1. Allison and Luke have already disappeared down the stretching corridor of fruit trees before Charlie and her mother have even gotten off the humming tractor that serves as a taxi between the farms and the car lot. The branches hang low with fruit, from fuzzy green buds to apples so big and full and red that they look like they could pop off the tree all by themselves without any intervention. “Grab that one to eat now,” mom tells her, “its calling your name.” Charlie dutifully reaches for the apple – her hand barely wraps halfway around – and she doesn’t have to tug at all for the fruit to separate from the branch and settle against her palm. It is like her touch is magnetic, or magical, and for a passing moment, as a timely cool breeze blows burnt orange leaves past and rustles her hair, Charlie feels like a witch. Like all the natural world could and will bend to her will. “Perfect timing!” Mom says, and Charlie remembers now that the apple was going to fall off itself anyway, whether she were there or not. She rubs the red skin on her shirt, then holds it out to mom. “I don’t really want it,” she tells her, “my stomach hurts.” Mom has always belonged to the outdoors. Her skin is tan and freckled and weather-worn, her copper hair burns bright under the sun like it is conducting its energy into her. She comes to life and glows outside, in a way Charlie supposes she herself never will. At the mention of her pain, however, mom’s glow softens and her smile flickers just smaller. She takes the apple Charlie holds out. “How long do you think?” Charlie asks, harm already done anyway, “’till we go home?” Mom is stepping forward now into the aisle of trees Charlie’s friends disappeared down. Charlie follows after a hesitation. She knows she is supposed to be having fun and enjoying this. In the past months, the only other times that she has left the house has been to go to the hospital – for checkups and blood draws and assessments. But she is tired and her body hurts and it is easier to sleep. “Why don’t you catch up with Luke and Allison? It’s been so long since you last spent time with them.” Charlie stares at her feet, eyes catching on the rotting red fruit that studs the dusty aisle, decorating the open spaces between the trees. Some have dropped recently, and still have the bright sheen of newness on their skin. Others are collapsing in on themselves and have gone dull and lackluster. There is grey mold blooming out of the centers of the ones that have been down the longest, grey mold that started at the core but is growing out and taking over the rest of the fruit, encasing it. Suffocating it. Another breeze rushes to meet them and Charlie folds her arms across her chest, tugging her fingertips into the sleeves of her sweatshirt. It is just then that Allison pops back into sight from around a tree with particularly low branches, blonde hair catching a ray of sunshine and glinting unmistakably. Allison is older than Charlie by three years – she started high school last week. But Luke, her brother, is Charlie’s age, and mom is friends with their parents, and over time they three have developed the sort of friendship that bonds siblings and cousins – brought and held together by proximity, decidedly impenetrable. Allison is hurrying directly toward them, without Luke, and as she nears Charlie can see anxiety brimming in the corners of her eyes. “Luke fell,” she calls when she is close enough, in a voice Charlie is still getting to know. The new voice is older and always has a hint of nervousness woven into it, the same sort of uneasy bossiness and feigned responsibility she once used only when an adult left her in charge. She is never left in charge anymore - Luke and Charlie are old enough now to be left alone without a sitter - but the voice seems to have moved in to stay. Allison is taller now, too, every time Charlie sees her. Charlie has always been the smallest of the three, but until recently she has never felt small around her friends. She stays the same, and every time she sees them they are taller, older, wiser. Except maybe Luke is growing more slowly, because they find him cowering beneath a tree, cradling his arm, and he hurries to wipe snot and tears off his face and arrange his features instead into what Charlie assumes he thinks is a brave pout. “I was just, too big for that top branch,” he tells Charlie matter-of-factly, and sniffs as Mom kneels beside him, careful to avoid the rotten apples scattered about. She touches his arm and he wrinkles his face up tight. “That hurts.” It is decided that Luke has probably broken his arm. Charlie does her best not to look relieved when Mom decrees, with a frown, that they will have to head back to the city. The farm is far out of town – far at least to the kids, who growing up in the St. Louis suburbs were 15 minutes from everywhere. This farm is thirty minutes out, through the city and across the Mississippi river, where grey buildings immediately disperse into grey skies and flat rural fields. Thirty minutes of the fields, to Charlie, is as good as eternity. To Luke, sat on the middle seat between her and Allison, arm curled tight to his stomach, Charlie can’t imagine how long the drive seems. She untangles her arms, for the first time since she tangled them together among the trees, and reaches into her front pocket. She fishes around for the familiar crinkle of paper, and sets the bandaid on his knee, when she finds it. She knows their powers aren’t real, a tall tale by her mom who had similar notions that sunshine had healing properties and that long walks were a foolproof cure. It is something about the order of it. The control. That when a wound bleeds, you stick a bandaid on and it gets better. It is reassuring nonsense. But it sticks with her nonetheless, and is something – if only a gesture. It isn’t going to help him, they both know it, but Luke smiles at her and takes the bandaid into his good hand anyway. Charlie pulls her feet onto the seat and tucks her knees to her chest and tries to pretend she is already home. They don’t leave the hospital until Luke and Allison’s dad arrives. Mr. Crosley is a very busy man, never seen out of a suit or off of his mobile phone. He is on that phone even as he walks into the room where they have been sent to wait for a doctor, tie a little askew around his neck. He is still on his phone when they leave. Mom says they have to go to the grocery store on the way home, to get apples. A pie was promised to Allison, after all. Charlie tells her she’ll wait in the car. In the parking lot, Mom reaches for the box of cigarettes she keeps in the glove box. Charlie knows she used to smoke before she was born, and quit. It started again recently. It might be something about the control.
