Chapter 10 - The Spring Orchard
May returned to the Clackamas valley with an explosion of green so fierce it seemed to push the fences back from the road.
The cherry orchard behind the house had turned into an ocean of white blossoms that smelled of honey, damp moss, and the wild, sweet musk of waking soil. The bees—three hives that Tom Garrison and I had set behind the machine shed in April—were humming through the branches with a steady, electric vibration that could be heard all the way to the kitchen porch.
I was standing on the gravel apron beside my truck, loading three transit levels and a wooden tripod into the back.
The covered bridge project in Damascus had begun its foundation pour that morning; I had eight concrete trucks scheduled for nine-thirty, and forty men from the local timber unions waiting on the abutments.
The kitchen screen door clicked open.
Eleanor walked down the steps. She wasn't carrying an overnight bag. She wasn't holding a hospital folder.
She was carrying two tin boxes of sandwiches wrapped in wax paper, a thermos of cold sweet tea with mint from the well-head, and a brown paper bag that was warm to the touch.
"You forgot your breakfast, Brandon," she said, handing the bag up through the open window of the cab.
I opened the top.
Inside were two thick slices of banana bread, baked that morning, still steaming through the paper, smelling of butter, dark molasses, and black walnuts.
"I wrapped them in double paper so the grease wouldn't get on your blue-prints," she said, leaning her forearm against the door frame of the truck.
I looked down at her.
Her face was brown from three weeks of working her garden flats. Her hair, white as the cherry blossoms behind her, was tied back with a simple strip of black grosgrain ribbon, and her eyes were clear, bright, and calm as the morning river.
"Mom," I said. "Dr. Holbrook said you shouldn't be standing over that hot stove before six in the morning."
She gave me that short, dismissive wave of her hand that had settled every domestic argument in the Vance family since nineteen-sixty-two.
"Dr. Holbrook is seventy-four years old, Brandon, and he doesn't know the difference between a woodstove and an electric skillet. His mother was a city woman from Astoria who bought her bread in waxed paper from the grocery wagon."
She reached through the window and patted my cheek with her rough, warm palm.
"You drive careful over the river bridge, son. The timber trucks from Molalla are hauling heavy this morning, and those boys don't look past their own radiator caps on the blind turns."
"I’ll be home by five, Mom," I said.
"The ham bone is in the split-pea soup," she replied, stepping back onto the gravel. "If you’re not here by five-fifteen, Tom Garrison is going to eat your share, and he doesn't leave enough in the pot to feed a sparrow."
I turned the key.
The diesel engine rumbled to life, smooth, steady, and clean, sending a faint puff of white vapor into the morning air.
I put the truck in gear, eased off the clutch, and rolled down the long lane between the blooming cherry trees.
In the rearview mirror, as the gravel turned to blacktop at the county road, I could see her standing by the gate.
She wasn't small. She didn't look frail.
May you like
She stood straight and true beside the cedar post her husband had set fifty years ago, her apron white against the dark green of the valley pasture, her hand raised in a slow, quiet blessing toward the open road.
The river was on my left, wide, deep, and clear, rolling down from the mountains toward the sea; the sun was at my back, warm on the glass of the window; and on the seat beside me, the bread was warm, honest, and enough for the whole day's work.
