Sweet Cherry Pie

Storms are the conductors to Mother Nature’s greatest orchestras. The flow of rain hitting ceramic roofs, the distant rumbling of thunder, and the wind gently caressing the beautiful chimes hanging on a neighbor’s porch. They all come together to cover the night’s silence and provide comfort to those who have troubles keeping them awake.

Ernest was one of these poor restless souls. The outside might have been pitch black, but the dozens of candles positioned around the living room illuminated the chamber with an orange glow. They gave off the pleasant smell of red apples and pumpkin pie.

The den was not normally covered in flickering candles, but the stubborn storm had been messing with the electricity of Ernest’s quaint home. He liked the rain anyways, as it reminded him of the first day he and his wife met. Several decades back, they both found themselves in a diner hiding out from a storm similar to this one. They decided to get food together since there was no one else besides the waitress and the cook. Ernest remembered fondly that he ordered a hot soup to combat the freezing rain while she ordered a cold cherry pie. It was strange at first, but it just became yet another odd thing he loved about her. Things quickly heated up and the two lovebirds spent the rest of the day together, even after the storm had passed. They got married a few months later and they haven’t been separated since.

Ernest’s wife sat in her usual green chair, facing the dark window. She liked to always stare outside and watch the cars drive past. Occasionally there would be a pooch hanging its hairy head out of the window, to which she would shout with excitement and beg for Ernest to see it too. Every time she had called him over to look at the dogs, Ernest would stand behind her chair and instead look at her reflection in the window. The dogs would appear rarely, as they lived near the back half of the neighborhood, but it would make her smile so genuinely, Ernest would think about it for days. They might’ve been two boring elders, but Ernest didn’t mind. He was satisfied always being at her side.

“Janice, my sweet cherry pie, how would you like a cup of water?” Ernest sat up from his old rocking chair and approached the back of his wife’s lounge chair. He rested a hand on her head and stared at the faint image of her face in the glass reflecting off of the room’s candlelight. Her eyes were trained towards rain droplets racing down the window. His wife was never a fan of rain like he was, apparently not sharing the same fond memories. “Your mouth must be dry, I’ll get you one anyways.”

Ernest retracted his hands and turned around too rapidly for his old body. He doubled over in pain as a searing spot manifested in his lower back. He slowly stepped towards his rocking chair and leaned against the back of it, giving himself a break for a minute. Ernest had been lifting heavy things back and forth recently, so it must have impaired his back. After the pain subsided, he continued his journey into the next room.

The kitchen door was slowly pushed open and Ernest immediately became colder. A single candle sat on the counter next to the small refrigerator. He pulled open the handle and was hit by the stench of several rotten fruits, although his sense of smell had almost completely disappeared a few years back. The storm had been going on for almost a week now, with no sign of it letting up. Ernest ignored the melted plums and cherries and instead grabbed the pitcher of warm water, placing it on the counter next to the candle. The refrigerator shut on its own as Ernest used most of his energy to stretch and reach the cupboard above the counter. Out of it came a single glass cup, soon to be filled with lukewarm water. As Ernest finished, he left the pitcher on the counter and pushed open the heavy kitchen door once again. He began to say something to his wife when something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Ernest paused his movement and turned his head towards the old staircase to his left.

The staircase in his compact home was faced away from the front door and the connected living room. It instead faced the little nook where the kitchen, bathroom, and dining room doors resided in that order. The staircase sat in the middle of the first floor, with the dining room wrapping around and having another exit by the front door, behind the stairs. The stairs themselves were made out of a light brown wood, but they were also covered in a strange green carpet, almost similar to the outside of a pear. The staircase was almost completely pitch black as Ernest used all of his candles for the living room and kitchen. However, even in the shadows, Ernest noticed something out of the ordinary. A few steps up, in the middle of the carpeted stairs, sat an oddly colored spot. It was a little skewed from the center of the step itself and was about the size of an apple. Ernest looked at the spot with a confused expression. He stood there for a moment, his trembling hand shaking the water glass. A crash of thunder outside snapped him out of the trance and he resumed his mission, bringing the cup to his wife.

