An Apple A Day

I hadn't seen Nathan in years. Him and Shayna decided to settle near Benton, Arkansas, after the wedding. Homesteading, they called it - had their own farm, an apple orchard, cows, chickens, the works. Heck, Nathan even stitched their clothes. He said that just 'cos he and the missus wanted to live off the land didn't mean their gender roles had to be from the dark ages. That was my brother for you. 

Then last year, around the time the drought hit, Shayna fell ill. I got some garbled emails from Nathan about the apples failing and Shayna feeling poorly and there wasn't any water for the farm and the doctor was going to take her away. He sounded at the end of his tether but I was in Afghanistan and all I could do was call him a few times. 

On the last call before she passed, he just said that the doctor had her and hung up. Things weren't going well at the hospital, I guessed, and sure enough, the following week, an email with the news came. The doctor had sent her body back, he said, and he'd buried her in the apple orchard. 

Made sense. The woman had been dotty about apples all her life. Even had herself an apple-themed wedding. Apple blossoms everywhere and apple pie and apple wine. 

Anyway, my tour was done and I was back Stateside. I wanted to see Nathan. Losing the woman you’ve loved for over twenty years? That shit’s worse than anything I went through, warzone or no.

When I reached the farm, the sun was about down. Nathan opened the front door and beckoned me in. No hug, no sign that he was glad to see his brother after so long. It'd been a year since Shayna's death but I guess he wasn't himself yet. 

We settled down in the kitchen and he fixed me a coffee. We talked about mom and dad, the Razorbacks, the farm, even about the damn chickens. Everything except Shayna. And he kept glancing out the window every few minutes at the apple trees in the moonlight. I wondered if he realised how often he was looking that way. 

Around midnight, I followed him upstairs to the room he'd set up for me. Shayna's touches were everywhere - in the wallpaper with the apple border, the untouched apple-scented guest soaps in the bathroom, even in the bowl of apples by the bedside. She'd insisted on them, Nathan once told me - said there should always be an apple within reach. Nature's best snack, she said it was. Kept the doctor away. 

Well, she'd have been proud of this harvest. Red as blood, sweet and tart, firm and crunchy. Everything an apple should be. I fell asleep that night thinking of the damn apples. 

The next morning, as we breakfasted on the porch, Nathan finally opened up. The drought had ruined the crop last year. They'd tried boring the wells deeper to reach groundwater but it hadn't worked. They'd even tried buying water from Benton, but without city pipes, they could only just afford enough to keep the house going, not the farm and orchard. Shayna had gotten more and more poorly as the drought progressed. 

That's when Nathan had found out how scared she was of doctors. "Don't let the Doctor come," she'd begged Nathan in her fever dreams. “I just need my apples, Nat. Please get me an apple.”

And he'd tried. He'd put apple poultices on her and made her apple soup. He'd tended their last healthy apple tree with a desperation borne of the fear of losing her. He'd made trips to Benton for fresh produce while Shayna slept. But the drought had messed up the crop everywhere and pickings were slim. So when Benton ran out, he'd ventured further to Hooperville and Carthage and Hapsberg. Anywhere he could get her apples she'd like. They were the only things that brought her solace anymore and he did what he could to buy her that peace of mind. "Just keep the Doctor away from me, Nat," she would plead, "I'll get better when the drought ends." 

I couldn't understand Nathan's inaction. Why didn't he take her to the Benton General Hospital, I asked him. She was clearly suffering from delusions. 

Nathan nodded and continued his story. 

One day, he had had enough. He was tired of searching for apples. He was tired of watching his wife waste away from who knows what illness. He was tired of her fevered ravings about doctors and apples. Nothing made sense and he was done.

Shayna was in an exhausted doze that morning. He picked her up and put her in the car. Fear or no, phobia or no, he was taking her to Benton General. 

Right as they drove past the orchard, Shayna woke up. She seemed to realise what was happening. Sitting up as best she could, she touched his arm and enunciated clearly, as if to leave him with no doubt about what she was saying. "If you take me away from our farm, Nat," she said, "I will kill myself tonight. Let's go home." He looked at her face - so tired, so calm, so serious - and he knew she meant it. 

So they went back. In tears, with her hand still on his arm, he turned the car around and took her back home.

And a week later Shayna was dead. They'd run out of apples the previous day, but she'd been so weak that Nathan hadn't the heart to leave her side. She would wake every few hours and ask for an apple but he'd distracted her with excuses. The applesauce was still cooking. It got burnt and he was fixing another batch. 

He wondered at his own actions, why he wasn't just dragging her to the hospital. He was an educated man with a college degree, and here he was, behaving like an irrational looney. Listening to his wife's mutterings about apples. Believing that she would indeed get better when the drought ended. What the hell was wrong with him? And then he remembered Shayna's face when she'd threatened to kill herself. 

As the day progressed, she became more and more uneasy, moaning and twisting the covers. Night fell and she woke again. She struggled to sit up and patted the bed next to her. There were dark circles under her eyes and blue veins stood out on the backs of her slender hands. She caressed his cheek as he settled next to her. 

"The Doctor will be here for me soon, Nat,” she said. “I know there’s no more apples. Don't blame yourself for what will happen after midnight. Maybe I should have told you more. Maybe I should have shown you my reality before we got married, I don't know. I don't know. I love you, Nat." 

Holding him in her arms, she fell asleep again. He stayed there, nuzzled up to her until he dozed off himself. Maybe everything would have been different if he'd taken her to the hospital right there and then, he didn't know.

That night, he dreamt of a shadow filling their bedroom. And the next morning when he woke, Shayna was gone. 

He reported her missing because what else was there to do. The police asked him a lot of questions. They thought he had killed her.

Then a few days later, something happened that put those suspicions to rest. Her body appeared in the morgue at Benton General. 'Appeared' because the security camera showed it wasn't there one second, and the next second, there it was on the gurney.

She looked like Snow White after she'd eaten the poisoned apple, pale and lifeless. The only difference was that Snow White came back to life and love. His Shayna was gone for good. 

The autopsy showed no signs of illness or foul play. No heart attack or stroke. Nothing. She had just stopped living, it seemed. They sent her back in an ambulance and he arranged to have her buried in the orchard, among the apples she'd so loved. 

He stopped here and looked at me, waiting for my reaction. I didn't know how to react, what to make of all this. I mean, what was anyone to think? And what the hell had happened to Shayna?

I asked him.

"I didn't keep the Doctor away," Nathan replied simply. "Here, have an apple."