The apple is an omen.
She does not yet know why, but she is sure of it.
The moment Edith finds it near the hearth, she pauses, a stillness overcoming her body. And then she cannot help but reach for it, pick it up, twist it this way and that in the window’s early-morning light.
She wonders if her husband has left it here for her. But that would be curious for David, who is a practical man. Not uncaring, not unkind, but also not preoccupied with the happiness of others. And anyway, she does not know where he would have gotten it. She has heard of only one neighbor, farther north, who has an apple tree in the garden. The low-lying, sandy ground of the Shore does not provide the right climate for growing apple trees.
And yet here she is, holding the firm red thing in her hand.
A part of her consciousness tugs at her like a small child at the hem of her dress. Desperate to be heard. But she snuffs out that voice with her logical brain, a habit she has honed over the years. It is just an apple. When she sinks her teeth in, juice travels down her chin and through the space between her fingers. She has never tasted anything like it. The flavor is complex, at once biting and soft.
The ominous feeling persists, but she convinces herself she is making monsters of mist and wind after yesterday’s sermon. The minister spoke of Eve and the apple, and now she is conflating a religious lesson with an innocent piece of fruit—one that was likely ferried here by an animal from her northern neighbor’s property and dropped through her open window. Nothing mysterious about it.
She quickly braids her long, thin brown hair to keep it out of her face as she warms a late breakfast of cornmeal mush over the fire. She takes a few more bites from the apple’s yellowish flesh, and with each new burst of flavor, the hollow feeling in her stomach recedes. The apple is, indeed, just an apple. She thinks of her father, whose voice often bounces between her temples, reminding her that practicality and logic should always win over feelings. Perhaps he could see even when Edith was a child that she would forever be tempted by instinct.
A knock startles her from her thoughts. At once, her mouth is dry. She looks at the door, and though she resists it, the ominous feeling returns.
Another knock.
“A moment,” she says as she mixes the mush before abandoning it for her visitor. She slips the apple in her apron pocket and heaves the door open.
It’s Grace, Edith’s closest neighbor and friend. Her eyes are rimmed with red, her face flushed. She must have run the nearly two miles here. Her long, light hair, which usually falls effortlessly to below her breasts, is tied haphazardly at the nape of her neck, loose tendrils stuck to the sides of her sweaty face.
“Come,” she says between heavy breaths. “Please.”
“Calm. Breathe,” Edith tells her, placing a hand on Grace’s shoulder to help steady her. “You should sit.”
Grace shakes her head. The whites of her eyes are so red from crying that it makes the blue of her irises pop. “Bring your herbs,” she says. “My husband. His summer sickness—we need you.” Her body begins to convulse, the emotion of it all and the toll of the trip setting in.
Edith gets Grace settled in a chair. “Take a moment,” she instructs. “And then tell me.”
Grace nods and swallows. “Fever, surely. He was shivering when I left. Shivering! In this heat!”
Edith nods solemnly.
“And a rash,” Grace continues. “On his neck, his upper back. His eyes look different somehow. And he says it’s like fire in his throat.” Her own eyes fill, but she presses them closed forcefully in an effort to stave off tears.
“Okay,” Edith says. “Wait here while I gather my things.”
She needs to find David, who is somewhere on their forty acres, to inform him of her task. But first, she rushes to the corner of the main room just beyond the hearth. There, flush with the wide wooden floorboards, is the door to the root cellar, its rough-hewn planks growing softer each day with damp. Edith crouches low and wraps her fingers around the iron ring hammered into the door’s surface.
The wood, swollen from the humid sea air, groans as she pulls upward, the hinges squealing as if alive. A breath of cool, earthy air rises to greet her. She takes the lantern from its hook by the hearth, lights it with practiced care, and descends.
The steps are uneven, carved roughly from stone. The flickering light catches on shelves lined with clay pots and bundles of dried herbs and plants. The cellar is small, only about six feet by ten feet, but it is Edith’s favorite place. Filled with her treasures. She prefers plants to people. Roots are more honest than men. And they never ask questions she does not wish to answer.
The damp wraps around her like a friend in greeting. Her eyes scan the shelves as she carefully considers what remedies to bring for her sick neighbor. She must be well prepared; the journey is not short. There can be no quick return for a forgotten item.
