The Language of Trees (14 page)

For three nights, he slept in the guest room without complaint. The pillows were extra hard and the room not completely dark. But he slept deeply, better than he had in years, he said, leaving the door generously open, somehow knowing his presence was filling a deep void in the home. The girls hardly blinked the first morning when there was a man who was not their father reading the paper at the kitchen table. Leila explained about the snow emergency and the girls shrugged, and said, “Okay,” as they kicked each other under the table and ate their bagels and cream cheese. They felt safer somehow. Charlie's presence had created a short cease and desist. Everything was so off, a stranger's presence normalized things. When he walked in on a fight about to brew, the girls glared at
each other but turned away and separately went off to play in different rooms of the house.

During the day, he read anything he could get his hands on. Old hunting magazines of Victor's that had gotten lost at the bottom of the magazine rack, some books of poetry and Leila's
Farmers' Almanac
. Every once in a while, Charlie got up and stared out the window, muttering something about the city plows, but Leila knew it was lip service. Charlie seemed lighter, jovial even.
He wants to stay
, Leila told herself, as she and the girls made birthday cake for Melanie. He seemed relaxed, almost relieved as he sipped a beer and leaned up against the doorway with his white shirt untucked, watching them as if this whole scene was the fruit of his own life's efforts. After Melanie blew out her candles, Charlie pulled two comp movie tickets from his wallet and handed them to her. Melanie hugged him hard and quick, and he looked stunned. When Maya started to pout, he made her an origami swan out of a five-dollar bill, which made her happy. Leila's adolescent jungle was an oasis compared to his desolate motel life.

On the last night, the girls had volunteered to go to bed early. Leila was up late trying to fix the wires of the VCR, which Old Sally had plowed through yet again, the cords catching in her feet. Charlie came to her then with a question about sheets. He followed her into her bedroom and when he shut the door and put his hands on her, she forgot about who she was.

When the sun finally filtered through Leila's curtains the next morning, even in a half-dream state Leila knew two things had happened: the snow had stopped, and the man had left.

Hearing the clock tumble from the bedside table, the girls ran into the room with glowing faces. Leila had forgotten to set the alarm, somehow trying to ward off the reality of morning.

Excitedly, the girls took her hand and led her down the stairs and into the doorway. Melanie flung open the back door. They had shoveled out the entire driveway and the sidewalk.

Imprinted in the snow, two snow angels shimmered across the lawn. No, there were three, the last one smaller than the others, and off to the side.

Each was the perfect shape of a child. Each, she knew, was a careful work of art. The children noticed the smaller angel as soon as Leila did, and they argued about who had made it, both denying it. Leila's eyes watered up as she stared into the blinding whiteness so that the images would freeze their impressions inside her, filling her emptiness. She didn't say anything about the three dead blackbirds she spotted lying near the fence. Later she would bag the frozen bodies and hide them in the trash.

When Leila felt a sudden hand on her shoulder, she jumped, but it was only Clarisse Mellon wanting to share in the sight of snow angels.

As the girls ate their breakfast in silence, Leila tried not to think about Charlie. In just a few days her entire world had changed. His absence was even more palpable than his presence. The girls seemed to sense her emptiness and stayed unusually close to her, hugging her, styling her hair, trying to take up the empty space.

Wind is flooding through the pale organza curtains. The shock of cold air hits Leila's face. Old Sally raises her head and lets out a low groan before pushing her nose back into the plaid woolen blanket. “Is she back?” Lion says, startling Leila. “Mom. Did she come back?” He shuts the door behind him.

“What time is it?” Leila says, sitting up. “Oh sweetie. I must have fallen asleep. Did you find her?” Lion notices how tired she looks and his heart sinks. Leila looks curious in the gray
suit. Not a suit to sleep in. Not a suit to drive all night in. The fact that it's the one thing that makes her feel like she is a part of the everyday world doesn't occur to him. All he knows is that at certain times when she turns her head just so, he catches sight of her delicate features, the small thin nose and ice blue eyes, and it makes him feel connected to Melanie.

Leila runs her fingers through Old Sally's thick black fur and peers into the dog's face. She fixes the blanket around the dog's head. “I haven't heard from Melanie. I stopped by the apartment and let myself in. I hope that's all right. Obviously, she wasn't there.”

