Return to the Orchard

Apple picking? What am I, seven? This latest in the series of my father’s attempts to buy my forgiveness falls so short of the mark it’s behind the starting point.

“Beautiful weather for this, eh sweetheart?” He receives my glare with a chuckle so awkward the scarecrow grimaces, but he’s right. It’s one of those perfect autumn days, just cold enough to need a sweater but not so cold that you’re miserable if you forget one. I forgot one, but I’m sixteen and therefore as immune to the cold as I am to my father’s bribery. My father has his plaid sleeves rolled up. His pre-distressed jeans complete the fake-farmer look he can’t pull off because he still slicks his black hair off his spray-tanned face like a wannabe Italian celebrity.

I pluck an apple with too much force, and the branch springs back and scratches my cheek. Figures the tree would side with him. I move to shove the apple in my bag but stop short. Its rough surface fills my palm, so different from the waxy supermarket ones. Lumpy and asymmetrical, it reminds me of the sculpture I made for Father’s Day in the second grade. I shove the apple in my sack and move to the next tree. My father jogs to catch up to me.

“Still tired?” I ask.

“I said I was sorry.” His eyes are red, as if the crows’ feet plucking at their corners scratched them. I pick another apple. Honeycrisp, the expensive variety. I may as well make him pay for this father-daughter bonding crap. Belated father-daughter bonding crap.

A cool breeze rustles the leaves. I close my eyes and let it play with my loose hair. It’s so quiet here. Not like home, where Mom is constantly arguing with the neighbors about whether their seventh grader may practice his clarinet at six a.m. on Saturdays. Here it’s just the leaves, a tractor in the distance, a wind chime. I could get used to this music.

Wait. I’m supposed to be angry. Shoot. How am I supposed to simmer in teenage ire with the smell of dry leaves filling my nostrils? I open my eyes and regret it. My dad is smiling at me as if he has done nothing wrong.

“It’s nice to get away for a while, isn’t it?”

“What are your plans for the apples?” I ask in lieu of admitting I agree. I grab three more Honeycrisp and shove them into my sack.

“I, uh”—he swallows—“I thought we could make applesauce. You know, eat it warm with whipped cream like we did when you were little?”

Warm applesauce, extra spicy with cool sweet cream melting into it. My mouth waters, and I can feel the fuzzy blanket embracing my shoulders as we snuggle on that lumpy couch. Father-daughter movie night. I always fell asleep before the credits.

I push the memory aside, replace it with a more recent one. “Grow up, Dad. I did.” I skip the next two trees, trying to put distance between us, but he follows me. He picks a few more apples before speaking.

“You grew up so fast.”

“Kids do that, especially when you only see them six weeks out of the year.” Four weeks over the summer, a week at Thanksgiving, and a week at fall break. Nothing like court-dictated family bonding to cement a father-daughter relationship.

He leans against the thin tree trunk, and I can see the business negotiator in his eyes changing tactics. “Okay, let’s talk about adulthood. You have any idea what you want to study in college?”

I reach for an apple, but my hand misses and lands on the tree. I can’t move it. My body freezes as my mind whirls through all the arguments I’d used to convince my mother. The storm in my brain tosses them in a heap like debris from a tornado. Useless.

I rub my thumb over the tree’s rough bark, and my muscles relax. He can’t afford to argue with me. I still have the high ground. “Actually, I don’t think college is for me. I like working with my hands. I want to be a carpenter.”

My father’s brows furrow, but the hammer of judgement remains silent. “When did you get into woodworking?”

“Two summers ago.” For three weeks, I watched carpentry videos on the internet as I waited for my father to stumble home after a night of “sealing deals.” I asked to go back to Mom’s place a week early. He didn’t even try to convince me to stay.

I position the tree between us and keep picking apples even though my sack is straining at the seams. My father stays where he is, but the breeze pushes the leaves aside so I can see his wounded face. Worry lines that weren’t there before cut trenches beside his cheeks, and a strand of gray zigzags through his black hair like lightening across the night sky. He has aged, but he wears the same look of concern he’d worn the day he taught me to ride a bicycle.

“My father was a loser, Ainsley.” His voice is softer than the rustling leaves. “I know I worked a lot that summer, but I-I wanted to give you a better start in life than he gave me.”

“Life starts before age eighteen, Dad.”

His shoulders slump. The man who can get the hardest-hearted executive to laugh with him over whiskey shots can’t meet his daughter’s gaze. “I’m sorry.”

I tear my eyes from his guilt. Two rows away, a little girl squeals and holds an apple out to her father. He holds open the bag, and she slam-dunks it in. That was us once, only we had Milo with us. The Russell Terrier never left my side. My father said we couldn’t leave the orchard until I was covered in both doggie-kisses and daddy-kisses.

