A Tale of Three Brothers (Completed)

The Kiwi House

"We're not supposed to," Sam said.

"But you do." She smiled and Sam found himself smiling back.

"After you," he said.

Martha shifted aside the extra piece of wood covering the crawl space Sam and his brothers had made years ago. He'd been planning to close up the hole, but he somehow never got around to it. "Come on," Martha said, and she ducked beneath the fence.

It had been over six months since Sam had last been in the orchard, but inside it was like no time had passed. The kiwi vines stretched for miles overhead, crisscrossing atop the old arbor, long tendrils falling down through the gaps like snakes.

"I'd forgotten how magical this place was," Martha said. She was walking a little ways ahead of me with her hands, parting the vines that hung down in front of her. "I used to tell people about this place, but they never believed me."

"I wouldn't have believed you either," Sam said. "Some things you just have to see for yourself."

They stopped in front of what Sam and his brothers had named the Jesus cross. The Jesus cross was a man-sized beam of wood in the shape of a cross. It bore most of the weight of the arbor. Martha looked up at the cross. "Amazing," she said under her breath. But as she reached to touch it a car horn honked in the distance.

Sam looked at his phone. "That's your ride."

The good-bye was awkward. Sam didn't know whether or not to hug her good-bye or shake her hand. Martha seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she eventually held out her hand for a handshake. "See you," she said.

"See you," he said back.

Sam watched her get into the car. He was so confused by their awkward good0bye that he failed to notice the car driving in the wrong direction.

It was at least several hours before the rest of the family came home. They all looked worn out. "I'm going for a nap," was the first thing Trisha said when she got in the house. "Right behind you," dad said.

Normally, Sam would have been the one to joke that they were planning to do a little more than nap, but nobody looked to be in the mood for jokes.

"You missed a great service," Elliot said.

"I'm sure I did. Picketers and all."

"It wasn't as bad as we thought," Dylan said. "A couple of teenagers showed up and tried to start something, but security threw them out."

"That's good," Sam said. "Oh, yeah. Did you see Martha? She looks different, huh?

Elliot and Dylan looked confused. "Martha," Sam said slowly. "She's about yay high," he held up his hand to demonstrate. "Super annoying.... used to have a monster crush on Dylan... Ring any bells?"

"We know who Martha is," Dylan said. "And it wasn't me she was crushing on."

Sam ignored this. "She was at the service," Sam said. "Didn't you see her?"

Elliot shook his head no. "Nobody showed but us."

"I called the Uber for her myself," Sam said. "She had to have been there."

Elliot and Dylan looked confused at each other. "She texted me last night and said she was coming," Dylan said. "But when she didn't show I just assumed something came up."

Sam had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing, but he checked the Uber app and everything seemed fine. "I'm sure she's fine," he said. "I'm going out. Let me know if she turns up."

Sam liked walking the neighborhood at night. Since his mother died he didn't get many opportunities to walk around and not have to worry about being hassled by some idiot looking to settle a grudge match.

Kiwi Town was small enough so if you got yourself to high enough ground, you could see the whole thing, but big enough so that you'd have to be stupid to try and walk from one end of it to the other.

The sun had already gone down by the time Sam was nearing the basketball courts behind his house. Just last year he and his friends would spend all their free time at the courts. They'd play until their parents texted that they had to come home, or in Sam's case until his mother came down to the courts to drag him home.

When his mother died his friends stopped coming around. One by one they disappeared from the lunch table where they sat at school; they disappeared from his Facebook, they stopped coming around for the kickbacks at Larissa's. He got the hint, and eventually, he stopped asking them to hang out.

He stood in front of one of the basketball courts and took a shot. "He shoots; he scores," he said as the ball went in. "Crowd goes wild." The ball rolled away in the grass, and that's when he saw something move behind one of the trees. It was so quick he thought he'd imagined it, but then he saw it move again.

"Walk away, Sam," he said to himself. "Just walk away." But even as he was telling himself to walk away, his feet were already carrying him towards whatever had moved.

But when he came around the tree, it wasn't the Hollywood monster he was expecting. A very different Martha than the one he'd seen earlier was sitting hunched up behind the tree trunk. Her clothes were tattered and dirty, she was bleeding from her lip, and she was holding one of her arms in a way that suggested it was broken. "What the hell..."

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said, wincing as she spoke.

Sam dropped to his knees beside her. "Not that bad? We gotta call 911. We gotta get help."

"No police," Martha said. "Just...can you help me up?"

Sam helped Martha to her feet, and Sam could see that she was far worse off than he'd originally thought. "My ankle," she said, as Sam tried to help her to a standing position.

Sam maneuvered her arm around his neck. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to call Elliot. He'll come get us."

"Please don't," she said. "I don't want anyone to know. Especially not Dylan. Please, Sam. You can't."

"Okay, I won't," Sam said. "I'll uh, carry you back. It's not far."

It took Sam nearly half an hour to get Martha back to his house. "See, not far at all," Sam said as he struggled to get her up the walk. Martha didn't say anything, and Sam craned his neck to see her. She was starting to fall asleep. "Hey, no none of that," Sam said. He set her down. "You could have a concussion, and they always say you can't fall asleep with those."

Everyone at home had either gone out or had gone to sleep, so Sam didn't have any trouble getting Martha to his room. Afterwards, he sat down with a wet rag and started cleaning up some of the cuts and bruises she had on her face. "I'm sorry to be such a bother," she said as Sam dabbed at her swollen lip.

"You aren't," Sam assured her.

Martha smiled at him. "Thanks."

While Martha was in the shower, Sam cleaned off the bed for her. He didn't want to leave her alone in the state she was in, but he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable either. He was just setting down some extra blankets on the floor for him to sleep on when Martha came in.

"I don't want to put you out," Martha said when she saw the arrangements Sam had made.

"It's no problem," Sam said. "If you like, I can sleep in Elliot's room. I just wasn't sure if you wanted to be alone or not."

Martha sat down at the edge of the bed. "No, I suppose I don't," she said.

"Martha, are you sure you don't want to at least call home?" Sam asked. "Your mom is probably worried."

"Trust me. She isn't. And anyway-" Martha held up her phone. The screen was cracked and several of the keys looked like they'd been bashed in. "I couldn't call her even if I wanted to." She laid back. "I just wanna rest."

"Okay," Sam said. He turned off the light.

"Hey, Sam?" Martha said.

"Yeah?"

"Thanks for not asking."