The Language of Trees (29 page)

L
UCAS
?” M
ELANIE WHISPERS
. S
UNLIGHT
streams in through the windows, filling the baskets of flowers with light. A balloon from the mayor of Canandaigua hovers on the ceiling above Lion's head. There are cards with teddy bears and roses taped to the windowsill.

“Open your eyes,” Lion says. He can hardly keep his own open.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

He hands her a glass of water and holds it under her mouth as she sips. The IV is burning her hand.

Lion moves his face closer. “I'm here.”

“My baby,” Melanie says, letting her lips lightly brush his. Her throat feels like it is filled with sand. “Where's Lucas?”

“Your mom took him home a while ago. She should be back soon,” he says, laying his head on her chest. He smoothes the sheet over her stomach. “We missed you so much.”

“Joseph is dead,” Melanie says.

Lion glances at the nurse. He takes Melanie's hand. “Shh, just rest.”

“I saw him.” She starts to cry. “And I saw Luke.”

Lion rubs her arm. “You need rest.”

She reaches for his hand. “Lion, I need to tell you the truth. I'm afraid you won't forgive me.”

He kisses her hand. “I already forgave you for everything you ever did and everything you will ever do.”

Tears are streaming down her cheeks as she looks at him. Sunlight dissolves into the sheets and the room turns dusky. Melanie's eyes become pale, and he worries that she'll drift off again.

“I almost died just like I did when I was nine. I won't lie to you. I didn't want to come back. Not at first. I thought of you and the baby, and I knew I had to.” She turns her head away from him. “I almost died twice,” she whispers. “I came back both times.”

He squeezes her hand, feeling the cold metal of the bed rail under his arm. He tells himself it's okay, but right now his body aches with such a profound sense of emotion he doesn't know that he'll ever recover. His legs weaken underneath him and he has to steady himself to keep from falling. He can finally close his eyes.

As Melanie watches Lion fall asleep, she remembers their first meeting. It had been Luke that had led her right to Lion. She has always known it.

That night three years ago, her car had almost hit one of those wild turkeys. She had swerved to avoid the kill and her car spun right into the parking lot of St. Mary's Church. She had run inside to use the phone and walked right into a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. It was fate, for she would have never gone willingly. As soon as she entered the room, she saw Lion. Her eyes locked on his. He was sitting at one end of the circle in his shiny black leather, dreadlocks falling across his wide eyes. The people in the room were transfixed as he spoke in his deep
voice telling all he knew about patience. The room was warm. His talk was low and generous, every so often sparked by an animated movement. Lion was captivating. He said he knew he'd never kick the habit as long as he stayed in California. She was trying to get up the nerve to approach him after the meeting, but she knew she looked like a sad case, with an odd crew cut that made her look like a militant Nazi nymph.

Barely alive, brittle and thin, she stood trembling in the crowd of people over-sugaring cups of coffee and talking of God. How lucky she was that Lion had approached her. He liked her haircut, he said. He told her it was his three-year anniversary of abstinence from pot and alcohol. He asked her to help him celebrate at his favorite restaurant, the International House of Pancakes. He wouldn't let her pay for the coffee and three stacks of banana waffles. Instead he asked her to listen to him. Addiction was simple: Fear plus attraction, he said. It made sense. She hadn't been able to take her eyes off him. Soon, the conversation turned to her. She told him about the night she'd found herself kneeling in the rain on Interstate 90 after Eddie pushed her from his truck, and how she felt no pain, but she knew she should have, because her knees were bleeding on the wet gravel. She had yelled across the night, groping for the pills he had tossed out the window. Sergeant Charlie Cooke had showed up then. He appeared from out of nowhere, she remembered.

She told Lion about this because he may as well know how pathetic and horrible she was. When he didn't flinch, she told him about the brother she once loved, and how the lake had split open one night when she was nine and all of them had fallen into its darkness. She never told anyone that it was her fault before, that it had been her idea to take the canoe out, and
that it had been her stupidity to stand up in the boat to wave at a giant. She waited for Lion to tell her she was horrible and that he had to leave. Lion did get up, but only to put his jacket around her shoulders and then sit back down.

They sat there well into the morning. Lion made her feel gentle with herself, a feeling she had never experienced. The landscape of her life had been softened in one single night. Melanie drove home in the snowfall stunned, replaying Lion's every word. She didn't look in a mirror for a week, afraid she'd scare away the light in her eyes. That is when she knew what love felt like.