No. I won’t let him weasel his way back into my heart. I take a breath, push that sabotaging scent of apples and hay out of my nose, and force my mind back to my birthday. The airport’s stench of stale fast food and leather shoes bully into my nose, haggard travelers replace the orchard’s trees, and static-garbled announcements drown out the wind chime. My feet ache from standing. My eyes burn from straining. The shoulder strap of my duffle bag cuts into my shoulder. He’s not there. My phone rings. My father’s voice apologizes, slurring his words. He’d gone out for a few drinks to celebrate closing the big deal. He’ll be there soon.

I told him I’d take a cab.

How many birthdays has he forgotten? How many summers have I spent with Mom when I was supposed to be with him? How many times have we eaten Chinese takeout for Thanksgiving because he “lost track of time?”

My sack of apples hits the ground with a thud, and bruised fruit spills onto the parched ground. I push aside the branches and march across the orchard, vision blurred.

“Ainsley? Ainsley, wait.” My father grips my shoulders, pivots me to face him, but his expression is blurry, as though one of my contacts slipped. “I messed up. I know. I’m a terrible father, but please, give me a second chance.” His voice cracks. I blink my vision clear and catch the desperation in his eyes. I shake loose from his grip and step back. It’s disturbing watching a grown man break.

He clears his throat. “With this deal wrapped up, I can afford to hire help. I’m the boss now. I can force my underlings to work Thanksgiving.”

Too late. Only two Thanksgivings left before I turn eighteen and he no longer has the legal authority to drag me apple picking. Only two years left to be Daddy’s little girl. I wipe the tears off my face, but instead of spitting my hatred, I say, “I got a job. It’s basically just sweeping sawdust, but it’s a start.”

He smiles, anguish draining from his face as we return to less painful ground. “That’s great. I’m proud of you.” He follows me back to the tree and picks up our fallen harvest. “I had money saved for your college fund, but you can use it for training or equipment or whatever.”

“Really? You don’t want me to stay in school?”

He shakes his head. “You can support yourself as a tradeswoman. I want you to be happy, honey.”

I’m glad he’s holding the apples, because I’d drop them. I hadn’t planned on telling him my plans—no point in enduring his lecture after already weathering my mother’s—but he’d sided with me. Maybe I should have told him first.

The breeze teases a strand of his hair out of its gel cage, making him look like a normal dad. The kind of father who’d support his daughter’s dreams instead of forgetting her birthday. A father who isn’t too proud to put on an apron to make apple sauce, get whipped cream all over his nose, and watch a sappy movie with his little girl.

I open my mouth, but all my words must have flown south for the winter. The bell tolls, calling us back to the wagon and sparing me a response.

I sit on the hay bale, keeping two inches between me and my dad. He can’t close the gap, loaded as he is with two sacks of apples. A tired group of parents sits across from us, looking grateful to get off their feet. Their children’s eyes are manic from the day’s excitement, a sure sign they’ll pass out on the car ride home. The littlest girl is already asleep in her father’s arms. Like me, she couldn’t last until the credits.

The tractor pulls our wagon to a barn that stands at attention at the top of the hill like an old soldier who can’t get used to retirement. The last of the afternoon’s sunshine glances off the refurbished wood. I love refurbished wood. The whole idea of taking something weathered and broken and turning into something new and beautiful—

My stomach twists. There’s a life lesson here I don’t want to learn. I push my thoughts aside as I follow my father off the tractor. The barn’s interior is an apple-picker’s paradise. Bundles of fruit lie piled on wooden pallets for those too lazy to pick their own. Shelves of syrups and jams line the walls. Racks of pumpkins, scarecrows, and other fall décor fill the center space. A cooler on the far wall tempts patrons with perishable treats. The entire room smells like the caramel apples and kettle corn ambushing customers near the cash register.

We wait in line behind the father who holds his sleeping daughter against his chest. I don’t offer to carry our apples. My dad doesn’t ask. He accepts responsibility for this outing, accepts the weight of our baggage.

“Looks like you two had a successful harvest,” the elderly cashier jokes as she rings us up. “That will be—”

“Wait.” I race to the cooler, snatch carton of heavy whipping cream, and thunk it next to our apples. I glance at my father. “You have cinnamon at home, right? And cardamom?” He nods. Cardamom is our secret ingredient. I push the cream toward the cashier, address my father out of the corner of my mouth. “I’m still mad, so no stupid sci-fi movies.”

The crows’ feet dance around my father’s eyes as he smiles. “How about that World War II flick? It just came out on blue-ray.”

“Okay,” I say, and maybe, just maybe, I mean it.