Little Green Apples

When Sam, my niece, was a kid, she had a really bad stutter. Even after years of tantrums in the speech therapy waiting room, she could never manage her own tongue. When she was maybe six or so, it looked like the words choked her. Clumping in her throat like a gutter with too many leaves. I often snapped at her. It was just depressing…watching the words spill from her lips like drool, incoherent and muddled. It made her a quiet kid, never saying much past hello or thank you. Or perhaps she just gained the habit of not speaking because, mostly, she didn’t need to. Her mother anticipated her needs and wants often before she even knew she had them.

Every Thursday, she’d get pulled from school, my sister and her husband worked religiously, so they’d hesitantly ask me to take her to therapy. They’d pull the cigarettes out of my purse beforehand or hide the keys to my car so I couldn’t purchase more. I often needed a blanket of relief, a comforting cloud of smoke to help me get through sitting in the waiting room.

I remember the doctor's office smelling like cold disinfectant spray and crayons. I’d sit, usually with a headache and a growing nausea in the pits of my stomach, rubbing my temple as Sam would repeat the same syllable again and again. She’d do this thing where she’d press her tongue to the back of her teeth whenever she was frustrated with her words. Her lips would tremble, as if she were chewing on air, her face blooming pink. The therapist would poke her head out from the wall, tell her they were ready, and Sam would drag her small feet across the carpet, clutching her doll by the neck. The door would close, but I could still hear her quiet voice through the wall as she tried to generate enough language in her mouth to be understood.

And my sister had this apple tree in her backyard. It sure was a grand-looking thing. It had a thick, gnarled trunk, slightly dark with age. The branches stretched out like limbs, shading the entire ground like a canopy. It seemed to me that it had the gravity of someone who had lived a hundred years or more. Every year there’d be hundreds of little green apples that were always sour and bitter.

After Sam’s therapy, we’d lie under the tree. Or I’d lie under the tree, smoking a stale cigarette from the bottom of my purse, while she roamed around, picking a few flowers and weeds and silently arranging them in unique shapes. Sometimes she’d tug on the hem of my shirt and point to an out-of-reach apple. She’d carry all the ones I’d pick for her with her shirt, her cheeks high on her face, and her eyes bouncing around from apple to apple with this dense, hopeful look.

The unkempt nature of the yard meant the grass was tall enough to tickle your elbows. Sam would hop through the field like a rabbit. I remember she loved to braid the grass. Sometimes she’d stick weeds in my hair like a crown.

Sam was the only kid in the family. I’d often see her playing by herself, moving her hands in big circles, pointing to things, wagging a finger, shrugging, or throwing a dismissive wave without saying a single word. I wondered about the world in her head, the trapped words on her tongue.

One year, the tree became infested. Termites ate it right up. Made most of the branches brittle. I’d wave to Sam, telling her to put her ear to the trunk and listen to the little bugs munch away at the wood inside. She liked that. I showed her to, I guess, give her a sense of how loud small worlds can be. I don’t think she understood that.

On her seventh birthday, my sister invited Sam’s entire class. Thirty kids came to the house. I think my sister thought this would somehow fix her. I knew Sam didn’t want to have a big party. I could tell by the way she lingered uncomfortably in the doorway as my sister made her greet every kid that walked through like some sort of speech practice.

Gosh, I remember the noise—the shrill chorus of screaming children talking over one another while Sam lingered around the edges. I nearly fainted from the headache.When they sang Happy Birthday, they screamed her name like some sort of punchline. She pushed away from the table so fast the chair tipped on its back legs and slammed into the floor. Nobody followed her.

My sister kept saying therapy would sort her out eventually. I didn’t disagree; I thought that's what she needed. Who was I to say anything, really? It was easier not to look too closely at the ways Sam was beginning to fold inward.

I spotted Sam through the back window, kneeling in the grass by the apple tree, arranging tiny white clovers in a perfect circle. She didn’t cry or even make a noise. She just pressed her ear to the ground, gestured to the grass like she was talking to someone. I stood there for a long time.

As the rest of the kids screamed and ran through the halls, I went to the bathroom and sat on the floor of my sister's bathroom…I think a bottle of vodka—possibly gin, I didn’t have a favorite then, tucked hidden between my thighs. I had no idea how much time had passed, if any did at all. Sam knocked on the door. I said come in even when I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t care. As I looked up at her through my bleeding mascara, she looked fragile, as if she were a drop of water that would be destroyed with a touch. Her jaw was clenched and lips in a thin line. She had dirt underneath her fingernails and grass stains on her knees. Her shirt was full of rotting apples, ones she probably picked up from the ground. She opened her mouth only to close it again. I began to be frustrated with her then.

She looked at me with some sort of desperate need, sticking her tongue out like she wanted me to pull out whatever was stuck between her teeth. But I was tired. The fluorescent lights were too bright, and I snapped. Told her to just spit it out.

She tapped my knee over and over, hiccuping, trying to ask me something. I tried to translate what she said. I don’t doubt something about picking more apples. I don’t remember. I didn’t understand, anyway.

I just nodded and stayed on the floor.

The tree must have been on its last leg of stability. Maybe it was just poorly taken care of. Maybe it was the termites. Sam waited there. A branch collapsed on her.

As I stepped outside for a smoke, I found her. No pulse. I slowly walked back through the kitchen. My sister scolded me for smoking in the living room, but I had completely forgotten the lit cigarette was dangling from my mouth. I grabbed my sister by the arm and led her to the apple tree. I had never heard her screech like that. All the kids were rushed out by frantic parents.

After that, the tree rightfully gave everyone unease. Even neighbors. They had left angry notes on the front door, demanding the removal. Safety issues. An ugly mark in a nice neighborhood.

My sister managed to have another kid a quick year after Sam’s death. A boy. She had a boy this time around. They threw him a nice party for his first birthday at the house. I remember looking out the back window and still seeing the tree standing tall, still full of termites, still growing those bitter little green apples, still waiting for it all to fall.

No one was allowed past the porch. The little boy my sister had was born with a cleft lip. I never understood the extravagance of a party for a one-year-old when he couldn’t even speak past that cleft. I held him for a while. He smelled like baby powder. I wondered if he’d remain like that forever. Quiet and fresh.

I went to the backyard carrying the baby, despite my sister demanding me to stay away. I kissed him atop his head a lot. Feeling the few soft and fine hairs that were growing thicker by the week. I brought the baby to the trunk and listened to the termites inside. He seemed excited. He cooed and dribbled into my sweater, maybe trying to say something. He had the same hopeful look Sam would have whenever we picked apples. I reached up and pulled one from a branch and let the baby hold it with his clumsy, delicate fingers.

I brought him back inside, gave him to my sister, who couldn’t understand why he was crying. She eyed me from her seat, upset with me that I had made her son cry.

When Sam was born, I sat on the floor of the hospital, right outside my sister’s delivery room. I didn’t see Sam being born but I heard her. I mean, that’s how you know babies are alive, right? They cry.

Holding Sam’s whining brother, he used his raw and tangled voice to fill a small room. He hiccuped and drooled. Mouth open and screaming with an intensity that made me want to cry with him. I dragged a hand down his teary face and apologized.