Irene Sylvander

When I was sixteen, my parents went away for a long weekend, and I woke up on Saturday with a fever of 101.7. I had a part-time job at a hillside orchard stand, selling apples, cider, and honey to the tourists who drove up the mountain road on weekends. My shift started at nine. I called the owner at 7:30, coughing so hard I could barely get the words out. "I'm sick," I said. "I can't come in today." "Find someone to cover for you," he said, and hung up. I called six coworkers. Three didn't pick up, two said no, and one laughed. Nobody was coming. So I put on two sweaters, tied my shoes with shaking hands, and started the walk. It was forty minutes uphill, and I felt every step. I coughed so hard at one point that I had to sit on a guardrail and wait for the world to stop tilting. By the time I reached the stand, my face was gray and my knees were weak. The old man who ran the cider press, Mr. Ibarra, looked up from a crate of apples and froze. "Good heavens," he said. "That's a terrible cough. You should go home." "I can't," I said. "I couldn't find anyone to cover." He looked at me for a long moment. Then he put down the crate, wiped his hands on his apron, and walked over to the owner's tiny office. I heard a short, quiet conversation. It was not a shouting match. It was something more like a very calm person explaining something obvious to someone who had not yet noticed it. A minute later, Mr. Ibarra came back with his truck keys. "Get in," he said. "I'm taking you home." He drove me down the mountain with the heater on high and a thermos of hot apple cider between us. At my front door, he waited until I had turned the lock before he drove away. I slept for twelve hours. When my parents got back on Sunday night, the kitchen counter was covered in things I had never seen. A paper bag of soup in glass jars, still warm. Two bottles of cough syrup. A box of crackers. A bag of oranges. A fresh loaf of bread. Taped to the bag was an envelope with my name on it. Inside was $120, a full week's pay, and a note in careful handwriting. "Don't come back until you are well. You were right to call. I should have told you to rest. The owner and I have talked, and he has something to say to you." My mom read it over my shoulder, and her eyes filled. On Monday morning, the owner called me himself. "I'm sorry about Saturday," he said, in a stiff voice that told me somebody had made him practice it. "That was wrong of me. We have a new rule at the stand. If you're sick, you stay home, and you get paid for the shift." Then he cleared his throat. "Ibarra said he would quit otherwise." I laughed, and then coughed, and then laughed again. I went back to work eight days later. Mr. Ibarra met me at the gate with a paper cup of fresh cider and a small, crooked smile. "Feeling better?" he asked. "Much," I said. He nodded and handed me my apron. I worked there for three more summers, and every year, when the first cold morning came, I found a thermos waiting on my stool.