The Scent of Apple Tea

3. Kathryn

Kathryn

3

Loch Dochfour whispered and lapped the edges of the shore, mixing soil with its waters and teasing out the magic needed for the native plants to thrive. Early summer’s sun was just beginning its ascent when Flora picked her way around the water’s edge, through foliage and dankness, searching, searching.

Flora didn’t see it at first, but gradual lightness pointed her to the white star-petaled plant just past the water’s edge. She reached in, water splashing up to her ankles, and grasped a red stem, and then another and another, until she had a handful. She smiled. She would bring them to Her. To Kathryn.

As the sky brightened, Flora ran through the fields adjacent to River Ness, the bouquet of bogbean in her fist. She laughed then, stopped and spun around, opening her plaid wrap like wings. She did a jig in bare feet, red braid flopping, and looked to the sky, searching, searching again. Her blue eyes alighted on one particular spot of the heavens and she lifted her bogbean skyward.

Kathryn woke from another Flora dream and stretched in bed, dislodging her little Westie, Janet. Janet stood up and shook from nose to tail then sat, expectant and prim.

The dream was a reoccurring one—the first of the Flora dreams. Sometimes Flora sent reruns when she didn’t have anything to say but still wanted to stay in touch.

Kathryn smiled in the pre-dawn darkness and proceeded to fumble with her slippers and robe.

Years ago, when Heather’s mental illness worsened in college, Kathryn had danced in the living room in feverish frenzy—exorcising her own demons so that she could help with Heather’s—and then recovered under a blanket with a chai in her hands, eyes glossy with despondency.

Today, she was less likely to dance despite her troubles and more likely to reach for that cup of tea, but that didn’t mean she ever backed down from hard work.

Kathryn moved quietly through the living room and turned on the light in the kitchen, which smelled of bread and caramelized onions from last night’s dinner. There was an undertone of sandalwood incense and kombucha left too long to brew. She set the kettle on medium heat, slipped on the Crocs waiting at the back door, tightened her robe, and stepped outside.

No one would see the hot-pink chenille at six o’clock in the morning. Only the rooster, who was already making a racket. She walked into the large coop—more like a shed—and opened the chicken door.

“Good morning, my lovelies,” Kathryn crooned. The plump hens, scrawny teenage pullets, and the nasty rooster fluttered down from their perches and scurried across the ramp to scratch and revel in the fresh morning air. Kathryn eyed the rooster and stood at the ready should he once again attack her shoes. He strutted and paced behind the hens until they were all through the door, and then he followed after.

Kathryn hurriedly replaced their water and added crumble from rat-proof bins to their trays. It was stupid to be afraid of the rooster, but—she laughed—if shielding herself from Spade, a New Hampshire Red, was the only distasteful thing to her days, then she had a pretty great life. Later, she’d come out with some grapes. Her chickens freaked for grapes. Apple peels, too.

Kathryn collected the eggs from the nesting boxes and gently laid them in a basket lined with soft chamois. She scooped out chicken manure into a bucket and fluffed up the bedding, adding a handful of fresh straw here and there. She swept out the floor, tossed the manure into the chicken run, and moved on to the rabbits.

She made sure they had fresh water in their bottles and added timothy hay to their feeding area, but this early in the morning the rabbits still slumbered in their hay burrows—unlike the early-rising chickens.

Later, after breakfast and checking the greenhouse starts, Kathryn would let the rabbits out into the Bunny Fields—allocated places for them to jump and frolic. Sometimes she even opened the adjoining door to the chicken run and the rabbits would play alongside the chickens. Most of the time, the two species co-existed peacefully, but Kathryn only let them out together when she felt confident that Spade wouldn’t be a d**k and attack a rabbit. Maybe she should just eat him. She could get her chicks by mail order like a lot of folks did these days.

At the mudroom—a converted back porch—Kathryn kicked off her Crocs. Inside the house, slippers back on, she poured the hot tea water into her favorite ceramic mug from St. Vincent de Paul. It was brown and blue and obviously handmade. It fit her hand perfectly.

With Early Morning Chores over, she enjoyed her tea and journaled until it was time to get dressed to head out to Late Morning Chores, which would dovetail into Gardening Time. Kathryn always named things with capital letters because they were alive for her, had distinction.

When Kathryn closed her journal and took the last sip of her tea, she had resolved not to worry about Heather. She’d been getting that restless look about her recently and, selfishly, that made Kathryn nervous. She didn’t want Heather traveling alone again. The last time was disastrous. She swallowed down the anxiety and rinsed out her cup in the sink.

She wanted Heather to find happiness and love, especially when a bout of depression sank its claws into her, but traveling alone was dangerous for her, and Kathryn couldn’t go anywhere right now—the end of August being their busiest time. It was the middle of harvest season and there were a million-and-fourteen things to do on the farm. Plus, there just hadn’t been a man yet that had had the chutzpa to stick around and help Heather take responsibility for her meds.

If she stayed on them, Heather functioned completely normally. But if anything upset that chemical cocktail, her depression took an even darker turn and scooted toward the edge of something else—unable to work, hiding in her room for months at a time.

Kathryn often struggled with her hopes for Heather and her own fears of what would happen if Heather did fall in love and leave.

Kathryn would be alone then and that would be unbearable.