She gathers the necessary jars, wooden bowls for mixing, and her mortar and pestle. Then she turns back and climbs slowly, the lantern trailing shadows down the stairwell behind her. When she has resurfaced, she closes the trapdoor and latches it. She spots her shears near the hearth and, in case she needs to harvest anything on the journey, slides them into her apron.
As she does, her fingers rediscover the apple in her front pocket. With her back to Grace, she holds it up to her face as if examining it for clues. The hollow feeling in her stomach returns. And when she throws the half-eaten fruit in the fire, she swears she sees the flames jump.
As the women walk through the woods, Edith’s bottles and jugs bump against one another, a chorus in her sack. She mentally rehearses her plans for Grace’s husband. Edith has packed boneset for his fever and body aches, as well as wild cherry for his cough. She has brought pokeweed but hopes not to have to use it, as it can be toxic if she makes even the smallest mistake.
“Pluck it while it’s young,” her aunt told her when she was little and just beginning her training. “Or it’ll cost you your life.”
They were bent over a pair of juvenile shoots that had sprung up earlier that year. Young and bright-eyed, Edith marveled at the plant that would, within months, become poisonous.
“Just like people,” she mused.
“How do you mean?” Aunt Joan asked.
“Innocent in youth but deadly with age.”
Aunt Joan guffawed her loud, unapologetic laugh. “You’re a wise one, Edie, girl.”
Now, nearly ten years later and with her aunt Joan dead and gone, Edith feels far from wise. Apart from Grace, she has no friends. Everyone on the Shore looks at her as if she has two heads. They come to her when they bleed but never to break bread at her table. She wishes she could understand why, wishes she could read people the way she reads the marsh sedge—by the sharpness of its edges, its bending toward the morning light, the way it curls before a storm. But while she is attuned to such subtle signs in nature, the subtleties of mankind evade her.
Edith steps with purpose through the trees. The sun is relentless, its heat bearing down on them even in the somewhat shaded woods. The air is thick and balmy, exerting a constant pressure on anything that dares brave it. If this weren’t an emergency, she’d save the journey for just after sunrise or closer to dusk.
“I thought he was better,” Grace says as she huffs along.
“Summer sickness is unpredictable,” Edith admits.
The truth is, it could be a multitude of things. In her experience as a healer, someone might be sick for weeks, recover, then have recurring bouts for months; someone else might suffer only a few days before succumbing.
“Was he outside in the heat yesterday?” she asks. “Or this morning?”
Grace barks a laugh. “It’s August, Edie. It’s the hardest part of the growing season. He was out there all day yesterday topping the tobacco.” Her voice is strained, her thick eyebrows furrowed together.
“David will help harvest while Jacob is sick,” Edith assures her friend. She knows how valuable the crop is; they can’t afford to lose the income.
“Thank you,” Grace says, sighing a little.
A silence descends, heavy as the air. Neither of them addresses what will happen if Jacob succumbs to the illness, how drastically life would change for Grace. She arrived on the Eastern Shore only last year after being recruited by a company for a bride shipment from London. She has few practical talents; she is a gifted artist, but that does little to provide for a life.
Edith stops suddenly.
“What is it?” Grace asks, turning.
“Do you have a rag?” Edith asks. She is wet between the legs, and while she first thought it might be sweat, she now realizes it must be her monthly bleed.
Grace frowns. “Oh, no, I don’t.”
Edith considers her options. She could free bleed into her shift and petticoat, but a rag would be more comfortable. She feels around in her sack for a stray cloth and, mercifully, her hands graze the uneven edges of a linen scrap. She loosens her apron and reaches through the layers to place the rag to catch the blood.
When she straightens up again, her body sways. She is lightheaded, the oppressive heat only making it worse.
“There will be trouble tonight,” she admits to Grace as they resume their journey. “When I tell David.”
“So don’t,” Grace says with a sly smile and shrug.
Edith admires her friend’s cheekiness. Maybe she is bolder because she comes from a bustling city. If Grace is shiny silver, Edith feels like tarnished copper in comparison.
“I suppose I don’t have to tell him right away,” she says. “But he will soon realize, regardless.”
Her husband knows little of pregnancy and childbirth, but he understands that if she has gotten her monthly, she is not with child.
“That’s nine months now we have failed to conceive.”
