The Language of Trees (23 page)

Echo can feel the heat from the feathers, from all the blackbirds swirling around in the sky. The air takes on the smell of lilac and burning wood. A strange sensation comes over her. The warmth in the air is cradling her. And although she is facing the thing she fears most, her heartbeat has calmed. She feels at peace. She is still afraid, but her limbs are relaxed, heavy. As the sun's rays reflect off the windows and scatter across the porch, she notices Joseph's expression. He looks at peace, too. And for a moment, she could swear his feet aren't touching the ground.

 

A
FEW MINUTES LATER
, sitting on the porch bench, she tightens her arms around him to still his cough. The sun is high in the air, rising off the tips of the Diamond Trees. “Well, look at that sun,” Joseph says, staring at the pink glow gliding across the tips of the trees. “You have to respect a God that can make that happen.” She kisses him on the cheek. When he turns to her, she can see the haziness in his stare, the pale yellow dinge across the whites of his eyes. “Honey, I worry you give up too easily. You're afraid that there's not enough love for you. But love is the one thing we never empty out of.”

“Love has never made me feel particularly good.”

He chuckles. “Love isn't tested by how good it makes you feel. It's tested by whether you are brave enough to feel every part of it.”

Three women: Leila. Emily. Clarisse. Their words run through her mind. “Do you have any regrets, Pop?”

“Well, one. Wish I could remember jokes,” he says. She smiles and pulls him close. “Always wanted to be one of those guys who could just pull a joke from memory and make people laugh.”

“Is that all?” she asks, softly.

“Maybe a few other things that I'll keep to myself, okay?”

She nods. She understands. Grateful, she finally understands.

“Now help me go in and put my feet up,” he says, weakly. As he is getting up, he turns to her. “Honey, is fear holding you back, fear of having something precious taken away?”

“Like what's happening with you now?” she asks, trembling. Tears stream down her cheeks. He leans down and wipes her tears away with his hand and she closes her eyes, trying to memorize the warmth of his hand on her face.

“Don't cry, kiddo. You'll always be okay. When you get older, you'll look back and you see everything happened in the right time. You gain a faith that things are as they're supposed to be. You can't imagine how much this helps your life.”

“I don't know what to do next,” she tells him.

“Some foreign countries you know you have to visit, right? And some of them you're just content to look at the pictures. You find your country, honey. And then you pack up and buy a one-way ticket.”

“Which is the right country?” she asks, as she starts weeping again.

“The one that feels like home. The one that always has.”

These words strike right to the heart and she can't stop the tears. She grabs him and holds on to him, and she knows there's nothing she can do. “Most people deserve a second chance, even you,” he whispers. Through her tears, Echo glances at the Diamond Trees a few miles away.

L
EILA DOESN'T CARE THAT
she's already called everyone she knows. She's got less self-control now. Melanie has been gone for five days.

People are compassionate, they'll do their best to listen, to offer sympathies, but they've got their own lives. After they hang up, her life will just be a story. They'll grope for the snooze button on the clock radio, or they'll make love in a state of half wake with her words drifting sadly through the air. What about her? She's left with the silence. Even imaginary discussions she has with herself about the tarnished spots that crawl across her copper pots won't distract her. For a while, she'll try and focus on the fraying edges of the yellow gingham curtains she so painstakingly put together way back when she believed that the success of her marriage depended on whether she could sew a straight seam or boil a slab of corned beef to perfection, so that the meat just fell apart when touched with a fork.

She knows just how bad it is when the old fleeting urge to see Victor sweeps over her. She runs to the sink, overwhelmed by the fact that her emotions can distort reality in such a way,
making him seem sympathetic, even comforting. She refocuses on a few terrifying memories, thankfully recalling them with amazing clarity. Every night for months after Luke died, Melanie spilled her milk, and every time, Victor would become so enraged, he'd slam his fist on the table as the white rivulets spilled into the grooves of the green linoleum tiles. Melanie was determined to overcome the shame, though. Night after night, Leila would sit in angst throughout each dinner, praying for the milk to spill just so it would be over. No sooner had Victor gotten used to it than Melanie stopped spilling. Strange how things in a family were synchronized that way, a seesaw of spilled milk and fists.

When Leila splashes water on her face, the urge to see Victor subsides.

It's 6
A.M
. and Lucas hasn't stopped crying in almost twenty-four hours. Even though the doctor has told Leila “teething causes fever” is a wives' tale, she's sure he's sick because his molars are breaking through a swollen gum. Leila won't resort to baby Tylenol, but she wishes she could stop the pain, especially when he just stares at her with pleading eyes, like he knows it isn't fair and it's somehow her fault. One thing is certain, though. Leila remembers how to distract a little boy. She could try to make him laugh the way she did with her own son, cradle him in her arms and rub her nose against his, or put him in a bath and show him how to splash the water so that it rains down around him. But Lucas has a certain need to assert his independence. He doesn't seem to want any of Leila's kisses right now. Just squirms to get away. She wishes she could make him understand. This is just the beginning of the things to accept because there is no other choice. Even a little tooth is part of a cycle as predictable as the onslaught of the mayflies.

