She’d invited me to go apple picking so I picked her up between our houses in a lot by the highway and we drove the sideroads to an orchard we’d been to with our own children and had come to from different ways but not this. She changed into sneakers from her dress shoes as I drove and she struggled to lace and bend while belted into her seat and we talked about later that day how she had plans to meet with friends and I had to be home to do something I don’t remember since I don’t really think I had plans. We had our windows down half way to let crisp air in that smelled of fires and cider. Our hair whirled and tangled and my nose began to run and I wasn’t sure I knew how to get to the orchard from the lot in a town that wasn’t mine and she had no idea how to help since she had no sense of direction. A handpainted finger pointed us down toward Hansel’s abutting the dirt road which we followed and pulled into a spot that wasn’t a parking spot the rest of the year but just a place with grass and few rocks and apple trees all around. The woman asked how much we planned to pick and we chose a peck since the apples looked just about ready but not quite. Then we walked down an aisle of trees and we each plucked an apple or two to plunk into the basket we’d set between us on the ground. Plunk. Plunk plunk. Gentle with apples, they bruise.
A smattering of families passed by us on their way to the trees they imagined held riper redder juicier fruit. We stopped near a tree so laden with fruit that the branches sagged close to the ground. We each found an apple to pick that was mostly green with a brushstroke of red from where it looked up to the sun. We stood by the basket. We bit into our apples. Warm. Sharp.
Leaves rustling in the wind.
Bite.
I don’t understand why you said, how we let, we had promised we’d never but I haven’t seen you in months. I never meant why did you? Well it sure seemed so to me at least that’s what I heard whether you meant to or not. I would never do that but you did and we said we would never and now we’re no better than her since we promised we’d never get here. Then you said and it hurt and I’d never say that to our daughters so why? I thought when you said, no I didn’t mean it that way but that’s how it came across. And we’re here. Bite. Quiet. Bite.
We were getting chilled. There weren’t enough red ones to fill our basket. We were done looking. We split them into two plastic bags I had in my trunk. got back in the car and drove back to her car, down the bumpy dirt road.