“Here you go Janice. Drink up please. We should go to bed soon.”

There was a long pause filled only with the rain pattering against the house before his wife responded in a raspy and elderly voice.

“Thank you Ernie, but I am not thirsty. I enjoy looking at this rain.”

He looked at her face’s reflection in the window. Ernest smiled and a tear formed in his eye. His wife hadn’t said much the past couple of days since the storm started, so he was grateful for even a few words. He loved his wife’s voice, but it had become significantly rougher. Ernest was worried she had caught a cold from the mailman or the recent weather, so he had placed a box of tissues on the end table beside her earlier. It still sat there on the circular table next to the water glass, both untouched. A seed of worry sprouted in Ernest’s stomach and it began to grumble. Feeling a tad under the weather himself, he squeezed his wife’s shoulder as a goodbye and shuffled towards the bathroom. He knew there were no lights in the toilet, so he grabbed a nearby candle and brought it with him.

As he approached the closed bathroom door, he felt a deep sense of dread pull on the hairs of his neck. Ernest carefully pivoted his head and found himself staring at the staircase. In the middle of the staircase, in the middle of the step, sat a dark spot. It was slightly off-center and seemed to be the size of a common apple. Almost compelled by a dark curiosity, Ernest stepped up on the first stair and bent down so that his face was aligned with the middle step. The dark spot stared back at him.

Ernest raised the candle from his side and held it as close as he could to the carpet without spilling the melted wax. The color of the spot was more of a dark brown than the black it had looked like in the shadows. Ernest pressed a wrinkled finger to the spot and the stained carpet bristles felt hard, like if someone had spilled something on it. Strangely enough, there were a few more indentations in various places on the spot, as if someone else had poked their finger in it too. A sudden wave of realization washed over Ernest as his finger pushed deeper into the stale carpet. He quickly retracted his finger, shook his head a few times, stood back up, and turned around. He brought the candle to his finger and noticed a few specks of something left from the carpet. Ernest stared at his stained finger for a moment, drowning out the noise of the rain, before his stomach grumbled once again and he glanced back up at his surroundings. Unbothered, he opened the bathroom door and waddled inside.

The candle sat on top of the sink as Ernest twisted the handle, careful not to use too much water. He stuck his index finger under the tiny stream of running water and watched as the substance trickled off of it. He didn’t know how it got onto his hand, but he just knew it needed to be cleaned off. The final specks fell into the sink and Ernest looked down. There seemed to be a lot more scattered around the sink than what he had just washed off. He decided to think nothing of it and instead looked at himself in the sink’s dusty mirror. A tuft of old gray hair sat in a mound on his otherwise bald head. A large brown birthmark stretched across the bridge of his nose and ended under his left eye. He was never ashamed of his birthmark, but it always made it hard for him to make friends as a kid. That’s why he was grateful he met Janice that stormy day in the diner. She didn’t judge his looks, which proved her love already. He never wanted to be away from her again and he kept that promise to this day.

Ernest rubbed his suddenly teary eyes and adjusted his blue striped pajama shirt. It was a gift from his wife too, which solidified blue as his favorite color. He grabbed the candle, illuminated his yellow-stained smile in the mirror, and turned around to head back towards the living room. At the door frame, Ernest froze. Although it was dark and covered in a layer of shadows, he noticed something odd about his staircase. A few steps down from the top, an apple-sized spot was stained into the carpet. It was a little off from the middle of it, positioned more to the right of the stair. Curious like he always has been, Ernest ignored the feeling of dread and stepped towards the staircase.

It felt like the spot was pulling him closer to it with a tight rope around his ribcage. He found it quite hard to breathe while looking at it, but he couldn’t look away. It was a strange thing– almost mesmerizing. It shouldn’t have been there in his light green carpet, but somehow it found its way like an unwanted rodent. Ernest stepped closer and felt the hairs on his neck erect. The spot stared at his poor elderly face like a giant pupil. Before he could get within inches of the dark spot, he heard his wife call out to him.

“Ernie? Where are you? Come here.”