The house feels distant, like an island. Leila can't just sit
here, comatose, waiting for the phone to ring. Lucas's cries are the only thing keeping her going. She's got to respond to him.

Where is Lion? Were those his footsteps last night? She heard him walking around downstairs, but she'd been too tired to move, even to lift her head. He'd left dirty dishes for her to clean when she woke up, which was unlike him. He'd eaten all the leftovers from the refrigerator and left the dirty plates and silverware everywhere, caked with food. Not just the lasagna but a week-old piece of pie and a container of pork and chicken fried rice from the Aloha restaurant. Lion didn't even like that food. And now there's more than three hundred dollars missing from her money box. She had gone to the bank, just in case she had to get Melanie out of a dangerous situation. Of course, he wouldn't steal from her, would he? She'd willingly give him as much as he wanted. She can't believe he'd just go and do something like this, especially when she's entrusted him with so much already. Maybe she's not thinking clearly.

For the last few days, she has had that eerie feeling of being watched. So often now, while standing in the kitchen, goose bumps prickle up on her arms and the hair on the back of her neck stands up. Someone has tracked mud all over her kitchen floor. Sometimes she even thinks she smells whiskey, even though she doesn't keep it in the house.

A thin trickle of saliva dribbles down Lucas's chin and Leila dabs it away with a cool cloth. She catches the white flash of his toothy smile.

It's just about the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, even more enchanting than the flash of white wings near the pier, and the sound of sun-bleached clamshells that litter the trees. It's the gulls' dance, a select tribe of gulls who pick up the unbreakable shells in their beaks and carry them into their nests. When a wind brushes by, or the nest is shaken, the shells
rain from the sky and fall through the leaves. Up and back, the gulls swirl after the shells, drawing eights in the air.

Unlike their cousins who fatten on French fries before flying south, these graceful dancers are so entranced by their own movements that they will never leave, toughing out the coldest winters. Leila has seen this with her own eyes. After her three nights in February with Charlie Cooke, and then not hearing from him all winter, she finally contacted him. It was May by this time. And she needed an explanation. She had sat with Charlie on the granite boulder, waiting for him to tell her there was no future for the two of them, his heavy black police umbrella held over their heads as falling shells battered the taut nylon. If Leila hadn't known the difference between hail and a shell, she might have agreed with Charlie when he said distractedly what was raining down around them.

Although she's not the sort of woman to see things this way, to demand any kind of payback, her fingers dial his number after all these years in the very sort of way that her car just naturally seems to drive itself back from O'Connell's store once a week, often leaving her wondering whether she saw anyone on the way and forgot to wave.

Didn't Charlie Cooke want her once?

He hadn't just lusted after her. He had wanted to marry her. Why did he have to talk of how they were going to leave Canandaigua and move into that old farmhouse she loved? Why had he asked her to describe in detail a house she had driven by countless times, certain that if she could just live there, her life and her children would blossom like those huge roses that clung to the fence? What about the son or daughter he'd always wanted? Candice had had an emergency hysterectomy years ago and Charlie always regretted not having the chance to be a father. Leila had been thrilled with the possibility of giving
that to him. She would have had eight more children if he'd wanted.

“Sorry to bother you,” Leila says when he answers.

“Morning, Leila.” She presses her nail into her palm to keep the tears at bay. His tone stings. She's always believed you could tell how a man feels about a woman by the way he says her name.
Leila
, Charlie used to say with reverence.
My-wife-Candice
, he'd say stiffly, and you could hear the tightening in his throat. Never just Candice. Always
My-wife
. It had sounded sinister, even. It had never occurred to Leila that one day he'd say her own name this way, with the same sort of contained belligerence. She's reminded of those painful dialogues she'd once written out between her and Candice, just to free her thoughts. She'd never spoken them though, just waited till the urge had left. And it always had.

“We caught an archaeologist that's been selling artifacts,” Charlie says.

“I don't care. What I care about is Melanie.” In the middle of her own kitchen, Leila covers her mouth with her hand. A flash of heat rises up inside her, making the iron-shaped birthmark blaze.

She's thinking about fistfuls of dirt and beads, and how once, a very long time ago, her girls had emptied their pockets across her linoleum floor, their dirt-stained hands letting go of the blue, red, and white glass seed beads, and a few beads of brass. Maya and Melanie had unknowingly unearthed one of the unfound burial sites, and had presented Leila with a catlinite pendant. They knew she wouldn't keep it but they wanted the feeling of giving it to her anyway. Catlinite dust was cherished for its healing properties, but that's not why they sprinkled it over Luke's grave when Leila wasn't looking. They simply thought he'd like the colors. When Leila drove them to the police sta
tion the next day, the girls had offered the precious findings to Charlie Cooke without an argument. That was when Leila first found Charlie.