“It will happen,” Grace says. “It has to. Did you place the stone under your bed?”
Edith nods. Grace gave her rose quartz to promote fertility last month.
“It can take time,” Grace tells her reassuringly.
But Edith is not so confident. As the season tilts toward autumn, she fears fertility will decline as the cold weather cools the womb. She thinks again of her aunt Joan, who would likely have made her a sachet of red clover to wear under her clothes. Aunt Joan, like Grace, was a superstitious woman.
Edith feels a tug in her heart. For a moment, she is a girl again, pale and freckle-faced, walking through the woods as her aunt points to various plants and shrubs, explaining their uses and properties. She longs for an afternoon of the two of them tending the family garden. Aunt Joan understood Edith on a level no one else seems able to.
“It will be okay,” Grace says, noting her friend’s pained expression.
And Edith simply nods, because how does she tell her what she is really thinking? How does she tell her that she is longing for another time? A time long ago, in childhood; the only period in her life when she felt seen.
“I found an apple this morning,” she says instead, the words spilling out of her.
“That’s curious,” Grace muses.
They are nearly there. The trees are thinning out, and Edith can see the shore of the inlet that marks the northernmost edge of Grace’s property.
“Unless,” Grace says, a thought occurring to her, “you planted a tree last season?”
“No,” Edith says. “I don’t know where it came from. Perhaps an animal carried it and dropped it in the window.”
“That’s lovely,” Grace says. “See? It’s a sign. Your luck is turning already!”
And Edith nods again, because she also senses a shift, a wrinkle in the cosmic curtains of the universe. But the tightening in her gut confirms that while she agrees her luck is turning, she does not believe it is for the better.
Claire pulls into the driveway of her childhood home.
“Are we here, Mama?” her four-year-old asks from the back seat.
Claire catches Julia’s eye in the rearview mirror, and the girl’s smile warms her from the inside. She feels the familiar tug of the invisible string that connects them. But a heaviness quickly sets in at the edges of her awareness. Bringing her daughter here should be a momentous occasion, a meaningful braiding of worlds. Instead, it feels like bricks sewn into her hemline. Weight with no relief.
“We’re here,” Claire confirms, cutting the engine of the rental car.
Even after all this time, the house looks the same. The stately two-story red-brick structure is a standout here on the Eastern Shore, not only because most homes in the remote seaside barrier islands are constructed of wood and insulated siding, but also because this is one of the oldest properties, from the seventeenth century—though it has, of course, been renovated and expanded over the years. She notices for the first time how the roof appears from the front to be all triangles, like a picture her daughter would draw.
“That was a really long bridge,” Julia says.
“Eighteen miles,” Claire repeats for the third time. Julia is fascinated by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel that connects the detached Eastern Shore to the mainland of Virginia.
“You ready?” Claire asks. She wonders what her daughter will think of this place, which is nothing like their home in Los Angeles. There, they are two specks in a sea of millions. Here, in Claire’s hometown of Cape Chase, they are two in only two thousand.
“I want to get down,” Julia whines.
“Okay, okay,” Claire says as she climbs out of the rental. She can’t blame the girl for complaining; she has been strapped into planes and car seats all day to make it from one coast to the other.
“Can we have pasta?” Julia asks.
Claire laughs. “We have to see. I don’t know what Aunt Tilly made for dinner, okay?”
Even when Julia frowns, she is so beautiful. Her eyes are golden and large and round, while Claire’s are an unenthusiastic brown. Julia’s hair is thin and delicate and curls into sweet ringlets at the end; Claire’s is an unruly mess of waves that appeared in the wake of postpartum hormones. Many of Julia’s features, like the smooth button nose and pointy chin, come from her father.
Claire allows herself to feel briefly annoyed that she shoulders the weight of parenting alone. Her ex dipped out early on. This was no surprise to Claire, who is accustomed to the people she loves disappearing, but she occasionally fantasizes about having a partner. Someone to help research pediatricians and music classes and parenting techniques, to help ferry Julia to vaccinations and playdates and dentist appointments, to order new leggings when the old ones get holes, and to keep the other informed when Julia turns sour on a snack she used to love. At times, the mental load feels unbearable.
