei momenti among the apple trees, the sun surprisingly warm in the cool air, he holding her, kissing. She feeling safe and strong and loved. “We drove on back roads near where I had grown up. Once we came across a polo game. Leaning against the car, we watched the beautiful horses thud up and down. I’ll never forget the hollow, echoing thwock of a mallet hitting a polo ball on a chilly, gray, November afternoon.
He hears a sadness, a yearning in her voice. That must have been a different Mr. Russell.
“We came to Chicago. Back then Elmhurst wasn’t so built up. We bought this house because of the apple trees. Mr. Russell was away on business a lot. When he was home, he wanted to make Tommy into a little CEO or something. I never understood that. One evening I had to pick up Mr. Russell at O’Hare. I put Tommy in his car seat. Did she? She must have. She always did. Waking in the hospital she couldn’t remember the accident. She saw bright light, couldn’t move, felt numb, glad to be alive. Then reality. Tommy dead, her spine shattered, Greg blaming her for Tommy’s death, making her feel utterly alone, unloved, stranded in interstellar space. Tears trickled. “In the middle of an intersection two kids plowed into the passenger side. They were going so fast I’m lucky to be alive. That’s how I lost my Tommy and ended up like this.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, not knowing what else to say.
“Mr. Russell blames me. He says Tommy wasn’t in his car seat. But I put him there.” Did she? “When he transferred the seat from his car to mine, he didn’t put it in right.” That must be it. “When they rammed into us, the seat went flying. He says the light wasn’t green. It was. … Down there’s a mess, not good for anything. Greg strays but he stays with me. That’s what’s important. He stays with me. Don’t stop, unless you’re full.
“Poor Greg has never accepted that Tommy …. He imagines what Tommy would be doing now if he hadn’t …. Do you like poetry?”
“Yes.”
“Tommy loved poetry. I know just the poem for today.” She rushes out of the kitchen and returns with a green book in her lap.
There’s no sofa for them, so she says, “Pull your chair around so you can read with me.”
Jim moves his chair next to hers and she reads.
“My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree…Toward heaven still…”
The poem’s right. His instep arch keeps the ache, the pressure of the ladder round. The poem, like Diane’s singing, adds to what he’s living.
“Should I read another? … No, you’re right. I mustn’t keep you.”
He feels sorry for her and is kind. “This was fun and I liked the poem.”
“Would you like to come again?”
“Sure.” How can he say no?
“Next Sunday?”
“Okay.”
She snaps open a black change purse and holds out a twenty. Not wanting her money, he doesn’t put out his hand. “I know Mr. Russell has paid you, Tommy, but I want you to have this.”
He hears Mr. Russell coming toward the kitchen.
“Quick, put it away, hurry.”
He’s jamming the money into his pocket as Mr. Russell comes into the kitchen.
“You still here? How long do you plan on staying? Should we get a room ready? Tell the chef you’ll be in for dinner?”
I’m going now.”
“Tommy needs an umbrella.”
Mr. Russell groans. He returns with a small pink umbrella. “See that you bring it back.”
“Can’t you get Tommy a better umbrella?” Mrs. Russell says.
“What’s the matter with you two?” Jim says. “I’m not Tommy. I’m James Shiller.” The Russells look stunned and hurt. “I’m sorry your son died, but I’m not him.”
“We know,” Mr. Russell says.
“It’s a game we play,” Mrs. Russell says, sheepishly.
“A game?”
“It helps us,” Mrs. Russell says.
In the cruel kitchen light, they look pathetic, like desolate people in early Picasso. Then he sees. “You don’t care about me. I could be anybody. I was a puppet in your game.”
“You’ll find often you could be anybody,” Mr. Russell says. “Lots of people can do your job, watch your movies, buy your things, say your cliches. There are eight billion people on this planet. What makes you think you’re special?”
Jim feels jerked awake to a new reality. But he thinks Mr. Russell didn’t justify or excuse how they used him. He can’t explain why not.
“I’ll go now,” he says.
“Wait a second,” Mr. Russell says. He leaves the kitchen and returns with the large black umbrella. “Use this, Tommy,” he says, holding it out to Jim.
“And take some apples, Tommy,” Mrs. Russell says. She wheels into the pantry and returns. “Take as many as you like, Tommy,” she says, handing him a plastic grocery bag.
Looking at them, hearing them, Jim hates them. Neither the umbrella nor the apples change that. He walks home in gentle rain. No wonder the other guy quit. But it was a beautiful day and he made some money. What made it worthwhile were Diane’s singing and that poem.
The Russells are still in their kitchen.
“Do you think he’ll be back?” Mrs. Russell says.
“No, not after what he said.”
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Russell says. “He’s a good boy. If he comes back, we shouldn’t play our game.”
“How will that be fun?”
They look at each other and laugh.
“God, aren’t we something else?” she says, wiping tears from her eyes.“We certainly are.”
After teaching law and doing English legal history, Joseph decided to go back to his first love, literature, and moved up to something much harder, writing short stories. He has taken a graduate workshop in fiction at the University of Cincinnati, advanced fiction workshops at The Harvard Extension School, and workshops and craft courses at Grub Street, Boston. He has had stories published or accepted for publication by the Broadkill Review, Chariton Review, Constellations, Courtship of Winds, Penman Review, Rockford Review, South Dakota Review, and the Woven Tale Press.