Solemnly, Ernest composed himself and backed away from the staircase. He walked over to his wife and sat the candle down on the end table. Condensation from the water glass had built up a puddle around the base of the cup. Ernest stood behind the green chair and rested his frail hands on top of it.

“Yes darling? How are you feeling?”

Again, a long pause. The dark night created a void on the other side of the window. Ernest waited patiently before the raspy voice materialized.

“I am feeling well, my dear Ernie. Do not worry about me. Why don’t you stay in your chair and sleep here tonight once more? I feel as though that you may be catching–”

A sudden flash of lightning beat out the candlelight and illuminated the room. The bolt must have been right outside the living room window as there was not an inch of the area not covered in light for the quick second. Additionally, in that quick second, Ernest saw something. Staring at her reflection while she spoke to him, his eyes waited for that smile he always loved seeing. However, there was no smile in the window. As the lightning shined into his living room, his wife was put into a harsher light and Ernest had barely enough time to notice that not only was she not smiling, but her lips weren’t moving at all as she spoke.

The room resumed its dim orange glow. Ernest slowly backed away from the chair in confusion. The air in the den became noticeably more musty, causing Ernest to produce shallow breaths.

“Janice?” Ernest’s voice trembled under the heavy sound of rain hitting the window. Promptly, he heard a faint rustle in the chair and watched as his wife quickly slumped over in her seat. He couldn’t see his wife fully, but her hand was no longer resting on the arm of the lounge chair. The small puddle surrounding the water glass had now begun to stream off the end table and leak onto the wooden floor. Ernest took one foot in front of the other and made his way slowly around the back of the green chair. Thunder crashed, causing him to jump out of his skin. As his view revealed his wife doubled over in her chair, his eyes began to tear up. Panicking and worried, the loving Ernest rushed as quickly as his old body could and crouched beside his wife. He was now positioned in between the window and the lounge chair, no longer letting the green cushions separate his affection.

Ernest squeezed his wife’s shoulder and shook her a little bit. Her matte gray hair had fallen down, hiding her face. Her arms dangled downwards in a limp fashion, brushing against the heels of her feet as Ernest swayed her back and forth.

“Please respond Janice.”

Only the storm replied. Wind chimes sent a wonderful tune through the air, but Ernest ignored it. As he became increasingly worried about his wife, the hairs on his neck suddenly stood up as something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye.

Sitting on the headrest of the green chair, near the top, was a strikingly dark spot. Ernest stopped shaking his wife and stared at this strange spot. Ernest stood up, still locked onto the dark spot. He had never seen anything like it before, it was mesmerizing. He was stuck in a trance-like state and drowned out the rain. Ernest’s panicked expression steadily shifted into a blank face and glanced downwards.

Ignoring the matching apple-sized dark spot on the back of his wife’s head, he reached down and carefully brought her fully back onto the chair. He positioned her arm on the armrest and brushed off the dust from her nightgown. Ernest looked into her glossy eyes that only stared at the window. Ernest cleared his throat.

“Thank you, my sweet Ernie. I must have fallen asleep,” Ernest spoke in a raspy voice.

“Oh don’t worry about it darling. Sleep gets the best of us,” he responded to himself in a usual tone. “We must be off to bed now anyways, maybe the storm will finally leave us alone in the morning.”

Ernest smiled and gave his wife’s clammy skin a kiss on the forehead. He backed away from his wife and sat back down in his rocking chair. A sense of comfort and relaxation filled his mind. His wife responded in a raspy voice.

“I hope it does, Ernie. Thank you for always being there for me. I feel so safe with you around.”

“I’ll always be there for you, my sweet cherry pie. Nothing will ever separate us, I promise you that.”

Ernest sighed to himself and adjusted himself in his seat, getting comfortable enough to sleep. He shut his eyes and thought of nice memories. He thought of the one decades earlier where he and his wife had met in a diner, on a similarly stormy day. Ernest concentrated on the sound of the rain and thunder and all of his worries seemed to wash away with the weather. The stormy orchestra hitting the roof was usually heavy enough to cause major damage to his home, but it was nothing compared to the single tear that had fallen from Ernest’s shut eye.