by Jennifer Ostopovich
I heave the last bit of earth onto the hole with a grunt, then prop the shovel against the shed and rub gingerly at the raw, liquid filled skin that’s begun to swell and bloom across my palms. Looking up, my eye catches the pale face of the young boy. He stands with one hand pressed against the window; how long he’s been there, I can’t say. Earlier when I looked in, he was sleeping on top of the patchwork quilt, mouth open and limbs akimbo. His flaxen strands—the ones that made him look like a sissy, but his mama refused to cut—clung to his forehead like sodden bits of straw in the damp heat.
The boy eats his breakfast in silence, then sets his dish in the rust streaked sink and pulls the chair over to stand on. He scrubs at the remnants of breakfast, making no mention of his mama’s absence.
I gulp back the dregs of my bitter, black coffee and give a wince. Beth forgot to buy cream again. I nod to the too full wastebasket, another of Beth’s neglected chores. “You make sure to take the trash out after washing.”
His grey eyes betray no hint of emotion, but instead remain trained on the peeling black and white checked linoleum. His reply is tractable, mechanical even. “Yes sir.”
He’s always been an obedient boy and has yet to show any signs of his mama’s laziness or insolence.
After breakfast is cleared, I scribble out a hasty shopping list and shove it in my front pocket. On my way up the drive to the sun-faded powder blue pickup I pass by the boy, hauling the trash bag to the bin. “Just headed to the corner store. Won’t be long.”
He hefts the bag into the metal bin and nods, then walks back up the drive towards the house.
Gripping the rust-blistered chrome of the drivers side door handle, I’m startled by a smear of crimson on the sleeve of my jacket. I roll the cuff and make a note to wash it later.
As I pull onto the road, I peer through the windshield and catch sight of the boy through the dissipating road dust. He’s crouched down beside the patch of freshly churned earth, his fingers working the dirt like small shovels. I’ll be back before he gets anywhere; it’ll take him weeks to dig down far enough to find anything.
When I return from the store there’s no sign of the boy in the yard, but something bright poking out through the loose dirt catches my eye. It’s a sapling, with a single green leaf. I reach down to pull it from the loam. Looking up I see the boy’s solemn face peering out at me from the window. Something in his expression makes me draw my hand back.
Unaccustomed to doing the shopping, I’ve forgotten to buy any sort of roughage, so dinner is just grilled ham sausages, cooked too long on one side so that a black streak runs the length of the casing. I glop on a hearty dollop of hot mustard to hide the char and cut a thick slice of bread to sop up the drippings. Betty always did the cooking. No matter, she weren’t much of a cook anyway. After dinner I pour myself a whisky and head into the den for a smoke.
I flick on the television to the CBC news and settle into the recliner, resting my glass on the flattened armrest. The burnished leather is worn thin and stained dark by years of overlapping watermark rings. “Make sure to take the leavings out to the chickens,” I yell to the kitchen, where the boy’s still busy finishing the after dinner clean up.
“Yes sir.”
The trill of the phone drifts in from the kitchen. I try to ignore it and turn up the volume on the TV to drown it out, but the caller won’t leave off.
“Hi Charlie?” It’s Jenny, the woman who works the Sunday school at church with Beth. “Beth wasn’t at church today… Just thought I’d check in: she doing ok?”
Shit. I forgot it was Sunday. Jenny’s such a meddlesome old crone. One of them liberal spinster types that went to some fancy university Vancouver and can never seem to mind their own god damn business. She’s always talking all that woman’s lib bullshit, too. Last fall she had even tried to get Betty into one of them battered woman shelters after she received a well deserved backhand for running her mouth at me.
“Naw, she’s fine,” I say cheerfully, trying hard to keep the annoyance from creeping into my tone. “Just gone to stay with family.”
There’s a pause, and then she says cautiously, “I didn’t think she had any family left after the accident…”
“Her folks are dead, but she’s got a great aunt down in Edmonton. They’re not sure how long she’s got.”
Her tone turns conciliatory. “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Please pass along my sympathy and tell her we look forward to having her back at church soon.”
Something blue in the yard catches my eye through the window, so I pull back the sheers to have a look. The boy is standing over the sapling with a blue tin watering can. The water streams out onto the budding tree in a glistening arc. “I’ll pass it along.” I hang up the phone and draw the curtain back, then grab the bottle of whisky off the counter. I let the amber liquid lug and slosh inside the tumbler till it’s nearly reached the rim, then tip the glass to my mouth and drink it down in one swallow.
Scooping a handful of cherries out of the glass bowl, I toss one into my mouth. The flesh gives with a satisfying pop and the sweet juice dribbles out onto my tongue. Thoughts of the shiny new pickup in the drive make me smile. This harvest has been a good one. I pop another cherry in my mouth and wonder if I should maybe re-shingle the roof next spring with the remaining surplus.
The boy is scrubbing at the skins of carrots under the tap, rubbing off the black dirt till the water runs clean. He’s finally grown just tall enough not to need a chair when he stands at the sink anymore, and his hair has been buzzed close, so that his oversized ears stick out, making him look like a two handled jug.
“These cherries don’t taste like them bitter ones out front,” I say, while picking little bits of skin out of my teeth with a woody bit of cherry stem.
The boy continues scrubbing. “Ma always said you needed the right conditions to grow fruit. That’s why she said them old cherries out front were never any good: bad soil. I took extra care with the one I planted by the shed to water it regular though. Ma always put fish carcasses in the ground before planting anything because she said dead things make the best fertilizer. I reckon the ground by the shed is real fertile.”
The stem drops from my fingers and hits the floor soundlessly. I suck in air too fast and feel something hard catch in my windpipe. I’m overtaken by an ominous sense of dread as I realize I can no longer draw air into my lungs. Clutching at my throat, I begin to croak and sputter, then wave my hands in panicked gestures towards the phone, but the boy just stands there, inert. His cold, grey eyes are impassive as he watches me flail like a fish left to thrash on a hot deck. Stumbling through the kitchen I grab for the receiver, but I overshoot and instead pull the cord from the wall. The world tilts, and my vision fills with spots. There’s a hard crack as my head strikes the table. My face connects with the linoleum, and I’m splayed facedown, mouth pressed against the dusty floor. After a moment I can hear the soft pad of footsteps. I spit out the remnants of a busted tooth, then crane my neck to the side as far as I can manage. Looking up I see the boy standing over me with a serene expression, cradling the bowl of cherries between his palms.
Jennifer is an artist who lives in Edmonton with her family and five crazy pets. She’s working on her first novel and her short stories have appeared in L’Esprit Literary Review and Expat Literary Journal.
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