Free Orchard by Larry Watson Page B

there—they were simply standing together, each taking comfort in the nearness of the other—but to Sonja it seemed as if they had linked their bodies for strength, and thus joined they could block the way to anyone threatening their home.
    Who might such an intruder be? Only Sonja stood outside.

12
    Henry’s father taught him how to thin the fruit by hand, leaving at least twelve inches between each apple. This would mean fewer but larger apples—equal at harvest. Pluck the fruit
like this,
Henry’s father said, with thumb and two fingers,
like this, like this
. . . .
    When his life fell in on itself after John’s death, Henry found, among his many difficulties, that he could not keep grief and love and work separate. The three fingers with which he pulled incipient apples from the boughs—
like this
—were the same fingers with which he teased Sonja’s nipples, and when he thought of the act of thinning fruit it came to him that when God took John He was thinning the House crop and when Henry thought of putting his hands on his wife—
like this, like this
—he held back because that would lead to Henry planting his seed deep enough in her to yield and that could result in heartbreak. Nonetheless, while Henry could force himself to pluck fruit from his trees, he could not make love to his wife, and to hide from her his lack of desire he tried to avoid touching her altogether.
    However, six weeks to the day after John was placed in the earth and dirt packed around and over his small coffin, as Henry and Sonja lay in bed together, Sonja pulled her nightgown up to her neck and pressed her body against his.
    While Henry pretended to sleep, Sonja ran her hand down his outstretched arm as if she were trying him on like a garment. In so doing, she increased the pressure of her breasts against his back.
    He tried to mimic a sleeper’s regular breathing, but she must have known he was awake because she said softly, “There is nothing between us.”
    Henry did not reply. How could he? Her words could have two sets of meanings, each the opposite of the other. She may have wanted to entice him into sex by pointing out that since nothing intervened between her flesh and his, why shouldn’t they complete the process—logical between man and wife—and become one? Or she may have been making a declaration, advising Henry that since they shared neither desire nor love there was no reason for him to turn her way. If she spoke the language like a native, perhaps then she would have inflected her sentence in a way to make her meaning clear.
    Before long, she moved her body until it no longer touched Henry’s. A moment later, she raised and lowered herself quickly on the mattress; she was, he knew, pulling her nightgown back down.
    Two days later,
Henry and Sonja were alone in the house. For the first time since her brother’s death, June had accepted an invitation to play with a friend.
    Henry smoked and drank coffee while Sonja rinsed the plates, behavior that struck Henry as odd. She usually cleared everything before starting on the dishes, but there were the leftover boiled potatoes still on the table. Shouldn’t Sonja cover them, put them in the icebox, and tomorrow grate them and make potato pancakes for lunch?
    She raised her voice to be heard over the running water, and then it was too late for Henry to escape—he had no choice but to finish his coffee and listen.
    “My father had a friend—Thorvald Norstog—who wanted to make contracts over every little thing. If you borrowed a cup of sugar, Thorvald wanted to write a contract saying how and when it would be repaid. If he said he would help you repair your boat, Thorvald would write down the agreement saying exactly what work he would do.”
    Henry lit another cigarette and waited for her to arrive at her point.
    She shut off the water and turned to him, wiping her hands on her apron. “Would you like to make a contract between us?” she asked. “We would sign