“I'm coming over,” he says, and hangs up.

She tries to picture Charlie standing here, but her reflection in the mirrored toaster oven catches her off guard, the chalky skin stretched tightly over her cheekbones. Despite all the rain, everything is drying up. Her skin actually flakes when she touches it. With the phone held under her chin, she reaches for the hand cream on the windowsill. Then she pours it in a line down each arm. Sweat mixes into the lotion as she massages her elbows and wrists, then her neck. The touch of her own hand feels so soothing, it's almost painful.

Leila opens the kitchen window to let his words filter out into the air. She replaces the phone in the receiver.

Leila folds back the living-room curtain and ties it on its clip. She's got to do something. She pulls out her cleaning supplies from underneath the sink and immediately goes to work on the windows. She welcomes the ache in her body, the small fist of her lower back relaxing as she pulls a sheet of newspaper in long strokes over the panes so that fibers aren't left on the glass.

Company always makes her feel better. How she longs to have a normal conversation.

Leila runs upstairs to slip on her favorite purple-flowered dress. How desperate she feels, having just agreed to let Charlie Cooke come over. When Leila comes back downstairs, all dressed and ready, Lucas is finally asleep. Leila cleans up the mess of crumbs underneath his high chair and turns on the stove. She takes out some bacon and sets the pan on the burner. Then she snips off the ends of each strip so the bacon won't curl up. She's always believed that the smell of bacon cooking is the
quickest way to bring warmth into a home, and she needs that feeling now, to show Charlie what he has missed.

“That thing still alive?” Detective Charlie Cooke asks Leila as he bends down to stroke the tuft of gray fur on Old Sally's neck, the only place where the fur is still thick. He has not seen the dog since he stayed with Leila six years ago during a temporary split from Candice over that terrible February winter. Though he is far from those days now, often he wonders what would have happened if the snow had never melted or if Candice hadn't asked him to come back.

Judging by Old Sally's appearance, it may as well have been decades ago. But Leila looks the same. For a moment Charlie lets himself admire her soft blue eyes and strong arms wiping invisible crumbs from the counter. He has never forgiven himself for hurting her. Maybe he even loved her. But a few days were hardly enough time to replace a twenty-year marriage. He couldn't have known things with Candice would only get worse, or that he would be forever confounded by his own refusal to leave her. He'll always think of Leila as his other life, though. And he'll live it alongside his own. He'll spend his days fantasizing about blinding snowfalls, and walking the halls of a house that he's only ever heard about from Leila. He'll picture himself bringing her French toast in bed, or pruning roses that hold the fragrance of wine in their petals. The guilt he feels is nothing compared to the regret. And no matter how much he tries to drown himself in his work, he carries with him the feeling of owing someone a favor.

He had heard about Leila's previous call to the police station. Charlie has some new ideas, and that's why he has stopped by on his off hours when he knows damn well that Melanie will most likely show up in a few days, just as apologetic as always, and bound for the nearest N.A. meeting.

He clears his throat. “That lilac bush is pretty unbelievable.”

“It thrives on neglect,” Leila says, glaring at him. “Some things actually do. Unfortunately, people don't.”

Charlie tries not to let her see his face redden. He opens his notepad. “So, let's talk about this. I've already been by Joseph's. I thought she'd have been home by now, but—“

“Shh, I just put Lucas down,” says Leila, closing the living-room doors. She pours him a cup of tea and sets it on the table. “Please sit.”

“Look, I don't have much time.” He's eyeing the plate of bacon, but he can't get his mind focused.

“My daughter has been missing for five days!” she cries.

He picks up his cup and puts it back down. “That's why I'm here. Just calm down.”

She takes a deep breath. “Let me heat that up for you,” she says, reaching for the plate.

“Relax, Lei. Cold is fine.”

“It will just take me a second to heat.”

He holds his hand up. “No, Lei. Cold is good.”

He is noticing the deep neckline of her dress, lower than she would normally wear, at least that he can remember. He glances at the small strawberry mark shaped like a hot iron. He knows it becomes inflamed when she's upset, and that's why he'll keep his eyes off it.

“I can tell you that pills are out of the question,” she says.

“Let's look at this logically. How many times she run, I mean total?” He picks up a strip of bacon and takes a bite.

“A baby changes a woman, Charlie. I know my daughter.”

“Some women, maybe—”

“Please, Charlie, be nice.”

“Look, this isn't personal. I happen to know it was eight times. Eight, Lei. She came back home on her own each and
every time, that right? She's an addict. I say that without blame.”

Leila pushes the hair from her eyes. “This is hard to believe, I know,” she says, her voice hoarse. “But Melanie is a wonderful mother to this little boy—”