“You could get a nanny. Or a mother’s helper,” one of Claire’s coworkers told her last week. But Claire bristled at the thought. Entrusting a stranger with the literal life of the most important person in the world—no.
“Not an option, unfortunately,” Claire said, shaking her head.
“You know,” the coworker continued, “over-independence is a trauma response.”
“That’s so interesting,” Claire said before pretending to get a phone call.
Now, as she approaches the front door of her childhood home, she is immensely grateful to have her daughter here, even if it does feel like a glitch in the matrix, the crossing of two disparate lives.
Her brother-in-law, Peter, answers the door. His blue eyes still pop, though his receding hairline has become more pronounced since the last time she saw him, and his white polo clings near his belly’s center. An altogether different vibe from the lanky skater boy they all knew growing up.
“Claire,” he says, going in for a hug. It’s awkward with the suitcase and bag and Julia, who has koala’d herself around her mother’s right leg.
“Hey, Peter,” Claire says, attempting to return the hug.
His eyes crinkle at the corners in sincerity when he pulls away. “I’m glad you’re here. I hate the reason you’re here, but—”
“Yeah, same,” she agrees as she looks around. “Dad’s… somewhere?”
Tilly’s voice echoes in Claire’s head. The ominous tone with which she told Claire on the phone last night that their father was nearing the end. “It’s time,” she’d said.
Peter nods toward the downstairs bedroom. “He’s sleeping.” He stares at the door for an extra second as if in some kind of trance, then turns back to his guests. “Well, come in, come in!”
Claire reaches for Julia, who is still holding on to her leg. “Come on, love,” she says.
Peter’s eyebrows shoot up when he sees the girl. “Hi, Julia! I haven’t seen you since you were this big.” He holds his thumb and index finger a mere inch apart, his eyes playfully wide.
Julia cracks a small smile. “I was never that little!” she says.
“I don’t know,” Peter teases. “I guess it’s just been too long. I don’t remember.”
“I see you on the phone,” Julia reminds him.
“You’re right,” he says. “Video calls. Practically the same thing these days, huh?”
Peter takes their bags, which frees Claire to pry her daughter from her leg, pick her up, and carry her balanced on her hip. Her whole body aches from the day of travel and hauling this tiny human through airports.
“You okay?” she whispers to Julia, leaning in so they touch foreheads. Julia nods.
The inside of the house has barely changed. In the foyer, the wide staircase wraps around in a curve along the wall. This was always their mother’s favorite spot to take pictures. Looking at the steps, she can see in her mind photos from Christmas with cousins, from prom with friends in fancy dresses.
This area is part of the original home, so the floors are composed of very wide boards with irregular gaps from seasonal swelling and shrinking. Hand-forged nails with square heads line the ends of each piece of wood. Many of the gaps have been filled with oakum, old rope saturated with pine tar to make it waterproof and durable. Though the material was typically reserved for caulking ships, homeowners in the maritime community of the Shore adapted it as needed to keep out moisture and bugs.
And to Claire’s left, the crown jewel of the house: the original seventeenth-century inglenook fireplace. The exposed brickwork and timber beams have survived from those earliest days, though the modern addition of a wood-burning stove makes the hearth functional. Along the left side, there’s a subtle tilt, just enough to suggest something once shifted deep beneath the house. A long-ago quake, maybe. The kind no one alive remembers but that the house can’t forget. One corner sags slightly, and the mortar has fractured into fine, spidery lines. Like wrinkles on a face indicating years of stress and worry.
And only a few feet from all that is the trapdoor that leads underground. Her parents had grand plans to renovate the space and make it into a wine cellar, but it was never upgraded from general storage.
Claire shivers just looking at that trapdoor.
She hates the cellar.
“Tilly is putting clean sheets on the bed,” Peter says. Then another idea comes to him. “We assumed you and Julia would want to be together, so we put you both in the guest room, but—”
“Yes, we’d like that,” Claire confirms quickly.
As Peter puts out food for them, Claire thinks about her dad. The last time she saw him was when Julia was born; he flew to Los Angeles and slept on an air mattress for an entire week. He did little to care for the baby, but he cared for Claire with a kindness that makes her teary to think about now. Preparing her meals, warming up her coffee when it would inevitably sit cold for hours, washing burp cloths and dishes.
