5/29/2023 0 Comments Year of wonders novelI asked him if he'd like me to read it to him. His hand is on the Bible, but he never opens it. I took an apple that was crisp and good and sliced it, thin as paper, and carried it into that dim room where he sits, still and silent. And those of us who are left walk around as if we're half asleep. There are so few people to do the picking. I had words with the carter over it, but he told me we were lucky to get as good as we got, and I suppose it's true enough. Late pickings, of course: I saw brown spots on more than a few. They brought the apples yesterday, a cartload for the rectory cellar. This year, the hay stooks are few and the woodpile scant, and neither matters much to me. Thick, sweet scents of rotting apple and wet wood. I used to love to walk in the apple orchard at this time of the year, to feel the soft give underfoot when I trod on a fallen fruit. Smells and sights and sounds that said this year it would be all right: there'd be food and warmth for the babies by the time the snows came. The rumble of the apples tumbling into the cellar bins. The hay made, all golden in the low afternoon light. The wood stacked by the door, the tang of its sap still speaking of forest.
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