“Is that all?”
“Yup.”
“Thank god.” Frederick collapsed on the ground, panting. His shirt was darkened with sweat. “I don’t see how you do this every day, man.”
Michael bit down on the piece of straw that mostly hung out of his mouth. “You get used to it.”
“And you’re gonna’ keep going?”
“Have to.” Michael grunted as he sat down another box-full of apples into the bed of the pickup truck.
Frederick laughed as he picked himself off the ground. “You’re a machine. We're still good for nine tonight?”
Michael hummed. “Maybe.”
“Just give me a call. I’ll see-ya later.”
Frederick’s form quickly disappeared among the rows and rows of apple trees. “Yup,” Michael sighed, and went to pick up another box. His forearms and knees were aching at this point, but there were still trees to pick. He needed to do at least eighty trees. With Ashleigh, it was easy to do eighty trees in a seven hour window, but…
The back of the truck creaked as Michael slammed the box of apples down into it. The half of the straw that was hanging out of Michael’s mouth was on the ground now — he’d bitten too hard. He replaced it with a cigarette and got back to work.
~~~
It was dark now, so dark that Michael had to turn on the truck’s headlights to help guide him back to the barn. After parking the truck next to the barn, he slipped out of the driver’s seat and almost immediately fell back into it. It felt like his knees were going against cement every time he took a step, and a migraine had been drilling inside the back of his skull for the better part of an hour. He took another cigarette and started unloading the boxes. He got two before he saw Granny on the porch, watching him.
“Your food’s cold,” she called.
“I’ll come in and eat after I get all these boxes inside!” He entered the barn to deposit another box and when he came out, suddenly Granny was by the side of the pickup, gaping at the boxes of apples.
“How many is this?” She blinked at Michael, and Michael pursed his lips. She looked back at the boxes. “You did eighty again today. Did you even let that boy help you?”
“Yup,” he said, and then reached for another box. He realized his mistake when he saw the look on Granny’s face.
“Michael — ! Your hand!” She snatched his right hand and looked at it. Michael couldn’t bring himself to — one look at the purple, red mark was enough. “What is this?!”
“Just slipped with one of the boxes.” He tried to tug his hand away but Granny’s grasp was firm. “It’s nothing serious.”
“Nothing serious,” she sighed. “You’re worrying me.” When he didn’t reply, she looked up from his hand with wet eyes. “It’s the same. It’s like Brian.“
His breathing hitched. “What?”
“You’re acting like he did.”
Michael ripped his hand away from her. “I’m nothing like him.”
Granny flinched back, but refused to relent. “It’s the same. I saw it then and I’m seeing it now.”
He clicked his tongue. Pressure built up behind his eyelids. “I’m — I’m going to finish moving these.” He lifted another box, but Granny grabbed his elbow.
“Stop, Michael! Listen to me — “
Michael slid out of her grasp and started towards the barn again.
“You have to stop acting like this! Imagine if Ashleigh and Bethany saw you like this, moping around — “
The box hit the ground with a hard thud. Michael turned around and tried to blink away the tears. “You — you don’t get it — “
“I do get it, Michael! Dammit, I’ve seen it twice now, with you!”
“Stop.” Michael’s voice wavered. “I’m not — “
“You are,” she insisted. “This is just like him, right before he left!”
His lips trembled, and it took him three tries of opening and closing his mouth before he was able to say something. “I’m not leaving.”
“You already have.”
Michael exhaled, hard. “What?”
Granny closed her eyes. “Y’all start drinkin’. Y’all start working over-time, every day. And then you’re gone.” Her eyelids lifted and Michael found it hard to meet her gaze. “You walk and talk but your heart’s gone. You’re not livin’ anymore. You’re dyin’!”
He rubbed at his eyes. “I —... “
“That’s no life to live, Michael. When was the last time you even talked to Sarah? That poor girl — “
“ — I’ll be back,” he hissed, and started into a brisk walk.
“Michael — “
He stormed by Granny without even a glance. Her voice faded into silence as he got further and further away from the barn. The night-lights of Parkville ahead was all the guidance he needed.
When he was sure his breathing had calmed, he grabbed his cellphone.
~~~
The bottom of the glass looked funny.
“You think it’s about time you head home, pal?” The bartender leaned over the counter and asked.
Michael gawked at him.
“You seem like you’ve had enough.”
“Naw,” Michael slurred. “I’m — good.”
The bartender sighed and started filling his glass, again. “I’ll add it to your tab.”
“Michael!” He’d gotten halfway done with that glass when Frederick slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Come here, man, there’s this girl — “
Frederick’s voice seemed a hundred miles away. Michael didn’t understand a word of what he was saying, but let himself be dragged to one of the tables nearing the corner of the bar. There was a girl there.
“You work at the local farm?”
He understood her even less. Her long hair reminded him of Sarah, though.
She looked concerned. “Are you — ?”
“Ah.” He licked his lips, let his forehead rest on the table, and then puked. Closing his eyes felt good.
“You coulda’ told me you were about to be sick…” Frederick grumbled. When Michael opened his eyes, he found himself outside. The cold air made his head hurt, but the moon was pretty tonight, so he stared up at it.
Eventually he stopped staring. Frederick was gone now, and Michael was sitting on a chair on the front porch of the barn-house. I’m tired, he thought, and decided to go to bed.
It didn’t take long for him to totter into his room. His body hit the bed immediately afterwards. With the moonlight coming in from the window, he could barely make out the figures of Ashleigh and Bethany, staring back at him from a picture frame.
“I miss you,” he whispered and fell into darkness.
~~~
Michael yawned, and then groaned — there was a deep ache in his back. Turning over, something tickled his nose. When he opened his eyes, he found grass.
“Ugh,” he groaned again and sat up. His head throbbed, and through his blurry vision he could make out the figures of several apples trees around him. Did I pass out in the orchard? He tried to retrace his steps from the night before, but the last thing he could remember was the face of that bartender.
He let his face rest in the palm of his hand. I really screwed up this time, didn’t I? Granny’s gonna be —
“Ya’ gotta’ be careful with it, Applebloom!”
Michael’s heart nearly pierced his chest. That’s —
“I’m tryin’!”
Ashleigh? Bethany?
He craned his head towards the direction of the voices.
“Don’t go too fast, it’ll take longer to pick all the apples back up if you drop ‘em than it will be to go slow and steady now.”
An orange pony with a stetson hat and a picture of an apple on its flank appeared from around one of the trees. “That’s it, just — “
It froze when it saw him.
All Michael could do was stare right back. Did that pony just — ? What?
“What?” Another pony rounded into view, this one much smaller and with a crate of apples on its back. It was a paler yellow with a mane that looked like fire. When it saw Michael, it yelped and hid behind the bigger one.
Time seemed to stop for a second.
Those were Asleigh’s and Bethany’s voices, for sure, but… did they just come from those ponies!?
