Free Snow Apples by Mary Razzell

a sunflower with a dark-brown center.
    Helga’s eyes never left my face.
    â€œYou like some coffee?”
    Without waiting for an answer, she brought over the speckled blue enamel coffee pot. There were clean mugs upside down on the middle of the table. I turned two of them over.
    While we sipped at our coffee, I looked around. Dish towels, bright with cross-stitch, hung from a rod near the stove. By the back door was an oval hooked rug. Samplers hung on the wall. “Bless This House,” “Home Is Where the Heart Is.”
    A breeze flapped the curtains over the sink. They, too, had bunches of flowers embroidered in bright colors.
    â€œThis morning we heard on the radio that Japan has surrendered,” I said. “The war’s over. People will be celebrating again, like last time. Do you remember? VE Day?”
    â€œYa-ah. I remember.” Her eyes clouded with misery. I couldn’t help myself. I went over and gave her a hug. Her bony shoulders were like birds’ wings under my hands.

10

    I T WAS a beautiful September, an Indian summer month of mellow days and brilliant nights, when every star hung polished. The sea was a flat enamel blue, and the maple leaves showed yellow against a backdrop of hazy blue mountains.
    As soon as we got off the school bus each afternoon, the boys and I dropped our books on the kitchen couch, changed into bathing suits and raced to the beach. Every day I thought, This will be the last swim of the year. By the middle of September I was numb with cold when I came out of the icy water, but the sun was hot and the air dry.
    My father was based at Jericho Beach in Vancouver, waiting for his discharge from the air force. At first he camehome every weekend. Then he announced, “I’ll try to make it every other weekend. There are a few things I have to attend to in the city.”
    â€œA few things indeed,” my mother told me, banging the pots. “A few women would be more like it. But the check coming in every month is the important thing. I’ve given up expecting your father to change.”
    My brothers missed Dad and told him so.
    â€œYou said you’d teach me to drive,” Tom complained. “Besides,” and he looked around to be sure my mother was out of hearing range, “I don’t like Mom telling me what to do all the time.”
    â€œWho’s running this house?” my mother demanded of the three of them at breakfast one morning. They had been slow getting in the wood and water, had dawdled over breakfast, and when she told them that the school bus would arrive at any minute, Tom, for no good reason that I could understand, refused to wear his old navy blue pants. My mother was furious when he came out wearing his new brown corduroy pair, but she had to let him. Either that or he would miss the bus.
    â€œTimes like this,” she said savagely, “I wish your father were here to keep you boys in line.”
    To my surprise, I was relieved Dad wasn’t home very much. He didn’t like me going with Nels.
    â€œYou’re much too young for that. Look at you running out to meet him! Like some common...he doesn’t even have the decency to come to the door. What does he thinkof you? Eh? Answer me that! He must think you’re not worth two cents!”
    â€œThat’s not right! He feels...shy.”
    â€œShy? I’ll just bet he’s shy! Till he gets you in that truck!” My father’s eyes were all bloodshot, his face red. He had been drinking beer all afternoon. “But you like it, don’t you?” He thrust his face close, and I could see the corner of one eyelid twitching.
    â€œDad! That’s just...disgusting!”
    It was the only time I’d ever talked back to him. He caught me by the wrist, then let my arm drop. His voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear.
    â€œYou ever speak to me like that again, and I’ll beat you so that you’ll never have