Dad's Apple Tree

When we were very young we often escaped out

to that old tree dad planted in the backyard.

We ran in circles around it,

me, slender and with rosy cheeks, chasing you,

or you, wheezing but giggling, chasing me.

Apples hung weighty on the branches above

but we never knew where they came from.

Mom would serve us cold lemonade

and cradle your fragile back

when we fell to rest in the grass,

you, exhausted, and me, playing along.

She would remind me in a whisper,

Maddie, you can’t tire your brother out like that.

Dad never allowed us to pick the apples

but they would eventually plummet to the ground.

Then we walked out to the backyard

and picked the rotten fruit from off the ground.

I always carried the basket back to the kitchen

because your frail arms couldn’t handle the weight.

There, we helped mom turn the apples into sauce.

Once, you tried to cut the tree down

with dad’s axe, revenge after being scolded

for playing outside in your church clothes.

You failed to fell that tree,

the axe was too heavy to swing hard enough,

and when you returned inside, panting,

dad hit you with his belt twelve times,

once for each year you had neglected

to become man enough to chop that tree through.

Covered in bruises, you carefully fell asleep

with your head on my shoulder that night;

I couldn’t even console you—

the pain was too overwhelming,

so all night I lay, unable to sleep,
staring out the window at the tree,

apples dangling from its branches.

That was the day we stopped playing out back,

we stopped looking dad in the eye

and we stopped asking mom to make sauce.

We stopped because now we knew

that those apples came from dad.