“Okay,” he says. Lion tries to appear calm and lopes off into the kitchen. He grabs a piece of French bread from the bread bin and shoves it into his mouth.

“Where did you look for her?” calls Leila, smoothing out the folds of her skirt as she gets up. She doesn't want to nag him but she's growing more and more worried. “Grant Shongo called me last night.”

“Don't want to talk about it,” he says, pouring a glass of milk.

“Your cheek is cut, Lion. What happened with Rory?” Leila asks, gently touching his face.

Lion's cheek feels a bit sore, but not bad. “Nobody's out to get me,” he says, turning away.

“That's not what I meant. I'm worried you're a danger to yourself—”

“To myself? No. I'm dealing with things in my own way. Let me deal with it. And I've been praying, okay?” he says, staring into her eyes.

“You are the only thing holding us—”

“I thought you trusted me, Mom.”

She loves the way he calls her Mom, adores it. It melts her
heart. And she also knows he sweet-talks her. But it doesn't matter. She waited a long time to have children. When she married Victor at forty, having children was something she had given up on. But miraculously, within a month she was pregnant with Melanie, and Maya came soon after. Hearing the word
Mom
was the most beautiful sound Leila could have ever imagined. She had thrown herself into the role as though she had been a mother forever. She sewed corduroy jumpers for their first day of school and made dragonfly wings for Halloween costumes out of netting, duct tape, and hangers she'd collected from the cleaners. She soaked pieces of rhubarb in orange juice and baked apple-rhubarb pies from scratch, and invented bedtime stories about a family of fairies that lived in a junkyard. After Luke was born, she and the girls grew even closer. Luke was the glue of the family, the bridge between so many things that were hard to describe. He was such a glorious child, despite the asthma that evaded the pills and shots. Even when he was unable to talk, he'd reach out and take her hand, trying to calm her.

She would do it all again in a second. Seven priceless years with him had not been enough. Even if he was the focus of Maya's jealousy, her temper tantrums. Even if Maya resented the amount of attention paid to him, Leila chalked it off to normal sibling rivalry. When he died, Leila dreamed about having another son, but the opportunity had passed. She was too old. The doctor told her that her eggs had dried up. Maybe it was a blessing that a woman's body knew when to quit. Victor's drinking had become unbearable, and the way he would go outside in the backyard and shoot birds in the trees frightened them all. It was dangerous. He smelled like death, like dirt and blood and whiskey. She had slept in that scent for years. Despite a three-day stint of sobriety, when he'd repainted the
kitchen a horrible hospital green without asking her, he was rarely home, which was better for everyone.

Lion is her son now. He is. It has everything to do with intention. When Melanie brought him home for the first time for one of Leila's famous lasagna dinners, he talked openly about his abstinence. Leila had breathed a sigh of relief. Some mothers would have questioned the wisdom of mixing races. Sure, the kids would undoubtedly run into prejudice. But she saw that they had something stronger between them. She liked the idea of a wayward soul that had come back to save others. To Leila, it meant he was seasoned, and he would be strong enough to deal with life's challenges, namely Melanie. He talked a little about what he had lived through in California—the earthquakes and the riots. He said he had wanted to get away to the other side of the country, to the Northeast, where America had begun, where people could start their lives over.

Leila felt that the most important reason to love Lion was that he loved her daughter. She watched his unwavering support as he listened to Melanie, not so much to her words but to what was going on underneath. He saw through Melanie's tough-girl act. He knew her vulnerabilities but he didn't exploit them. Melanie had always been self-conscious about the scar on her face, which Maya had inextricably put there when she pushed Melanie into a table during one of the girls' fights. In Lion's presence, it faded. When Melanie painted a mural on a brick wall in an alley off Main Street, Lion sat beside her for three days in the searing heat, mixing her paint for her and bringing her ice for the back of her neck after a sunburn turned it the color of red apples.

Leila's love for Lion only grew over time. His difficult past gave him an appreciation for the smallest things. Whether she fixed him a snack, reminded him to tie his sneakers, or bought
him a turtleneck sweater for Christmas, he was incredibly grateful. But, he had gotten Melanie clean and he made her happy, which was no easy feat. For this, Leila would always be the one who was grateful.