2. Charlie isn’t, strictly speaking, dying anymore. She got a kidney transplant she needed a couple months prior, had a few more surgeries after that. The pain is still there, and it always will be. The difference being that always was looking like quite a bit longer now, than it was before. So when Luke lights the cigarette, sprawled out across the old treehouse floor across from her, she coughs pointedly and scowls down at him. It is a new habit but it has stuck fast, in spite of all of Charlie’s very best efforts. Allison is out of town for college. She probably could have done more than Charlie did. He probably wouldn’t smoke anymore at all, if Allison were here. He hesitates but puts it out when she maintains her scowl. “I’m not going to prom with a goddamn ashtray.” “Sorry.” “It’s gross.” “I know.” “So stop.” “It’s not so easy.” It isn’t clear that they are actually going to prom at all – Charlie’s dress is still on a hanger in her bedroom, dusk is falling fast, and she probably could use a shower. They’ve been sitting in the treehouse so long that they could maybe be rotting inside out into the wooden floors. Charlie hasn’t been not-dying for very long. She isn’t sure, anymore, that not-dying Charlie wants the same things that dying-Charlie wanted. Like to go to prom with Luke, to start with. Or maybe to go to prom at all. Mom told her she had to go, because it was important to start to reintegrate herself into her life. They aren’t Mom’s words, they are maybe from a doctor or from the multitude of self-help books she has cracked open over the years. But she says them with finality and certainty anyway, like she herself has experienced reintegrating herself into her life with great success and flying colors. Charlie went through the motions, getting a dress and buying her ticket. But now, she cannot imagine peeling herself up off the treehouse floor, not for anything. She has been stagnant so very long – she isn’t at all sure she can move again. “I’ll tell your mom we went, even if you don’t want to go.” Luke says after a while, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her. He came over in his suit – it is Mr. Crosley’s – the sleeves cuffed in a whole inch. “But my parents think your mom is going to take, you know, pictures. We should at least act like we’re gonna go. Then we can just come back here. Or whatever.” She doesn’t shower but she puts on the dress and knots her dirty hair up in a bun on the top of her head. Mom had bought a yellow disposable camera from the superstore, and directs them on where to stand while her long fingers snap one picture after the next. Taking pictures of her normal daughter, headed to normal prom, with her normal boyfriend – exactly as she was meant to. Mom’s smile lit up the night as she waved bye to the two of them from the porch. “I am just tired,” Charlie tells Luke when they settle into the car. “I don’t want to dance or anything.” “We could get dinner?” “Okay.” When they come home it is almost 11 and Mom is still on the porch, sitting on the top step. Luke drives them to the hospital and stays in the room with them, holding Charlie’s hand. His sleeve has uncuffed and he has to keep pulling it up his arm. Charlie is cold but doesn’t say anything about it. There are tests, and blood draws, and specialists, all so familiar. She takes her pain pills less now than before. She is supposed to take them less than before, because forever is a long time and there has to be control. She gave them to Luke, when they left the house earlier, to hold in his pocket in case of emergency. She is tired, her body hurts, it is an emergency. There are conical Dixie cups in a dispenser by the sink, and they make the water she swallows the pill with taste like paper. She fills the cup another time, after that. And another.
