Ceasefire

Red apples spill across the icy road. My grandmother wheezes, lying on her back next to the canvas tote. The fruit is too far for her limp fingers to touch.

Three hours ago, a voice from the TV told us the news. Papers signed, hands shaken, an accordance in accord.

"Maybe this time, there is hope," Grandmother said. Click clack click went the rosary beads through her fingers.

I shook my head. "Peace in one hand and a weapon in the other."

The staccato language of guns speaks around me as I kneel in the snow by her head. The sound fades into the dry tick of a rosary. Not quite as fast as a heartbeat.

There are splashes of red on the ground’s white ice. The wound gapes in her throat, a second mouth below the first. It speaks loudly.

I take her hand. "Grandmother," I say. "How can I help you, Grandmother?"

She blinks milky eyes. There are snowflakes falling on her cheeks, and I wipe them away with the edge of my sleeve. Her lips move, but it is a whisper of lost sound. I lean closer to listen.

“Forgive,” she says. Another bead falling through her fingers.

The rasp of her breath goes in and out, and I hold her hand as clouds move across the sky. Snow cascades down to cover us, and a rosary clicks over the shadowed lines of her face.

The air is scented with the fragrance of murdered apples.