She pulls the tray of lasagna from the refrigerator. The sauce is cold and the noodles are sticky, but Lion will eat anything. She spoons a heap of noodles into a bowl and drenches them in sauce. Then she puts the plate into the microwave.

“Help,” says Lion, the handle of the diaper bag in his teeth, Lucas wailing in his arms. Leila rushes over and takes Lucas. She hugs him to her chest. In the delivery room, Lucas had let out a scream so loud Leila had to clasp her own hands behind her head to keep from pushing her way through the crowd to get to him. He had been whisked away, his little purple fists flailing, then cried for ten minutes in the incubator. He had looked so brave and unearthly, his skin shriveled like a raisin, his white-blond eyebrows and long lashes trembling as he punctuated his debut with several loud hiccups.

“I do trust you,” Leila says. “You know that, right?”

Lion smiles. “I guess.”

“If you tell me she's okay, I will believe you.”

“She's okay.”

“Well, I looked everywhere. I called Cheever. She did go there to see Maya, but no one saw her after—”

“Don't worry.” He pops open a can of Pepsi and chugs it down as though he hasn't had a drink in a week. “I'll get her back. Today. I have a plan.”

Holding Lucas in one arm, Leila sets the plate of the lasagna in front of Lion. She watches a cloud of steam climb off the plate. She pats Lucas's back and tries to relax. “If only Melanie was the way she used to be. How I miss that little girl.”

“Argh,” he says between mouthfuls. “That's hot.”

Leila stares at him, wondering how he can be this calm. “I know it's probably hard for you to imagine there ever was a ‘before.' But there was. When she was younger. Melanie was such a good girl. You know, such a little mother herself. When I was volunteering at the retirement home, Melanie always wanted to come. She'd carry her box of colored pencils and paper from table to table, doing portraits. It was all very serious. She'd ask about everything: What color do you want your hair? What kind of mouth do you want? She'd list their choices—smiling with teeth, smiling with no teeth, not smiling. I wish you—”

“You wish I what?” Lion says, pushing the plate away.

Leila puts Lucas down and kisses his head after fastening the diaper tabs. “Nothing,” Leila says, her voice hoarse, her throat tightening up.

Leila sighs, looks away. She hasn't seen that girl in a long time. It's pointless to keep thinking about it.

But it was true, even if no one believes it now. Even after the girls' fights threatened to rip the roof right off of the house, Melanie would always go to Maya and apologize. What did they fight over? A few worthless pieces of coal? It was as though all the love in the world was measured by it. Leila explained a long time ago that diamonds were formed from coal over many lifetimes, a result of intense geological pressure. But the girls didn't listen when she said that they could not make the coal into diamonds by squeezing it between their hands or anything near that. They didn't listen when they snuck into the Shongos' coal bin, and would come home covered in coal dust, tracking soot footprints across the linoleum floor. Even after Luke died, they still went back to the coal bin.

Melanie once told Leila that it wasn't about the coal. It was about a time when the three children were together, when they
were a triangle, the strongest shape. Perhaps Leila shouldn't have ever told them that, for without Luke, the girls felt like they were too weak to go on alone.

A little old person, Leila used to call Melanie.

She had the face of an angel and the soul of a martyr, the sort of mind that was always working. On overdrive sometimes, which caused insomnia from the time she was small, well before Luke was born. Melanie resisted sleep, refused the night with all her strength. She'd be awake into the morning, drawing or reading by the hall light. Worrying, worrying, always worrying. She'd climb down the stairs in the middle of the night to find Victor passed out with his hunting rifle by his side, and it would be Melanie who'd clean him up, drenched in his scent. In the morning, Leila would find him covered with a blanket wherever he had landed, and Melanie would be sitting at the bottom of the stairway, a glass of milk in her hand and a sketch pad laid out on the step in front of her. You could see it in her eyes, the growing wariness, the silvery circles that never went away, giving her a gaunt, unearthly beauty. The blue of her irises was not like the dark gray of her sister's. Melanie's eyes were changeable, vulnerable to every cold wind and shred of light. Every thought that trickled by would change the color, from ice blue to dove gray. Perhaps some of her sadness came from the wisdom or had the wisdom come from the sadness? Leila could never tell.