Not long after, he was diagnosed with dementia. Things deteriorated quickly. About a year ago, Tilly and Peter moved in to help care for him. And Claire, in the craziness of newborn life and then toddler life, had been in touch with her father only via a weekly FaceTime. No trips back to the East Coast, no support for Tilly in her new role as caretaker other than gifting her takeout and housekeeper services.
The sisters have grown apart. Lately, their conversations revolve solely around medical decisions and end-of-life logistics. The longer Claire is away from the Eastern Shore, the more she feels that life disappear. Like a rug that loses its color after years in the sun. A fading, a slow letting-go.
Which somehow makes it seem even harder to return. Going back is like stumbling for a light switch in the dark; in a room she doesn’t know; in a house she isn’t even sure has electricity at all.
Claire leaves Julia downstairs to feast on snacks with Peter and heads up to the guest room. She finds her sister Tilly standing at the far wall, where there’s a small alcove with a window that overlooks the backyard. She’s turned away from Claire, one hand across her body and the other rubbing her neck mindlessly.
“Hey,” Claire says.
Tilly startles. “Oh,” she says, “you’re here! Sorry, I didn’t hear you guys come in.”
Her energy is frenetic as she crosses the room with her arms wide for a hug. As they hold each other, swaying back and forth, Claire realizes that even with the built-up resentment between them, Tilly is the only person on earth who knows what it feels like to be losing their dad. The only person whose grief might potentially match her own.
“You look good,” Claire says as she pulls away to inspect her little sister. Short, bouncy blond hair that hovers above her shoulders. Comfy sweats and an old oversize T-shirt that swallows her small frame. Bright green eyes that scan Claire’s body just as intently.
Tilly rolls her eyes. “I look tired,” she replies.
“Yeah, well,” Claire says, modeling her own matching athleisure set, “tired is just kinda my vibe these days. A four-year-old will do that to you.”
“I bet,” Tilly says.
Silence hovers between them.
“Okay, well,” Tilly starts just as Claire asks, “Anything I can help with here?”
Tilly laughs at the awkwardness. Their bodies have forgotten how to occupy the same space.
“No, no, it’s done,” she says. “I mean, it’s nothing fancy. Just some clean sheets and a good vacuum.”
“Well, I am expecting mints on the pillow,” Claire says. “Otherwise I’m writing a shitty review.”
“Ha-ha,” Tilly replies. “I figured you’d want to be here where you have your own bathroom rather than sharing with us.” She gestures to the small adjoining toilet and shower, then to the room above the garage. “Plus, this way you have the playroom for Julia too.”
She does not mention the real reason she has put them here: because the alternative is Gabby’s old room.
“Dad’s asleep now, otherwise I’d…” Tilly’s voice trails off.
“No, yeah, it’s late, of course. I’ll see him in the morning.”
Another charged moment of silence.
“His nurse,” Claire says, “she’s the one who thinks he’s near the end?”
Tilly bites her lip. “It’s not good, Claire. He’s lost fifteen pounds in the past month.”
“Jesus.” Claire shakes her head.
Tilly shifts her weight. Then takes a deep breath. “Should we get you some food? You must be starving.”
Without waiting for an answer, she claps her hands together and exits the room as if it’s too small to contain her nervous energy. A whiff of lavender conditioner lingers in her wake. Claire stands briefly in the solitude—something she guesses she will have very little of in the coming days. She breathes. Presses her thumbnail to the pad of her index finger, then the pad of her middle finger, then the ring finger, then the pinkie. A calming ritual she picked up as a teenager. She cracks each of her knuckles with the thumb of the same hand.
When she feels centered, she turns—
And sees the framed drawing on top of the dresser. A caricature portrait of the sisters her dad bought in the tourist part of Cape Chase. She was twelve. Tilly was ten.
And their oldest sister, Gabby, was fourteen.
Seeing this cartoon rendition is almost more painful than an actual photograph. The artist accentuated Gabby’s most prominent features, as a caricaturist does: her wide smile that showed off too much of her gums; the dimple on her left cheek; even the glimmer in Gabby’s eye. As if the artist could tell she sparkled.
Claire’s body freezes. Her fingertips are suddenly cold, as if all the blood has drained from them.
The three sisters were inseparable, like individual limbs of a single unit. And then, the summer Gabby turned eighteen, all of that fractu. . .
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