3. The call that Allison is in labor comes on a Friday. Luke is on the back porch of their shared apartment when the phone starts ringing. He told Charlie he was “getting some air” but she can smell cigarette smoke drifting in with the lazy spring breeze through the window cracked open above the kitchen sink. She waits for Luke to hear the phone and come in to answer it. He does not hear it, though, and her joints groan in protest as she separates herself from her indentation in the worn couch. She reaches the phone in the kitchen at the final ring. “It’s your mom,” she says out the window. Their dishes are piled up in the sink. Charlie drizzles some Dawn over them and runs hot water for a moment, watching the soap foam up and cover over the mess. The faucet drips a few times after she shuts it off. “What does she want?” His voice is nasal from the smoke. “You to stop killing yourself.” “Fuck off.” She watches the foam in the sink shrink as the tiny bubbles melt and pop. “Allison just went into labor.” He cusses her out a little more as he stumbles in off of the porch, but he is grinning. “I might stay behind,” she says. “I don’t feel so good.” The words blur the edges of his smile and carve at her gut. “I’ll send pictures,” he says, but only after a hesitation that Charlie can’t miss. He is trying harder these days to be understanding, but before they moved in together the understanding always came easiest to him. Like he didn’t have to try at all, like he simply knew that some days were okay and others simply were not. Now he is closer, and the constancy of it all has started to make him uncomfortable. Being closer to Charlie seems to have given him some notion that there is something to be fixed. “What?” She asks, voice sharp. He shakes his head, averts his gaze to the neat row of red apples in the center of the counter. “I thought you were going to make your mom’s pie, for Allison.” “Yeah. I was.” “Maybe you should call the doctor.” “I’m fine.” He doesn’t say anything, but his stare is piercing. “I’m fine,” she repeats, “It’s fine. I’ll come with.” It appeases him, and he leaves the room to get his shoes. She reaches into her pocket for a pill.
Luke’s car tires squeak over the hump of pavement that has never been evened out of the center of the parking lot. Charlie digs her nails into her palms as the seat jostles her, and the half-empty pack of cigarettes on the dashboard slips down by her feet. The luminescent red cross hung at the top of the hospital outshines the moon, gives a sharper edge to Luke’s unshaven jaw. The neon light shines down across the dash and glints off of the round glasses he just picked up yesterday, across the ring that has lived on Charlie’s finger for nearly a year, now. He notices her flinch; his knuckles go a little tighter around the steering wheel as he guides the old car more gently now, into a parking spot. The lot is nearly empty. They are only two handicap spots from the bright white glowing light behind the wide sliding doors. Charlie takes a breath, folds over and scoops the Camels up off the ground. The pack is lighter than it should be, and she thinks about tucking it into her pocket and tossing them out when Luke is not paying attention. Instead, she places them upright in the cup holder, balanced on top of a few crumpled napkins. Then she reaches into her pocket, squeezes her fingers around her little cylindrical pill bottle. Makes sure it is still there. She needs to pick up the refill for her nearly empty prescription, on account of her doctor upping her dosage at her last check-up. She insisted her pain was the same but Luke, who only was there because he drove her, told the doctor about how she had missed Allison’s baby shower after planning the whole thing. The doctor told her it was important to be honest about her management and wrote her the new prescription. She runs her thumb along the edge of the label as Luke swings out of the car. He is wearing his torn jean jacket and his long mess of tangled curls down over his shoulders and looks especially out of place in the vinyl hospital armchair with the tiny pink baby snuggled up in his arms. His niece’s head is small and reminds Charlie of a peach. It is folded up against the worn denim. There were signs all the way up to the room making sure all visitors knew that there was “strictly no smoking!” in the hospital. Charlie is not sure if the smoke already worn deeply into the stitches of Luke’s jacket counts, but the baby’s nose is so tiny and so buried up against him, she wishes he would have taken it off. Allison is asleep in her hospital bed but she would tell off her brother for the mindlessness, were she awake. The nurse comes after a while and takes the baby. Allison has not named her yet and the nurse is tired and her knuckles are dry and she calls her “Baby Crosley” as she extracts her from Allison’s arms and disappears. Luke has drifted to sleep across the room in his chair. His glasses are askew on his nose. She feels the nearly empty pill bottle in her jacket pocket, gives it a little shake. There is only a pill or two left, she can tell how they bounce against each other. Luke wakes up after a little while, tiredly nudging his glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose. He smiles real soft when he sees her watching him. “The nurse took the baby,” she says it quiet as she can. “I was going to go down to the pharmacy.” “I’ll come,” he says, stretching as he pulls himself upright. They pass the baby ward on the way to the elevator, and Luke presses up against the glass to grin at Baby Crosley. She is asleep, and watching her little fingers curl and uncurl, her little head turn side to side, is almost comforting. But when she lets her vision pan out across the cradlefuls of fussing babies – wide open screaming mouths, tiny kicking limbs – she reaches a hand into her jacket pocket and she steps back from the glass. Charlie knows the way to the pharmacy. The “strictly no smoking!” signs weren’t as prevalent when she and her mother frequented the blinding white halls, but the turns are hard to forget nonetheless. The hospital has always been as familiar to Charlie as a second home. Her mother would wait in line for her prescriptions while Charlie roamed the attached gift shop, admiring the giant bow-wearing bears and full sized candy bars with wide eyes from afar. She always picked out a box of Bandaids, though. The pharmacist knows Charlie and greets her and Luke with a weary smile. He takes the empty orange pill bottle, with the changes printed on the label. It will be a moment, he tells them. She nods. She wanders the gift shop. She isn’t going towards anything but when she looks up bright binkies and blue “It’s-A-Boy!” ribbons and pastel baby blankets are sneering down at her. Luke is stopped at the end of the aisle she is already halfway down. There is a little plush pig toy tucked in between baby monitors on one shelf. Its snout is velveteen and pink, reminds Charlie of something she had when she was little. “There’s all sorts of baby stuff my mom kept,” she says, running an absent-minded finger across the soft nose, “in case. I should get it out for your sister.” “She kept it for you.” “I’ll get it out for your sister.”
