The horrible memory of the flash of pain in Reed’s eyes as I shoved him away made my stomach knot up. I hated how I had caused that look. More than that though, I hated Carl. The memories of him still hung at the edges of my mind, the pain in my arms and back flaring as the memories fought to take me over. I angrily wiped at the tears that had started to trickle down my cheek. Fog teased my vision.
“
I think he likes you.”
Startled, I sat up and looked over at the doorway. Maria leaned against it, her arms folded across her as she leaned against the old wood.
“
What? Who…”
Maria smiled. “Can I?” She nodded to the bed.
I nodded, tucking my legs under me. Maria stepped over to the bed and sat down, the old springs squeaking as she settled into her spot.
“
Reed. I think he likes you. You can tell, with how he hovers.” Maria leaned back against the wall, smiling at how my eyebrows knitted together. “It’s a good thing, Millie. He is a good guy. Muy bien, sí?” With a light laugh she patted my leg.
“
Where are you from?” I quickly asked, suddenly wanting to change the topic away from Reed. I could still see his hurt eyes.
“
Me? Mexico. Mazatlan, but I was born in Guatemala.”
“
Mexico? But how did you −”
“
How am I in el Nation Grande?” Maria sighed, the smile never leaving her face. I found myself wondering if this woman knew how to frown. “Once or twice a year, the Nation just so happens to have security gaps along the Mexican wall. They say it is an accident, but during those times Transplants cross and find work inside the Nation, no problemo.”
“
Transplants?”
“
Sí. Refugees. Immigrants. Illegal aliens. You know?” Maria glanced at me, and I nodded. I still didn’t get it, but didn’t say anything. “We are Transplants. The Nation needs us workers to keep it going. With so many locked away the farms were dying out. And in my country… living is almost impossible. Since the Wall went up, Mexico has gone loco.”
“
So, you are illegal?”
“
Who isn’t?” Maria chuckled, patting my leg again lightly. “Sí, I am. Oscar too. And most every other Latino you see. The Nation will go around soon and gather a group up and send them back. As if they are sending a message. But a few weeks after that happens, there is always a lapse on the border and more are let back in. I have a brother and my parents still in Mazatlan. Last I heard, they are hoping to Transplant soon too.” Maria paused, as if she was about to say something else, then sighed and offered me a smile instead.
It didn’t seem right to me. The Nation wouldn’t break its own laws. I fiddled with a loose string on my blanket, unsure of what to say.
Maria’s voice came out soft. “When a body is dying, when it needs to be fixed but can’t fix itself, sometimes it needs a transplant to keep it going. We are the Transplants.” The room was quiet. I could hear Maria breathing, feel her eyes on me, but didn’t look up. Maria let out a light laugh, breaking the silence. “Muy loco, sí?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Loco.”
Maria patted my leg again, then stood and walked to the doorway. The curtain parted as she ducked out, leaning just her head back in. I looked up to see her smiling warmly at me. “Get some sleep, Millie. Buenos noche.”
The curtain fell back into place, Maria’s smile disappearing into the shadows beyond. I laid my head back down on my pillow, my eyes searching the stars outside my small window. My mind felt thick and slow, full of too many new facts that I couldn’t process, that I didn’t want to accept.
The fog rolled in. My mind welcomed it. It wrapped its arms around me, asking why I had chased it away. I embraced the release from my feelings as it clouded me and let me float away into silent dreams of beating hearts and sun-kissed apples.
14
T
wo weeks went by in a blur. When every day is the same, it becomes harder to keep track of time. Every morning I woke up to the hustle of the other women in my quarters throwing on their clothing and hurrying out the door, eager to pick their perch for the day of picking. To my dismay, I realized that most wore the same dark blue shirt and khaki pants that sat tucked away in my dresser drawer.
Breakfast was always fast, usually a stuffed roll or a random fruit. Water jugs waited, lined carefully along benches and filled to the brim with cool hose water. Hands would snatch up the food and water, rarely pausing as they made their way to the Orchard.
They never gave us apples.
Then we would enter to Orchards, the paths between trees still masked in the leaves’ shadows as the morning sun struggled to rise on the distant horizon. The workers would find a basket, pick a tree, and spend the next few hours plucking apples. The Orchard fell into a rhythm of dropping apples, touched with the chime of casual chatter and hinted with the rustle of leaves always moving in the light breeze. As the day drew to a close, people would gather their baskets in tired arms and trudge back to the campfires, ready to eat amidst laughter and fall dead asleep on their worn beds.
Reed and Eddie always found me. No matter what tree I chose, they would come wandering over, then proceed to pick the waiting apples and joke the entire day. I found myself looking forward to their company. They made me feel special. They made me feel welcome. Even though Eddie’s constant jabber and joke cracking could get old by the end of the day, I always found myself smiling when he winked or cracked his big toothy smile.
Then there was Reed. After the night where I had pushed him away, he had made sure to keep a slight distance between us, physically. Regardless of the forced physical distance, Reed still found a way to stay close to me during the day hours. His arm would almost graze my arm, his fingers almost meet mine when handing me my basket. It would never get further than almost. He seemed magnetized to me, always finding me, and never leaving until it was time for bed.
Back in Spokane, I would have been scared. Worried that he had a hidden agenda or plan behind his soft smile. Spokane wasn’t completely full of horrible people. There were those who were gently doing their time and genuinely decent. That didn’t matter much. The majority were out for themselves and nothing else. And those who were assigned to safe-guard us only yawned and ignored.
Or became Carl.
