Today We Eat Pie

Pumpkin Pie

A poem by Tracie Adams

My sister’s resentment is a hardened crust, anger bubbling up and running over. Today is Dad’s funeral. Long bursts of silence are followed by the predictable rhythm of rapid-fire accusations. I lean against the kitchen counter to steady myself, running fingers over a cigarette burn that Dad left in the Formica. 

Erin says I put the pie into the oven too soon, three hours before guests arrive. Her voice is strained through a sieve of sadness in a high pitch wail, “What would he think of you now?” Golden Delicious she nicknamed me, the golden child, the one Dad trusted to do the hard things. “Who the hell eats cold apple pie?” Her tongue is a whirring blade, slicing my raw heart to the core.

What she means is Who the hell pulls the plug on her father’s life like it’s a toaster oven? My thoughts roam the hallway leading to the hospital room, the night nurse handing us papers to sign, my trembling hand reaching for the pen, reaching for Erin, the flash of anger or was it fear, the creased fold of skin between her eyes, my father’s skin shriveled like peeled apples. 

Heat rises in the galley kitchen crowded with casseroles for mourners. Erin turns blue-grey eyes as cold as steel on my unmanicured nails digging into the ripe flesh of another apple. My mouth hangs open, unspoken words hidden beneath my tongue like little foxes Dad would chase from our orchard. We’ll be okay, I want to say, but silence has carved us into pieces, our grief discolored like bruised fruit by the words we cannot say.

The ticking timer is a metronome setting the pace for our woeful dance around the pain. I lean left, she shifts right. She will not look at me while I lift a corner of the lattice crust as if we might find peace in the pungent scent of nutmeg and cinnamon. But there is no peace here. 

Tomorrow I will clear out closets, size twelve muck boots and size large church shirts, piles of junk mail will be laid to rest with kitchen garbage. A for sale sign will dig its way through a patch of grass by the mailbox. The pickers will collect paychecks for the final harvest. Erin’s car will disappear behind them, ghosting the dirt road in dust rising like morning fog, and I will stand alone in the middle of the empty orchard waving one last goodbye. 

But right now, the hardest thing to do is to grab a knife and slice the pie.