He says he has to get something from the car, that he will meet her back up in Allison’s room. “There’s no smoking on the premises,” Charlie motions at the nearest sign. “I’m not going to.” She goes outside with him and leans on the cold trunk and stares up at the sky as he lights a cigarette. The moon is a little clearer than before and even though rain is still misting down cold on her face, the wind is softer and for the moment, the lightning has faded. The pills help, but the dull ache is still there. It is always there. If she stands still enough, though, it is like she is simply laced up around it. Like it is something hot and molten that is folded tight within her. She clings to the sensation, staring up at the moon until her whole body could be white and shining along with it. She turns after a moment, blinks through the fog at his dark eyes through the heavy brown-rimmed glasses. She isn’t used to the glasses yet. They magnify his pupils, and the upper rim covers over the spot that crinkles between his eyebrows when he is thinking. He is staring hard at her, letting out a breath of smoke through his nostrils, and she knows that spot behind the rim is crinkled tight now. She reaches up a finger, prods the plastic frame down his nose a smidge to reveal the spot. He brushes her away from the glasses and pushes them back up his nose. She digs her nails into her palms. She goes back to holding very still, until the pain pulses like a second heartbeat. She reaches instinctively into her pocket after a long moment, digs her fingernails into the crumbs in the deepest depths, beyond the refilled bottle of pills. There is a soft scrap of paper wrinkled up in the corner and she pulls it out. It is a Bandaid. She unfurls her other hand, stares at the crescent of blood blooming in the center of her palm. “Here,” Luke slips the band aid from her fingers before she can stop him. The wrapper crinkles and he reaches for her bleeding hand. Gentle, soft, like the moonlight. She tugs her hand sharply away. Her palm stings. The cold breeze raises goosebumps on her arm and Luke hesitates, then sticks his hand and the Bandaid into his pocket. “I wish you’d stop smoking,” she tells Luke. “You smell like my mom.” It isn’t true, he smells like Luke. Mom has been gone too long for Charlie still to associate the smell first with her. “I’m going to quit,” he says. He chews the inside of his cheek, holds her gaze firmly. She nods. His habit of quitting might be worse than his habit of smoking; every “quitting” ends with him smoking through an entire pack in one night. Frustration sinks into the crevices of his brow. “I mean it, Charlie. This is my last one.” She nods again and thinks about Baby Crosley’s face pressed against his jacket, against all the smoke worn into it. He digs in his pocket, holds the pack of Camels from the car out to her. She takes them without fanfare – there can only be one or two left – and presses them into her pocket next to her refilled pills. It doesn’t matter whether or not she tosses them. He’ll buy new ones or smoke these, and it would be better for her to have a pack of just a couple on her for him to go through, than for him to buy and burn through an entire box. Then, quieter, he says; “We should take her to the orchard. When she is older.” She knows where this conversation goes, just as she knew where the last one went. “You know I can’t.” “We could just try—“ She walks away from him, back towards the glowing hospital doors. They could try. She can see them in Luke’s old car, Baby Crosley tucked safely into a booster seat in the second row. Radio flickering between stations as they get further from the city, the hot sun burning through the dash and searing her eyes and her skin. Grey buildings melting into eternal grey fields, going on and on so long that it isn’t clear where the world ends and the sky behind it begins, and it doesn’t matter. They could keep going forever. There are no pills in her pocket, in this bright image, and she doesn’t miss their presence. There are no cigarettes in the cup holder, and Luke smells like apple pie. There is a trash can outside the sliding doors. They glide open smoothly as she approaches and she pauses, feeling the pack of cigarettes at her pocket, eyeing the trash. The doors slide shut again. And open. She takes a small step closer to the trash can and closes her hand around the Camels. The doors shut. The doors open. She saves the cigarettes in her pocket and goes back inside.