Heirloom

As the sun bore down into the horizon the pears tree glimmered. Red against green, like obscene little Christmas lights. Nana's words sounded over the display. "Take to your hearts content, but never from the pear tree.” The immediate “Why?” was met with a raised eyebrow and silence. You don’t need to know. The same question to Doc resulted in a shrug.

He liked that at least, the freedom his grandparents gave him. There was only one rule. But it was a bitch of one. He hated not knowing, he hated secrets. The orchard was filled with fruit trees: cherries, plums, peaches, apples, even black berry bushes. In its center stood the pear tree, overburdened with ripe fruit demanding to be picked. Too tempting to be subject to arbitrary rules. He had to have one.

His hand reached out, sealing around the pear. The pear was warm with a day’s worth of heat, heavy with delicious nectar, bursting gold in the dwindling light. his mouth watered as he raised it to his lips. He bit down, juice flooding his mouth, anticipation raising the sweetness. He savored it till only the hard core remained.

He waited, nothing happened. Nana would never know. He threw the core to the edge of the forest. With any luck a deer would find it before sunrise. He touched his tongue to the roof of his mouth, watching the sun as it slipped away over the smoking mountains.

As dusk overtook the orchard Nana's hand hit the dinner bell. It was time for supper. I looked up at the house from the orchard, Nana was a blue silhouette on its porch. “I’m comin!’” he yelled, peeling through the orchards stone walls up the hill to the big house.

Dinner was quiet that night. Little mind was paid to him by Doc or Nana. Doc’s face was glued his papers, one hand shoveling pot roast, the other marking things with a ballpoint. Nana looked faraway too, her eyes swimming between the phone and her plate. For a moment he wondered. Did she know?

Just as quickly the thought left him. There was TV to be watched, he only had the one hour. He cleared his plate and ran to the 28-inch rabbit-eared relic. After an hour of static and cartoons, he was sent to bed. Sleep came easy after a long summer day.

…

He woke up to pale gray light. The clock read 9:00 am. Well past sunrise. In five summers, breakfast had never once started after 7:30. He leapt from his bed throwing on his hiking pants and t-shirt from the day before. He walked into the sunroom that led off the basement.

Nothing was visible through the windows but gray fog. Fog was inevitable in the smokies, but by the time the sun was over the mountain horizon it dissipated. The kitchen light was off. It wasn’t like his grandparents to sleep in. He pushed the door of the main house open.

The house was empty and cold, as if no one had been there for months. He ran his hand over his Nana’s baby grand, a thick coat of dust came up. He’d seen her clean just yesterday. He started to call for them, then he remembered the pear. He ran back down into the sunroom to throw open its glass doors.

Nothing was visible beyond the vague slope of green hills. No birds sounded, not even the rustle of wind in the trees could be heard. He made out a vague shape through the fog. Something was looking at him, two scarlet orbs peered from the direction of the orchard then vanished. The stone walls came into view first, followed by the trees. In the center there was another shape.

“Nana?” he ventured. There was no response

“Doc?” still no response or movement.

He inched closer. The mist yielded, and a snow-white buck came into view. It was massive, its five-pointed antlers forcing currents in the fog. The stag turned to him, flaring its nostrils and widening its scarlet eyes, they danced between him and the empty branch. The bucks’ eyes narrowed as it kicked the ground in front of it ready to charge.

He shut his eyes and counted down to impact. 10...

9...

8...

7...

6...

5...

4…

3…

2…

1.

At 1 he let his eyes open. The stag was gone. So, to was the mist.

…

The rest of that summer went on unchanged. After that summer I never returned to the Blairsville house. Doc died of a brain tumor in the winter. Nana sold the house and remarried. Last I checked a family with two kids had bought it.

Years passed, I became a woman, and that memory like the rest belonging to Austin were tucked away quietly. The event itself became more of a dream; an unreal apparition spun from guilt. Guilt over what? I still wasn’t sure. Still, I never allowed myself to have a pear again. Some nights the white buck came back to me, his eyes burrowing into me, saying nothing. It came back today at the reunion, Nana’s 90th.

Her new husband had rented out a golf resort. 12 years before the course had been a forest. I spent the whole night before asking myself why I’d bothered to come. Why I would subject myself to the same inane and probing questions. Anxiety turned to obsessive upkeep in the night. Meticulous upkeep wavering, wavering, until I allowed myself to buy a ten dollar glass of watery chardonnay from the hotel bar.

The party wasn’t so bad. I sat with my cousins, ignored the probing questions delivered by each of my aunts, the volley of pictures that showed me as someone I no longer was. Midway through I went outside to smoke. Silently I watched the smoke going up to mix with the smoke of the mountains. The sky was blood red, the way it always is on late summer evenings.

“You shouldn’t smoke those things honey.” Nana’s voice came from behind. I turned to her, cigarette wavering between my fingers, painted in the same bright red as hers. She took it from my hand throwing it into a nearby ashtray. On her finger there was a ring, one I’d never noticed before, glazed ivory, embedded with rubies, it was in the shape of a buck’s head.

“That’s an interesting ring.”

“Oh this, I’ve had it for years, found it at the Blairsville cabin. You remember.”

“Some of my happiest memories were there.”

“Me too, Austin…Dammit I meant Ava!”

“It’s fine.”

She looked pained, and a little wine drunk.

“Really its fine, your better than most of our family. You try.”

“Well thank ya!”

My eyes searched her.

“I never told you about the last summer I spent at the Blairsville cabin.”

“The one when we saw the bear?”

“No!” I laughed “I was like three when that happened. I meant the last summer before…. well, before you sold it.”

“Oh?” her tone changed as she raised her eyebrows.

“I took one of the pears that summer, I ate it too.”

She said nothing the wrinkled lines of her face fell her hand went limp in mine.

“Nana?” I probed

She looked again into my eyes. “Will you excuse me dear?”

The rest of the night stretched on without comment. Quiet anxiety sent me back for more overpriced wine. What could possibly hold this much weight? How could a childhood act cause this in her? Christ it was a pear!

Hours later, when the family with children had long since left her hand grabbed my shoulder. She forced me to turn to her. “I should have told you then…I don’t know why I didn’t…” she slurred her words, clearly drunk “Please, forgive me.” “Tell me now.” I pleaded, suddenly aware of the eyes of everyone in the hall pointing at us. “It’s already too late.” She ripped the white ring from her finger, behind it her skin was dark purple “Take this.”

I took it feeling its empty weight in my hand. “Thank you.” I whispered my voice had gone hoarse.

“No. I take no joy in this Ava. It’s you now. It must always be you.”

My uncle appeared behind her, “Ok mom, it’s time for bed.” He took her hand.

“Yes…yes, I think it is.” She nodded, letting him lead her up to her room. He turned to look at me, there was no coldness or anger, just confusion. I looked back at the ring in my hand its red eyes glinting back at me. I slipped it on my ring finger. I could no longer handle the eyes of the room at my back. “Good night everyone!” I announced, thankful I was drunk.

…

The next morning, I woke in my hotel room. The clock read 9:00 am. The dark gray light told me otherwise. I parted the blinds looking into the mist. For a moment I thought I saw scarlet eyes staring back at me. I shuddered, reassuring myself I looked back at the spot. There was only fog.

I walked from the balcony door to the bathroom. Time for another day of probing questions. From the corner of my eye, I caught a familiar yellow-green shape. In the bowl beneath the TV sat a glistening pear. Its rind was wet with condensation, a single leaf on its stem stood like a flag. I grabbed it and bit into it, savoring its nectar.