The thought of Carl would send my skin prickling and I would always find myself looking over my shoulder. It was pointless, I knew that. Carl was in Spokane, patrolling the walk. The walk my parents and Orrin lived on. The walk that Jude once patrolled. I was far away from Carl and his smirk and iron grip, even if they were not. Realizing that even a guard, a protector from the Nation, could send this fear down my spine, reminded me that anyone could hide their true intentions. Or desires.
When I thought of Reed, when I saw his face in my mind, I somehow knew that couldn’t be true for him.
Those feelings were what scared me the most.
People don’t stay. That was one thing I had for sure learned in my life. Everything was temporary, and you had to always be prepared for the change. I always knew that I would leave behind everything I had ever known. The people in the cells were constantly changing, the children coming and going. My parents were lies and Orrin a distant phantom in the night. And someday, I would leave them behind.
During those two weeks at the Orchard, I realized that the prison wasn’t the only place people disappeared. The happy, familiar faces I would see throughout the day in the trees kept changing. Occasionally one would go missing, and would never reappear.
The happy red head, her hair always in two thick braids and whose voice carried too loud into the Orchard paths.
The short, squat Hispanic man who had to hold baskets on the ground for other pickers because he was too short to reach into the branches, even with a ladder.
The quiet brunette who would hide away in the taller trees to read her books.
They disappeared. Just… gone. And no one ever mentioned them again.
I found I had grown dreadfully terrified that one morning I would show up to work and smiling Eddie would never show. That I would wait by the tree to start the day and would never see Reed’s easy walk towards me, his face already smiling before our eyes met.
My heart would almost go dead in my chest at thought of Reed disappearing.
I forced a painful distance between us. Though I still laughed and talked during work, as soon as dinner came I would quickly eat then excuse myself to bed. I had already started to become too attached. Too close. I had become too happy.
| | |
I sat on the thick branch, my legs wrapped tightly around it as I reached for an apple. I had become more daring, leaving behind the stepladder and venturing higher into the tree every day. I wasn’t nearly as nimble in the branches as Reed. I was content with sitting on the thicker branches instead of teetering in the sun near the top. Every day I ventured one limb higher, one foot further from the ground. My breath always caught in my throat. My hands trembled and my heart pounded. Then I would calm and look around, viewing the world around me each day as if it were the first time I had ever seen it. The freedom of climbing was amazing, always facing the risk of falling frighteningly exhilarating.
I let out a sigh and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. I could hear Eddie lumbering around in the lower branches. He was like a bulldozer in the tree, always snapping branches and knocking down loose apples. I shook my head, lightly laughing, and reached for another apple. Something rustled above me. Looking up, I could barely see Reed leaning back against the trunk.
“
Millie, can I ask you something?” he asked, his voice drifting softly through the leaves.
My stomach knotted, but I quickly sucked in a deep breath, forcing away the strange feeling. “Yeah, sure.”
“
Who hurt you?”
My mind seemed to run into a solid wall, shattering into a million pieces in an instant. His question was completely not what I had expected. I had thought he would ask why I kept him at a distance. Why I disappeared every night as soon as I could. Instead, he dove straight in and found the hidden question that I thought I had safe guarded against.
“
What…” My tongue had gone thick, unable to form any words.
“
You are always looking over your shoulder. Always… keeping your distance.”
I didn’t say anything. I just stared at the bottom of his foot, barely visible in the thick branches.
“
I’m sorry,” he said, his voice obviously mad at himself. “That was way too personal. Forget it.”
“
No, no it’s okay.” I took in a deep breath, feeling a lump form in my throat. “It was a guard.” I could hear the sharp intake of Reed’s breath, sucking in through his clenched teeth. “Reed, it wasn’t like that. He just… he wanted me to stay there. I guess he had come to like me, in some way. One day he decided to tell me with a little more force than needed.” My voice trailed off. I clenched my eyes a moment, my nails digging into the bark as I tried to force away the memory.
It shouldn’t have bothered me that much. It had shaken me, yes, but the fact that it haunted me every time I was near another man, especially Reed, drove deep into my core.
I was happy that I couldn’t see Reed. I didn’t want to have to look into his eyes and see his sorrow for what I had gone through. It would only have made it worse. I could hear him breathing above me. Looking up, I could only see his feet, frozen mid swing, his hands gripping the branch he sat on. His knuckles were white.
“
A guard,” he said, his voice carefully low. “A guard should never do that. Even if it wasn’t… wasn’t…” He sighed. “They are supposed to protect us.” He spat out the last words, the anger almost tangible in the air.
The branches above me rustled. Reed dropped down in front of me, grabbing onto the branch and righting his body in one quick swing. He sat a foot away, staring into my eyes.
“
Millie, I will never hurt you. Never.” He stared into my eyes, his own swimming with emotions I couldn’t even fathom. “I promise.”
I found myself staring back, never wanting to look away. “I believe you.”
Time could have frozen there and I would have been content. Even perched high up in the tree, teetering slightly every time a breeze blew past, I had never felt safer in my life.
All of my resolve to stay distant, to safe-guard against this potential threat, dwindled as I looked back into Reed’s eyes. I tried to grasp it. I tried to make it stay. Everyone had a potential of being bad, of betraying, of hurting. I couldn’t risk letting Reed do that to me. But I couldn’t fight this pull. Inside I twisted in confusion as I finally loosened on the self-imposed distance I had been holding so tight. Reed parted his lips to say something.
“
Hey, you two!” I jumped, looking down wide-eyed at Eddie who stood on the ground now, gazing up into the branches. “I am way done with apple plucking for the day. How’s about we get into town?”
I looked back at Reed. His lips were still parted, his eyes watching me as if he still wanted to say more. Then he glanced down to Eddie and nodded. “Yeah, coming down.”