Now as she looks at him sleeping by her bed, she knows it all happened as it was supposed to. He and their baby would forever be her reason to go on. When Leila rushes into the room with Lucas in her arms, Melanie smiles and reaches for him. “My sweet baby,” she says, as Leila places Lucas in her arms.

 

N
O ONE NEAR THE
Shongos' cabin notices the fire when it begins to burn. It is September and the scent of burning leaves is common. Not even Grant gives it any thought, for he is out on his morning run, his feet padding the soft pine as he cuts across the trails and into the forest on Bare Hill, Einstein running alongside of him. The birds are silent. Not even the trees register the movement, though if they could talk, they'd tell you that there are as many shades of fire as sadness. Coal produces a dim glow. Oil and wood give forth heat with a flame. Fire feeds on oxygen, creating its searing touch.

In the house down the shore, a woman spills a glass of wine and laughs. A golden retriever sitting on a dock near Sunnyside suddenly twitches its nose, just having caught wind of the fire. On Squaw Island, a group of boys have spotted the smoke just
before they see a large snake rise out of the water. They swim back toward the dock so fast they feel like their lungs will explode.

The willows arch over the Shongos' cabin, while boxes of wooden statues hiss and blister in the backyard, where Grant put them just a few minutes before he left for his morning run.

Now standing at the summit, Grant's eyes glimpse the smoke writhing at the foot of Bare Hill, and he's already begun to run, his heart pounding hard. An electrical fire or something else? He runs down the muddy trail past the locust trees. By the time he reaches his gravel driveway, smoke is pouring from the backyard. He notices that there are tracks in the sand, all across the shoreline leading into and out of the water.

Under the water, the bass gather at the sound of sirens, and the whirling engine of motorboats sound like thunder. A heron lifts up from across the lake, watching Grant. Smoke corners sparrows behind the trees, miles away. Grant calls out to the spirits, who have begun this fire and who will end it when all has turned to ash. He bows his head as flames thrash the air. He says good-bye to Luke as he grabs an old pail half hidden under the willow leaves and fills it with lake water, which he will throw after the fire has died down. He is going to begin anew. Not with his father's gift. But with his own.

A
S HARD AS PEOPLE
pray for something to happen in Canandaigua, they pray harder for things to return to normal. On the Saturday before Labor Day, everyone is waiting for the first flare at the summit of Bare Hill. It's the annual Festival of Lights, the end-of-the-summer rite, a modern-day celebration of the beauty of the lake and all that she gives, based on a Seneca custom of thanksgiving, a gesture of gratitude and for good luck in hunting and fishing. The Seneca used to light festival fires on Bare Hill and around the lake. Up until 1880, some Seneca had still gone to Bare Hill, where they burned sacred tobacco on a rock.

Standing at the summit provides the best view of the Ring of Fire. When standing back from the lake's edge and looking from one end of the lake to the other, it is possible to see the white glow of the fires and the chain of tiny red flares circling the lake for about forty-four miles.

Most people live on the lakefront year round, more so on the northern end, near the city of Canandaigua. Though she has her moods, no one blames the lake for their mistakes. The truth
is, things here tend to get out of control. This attracts people, and it also changes them.

On this Saturday afternoon, it's a blistering hot Indian summer day. A perfect day for a parade or a picnic on the beach or a day to visit graves. The sky is so clear you could drink it right up, thinks Clarisse Mellon, who is sitting near Joseph O'Connell's grave, just as she's done each Sunday since Echo and Grant came to live with her while the Feed & Grain was undergoing construction. Religiously, Clarisse leaves a handful of cookies and some fresh-baked banana bread for the birds that seem to flock to Joseph's tombstone. Joseph O'Connell was her one true love, and though he never knew, she's certain he loved her, too. Maybe not like his Rose, but in a way that was meant just for her. Some things aren't meant to come to pass. Not everything is meant to happen. Some things should stay as they are, just like that, full of possibility. It's wanting them that gives you something to hope for, a reason to get up in the morning and put on a fancy dress.

Like clockwork, Clarisse will say a prayer and fill Joseph in on a bit of friendly gossip. As she talks, red-winged blackbirds and orioles will flutter in, occasionally, scattering the seeds of cattails across the dirt. All the while, Echo will watch from her Jeep just a few feet away, holding a book in her lap, while Grant sits next to her, one arm slung over her shoulders.

Each time Clarisse glances back, she sees them talking, their heads held close, the small carving of two wooden herons hanging from the rearview mirror, the carving that Lion Williams dropped off a couple of months ago. Lion said he was meant to finish what Grant had started; something about herons living in pairs and now they both had what they always wanted. Lion said that it still wasn't enough to repay Grant anyway. Even
helping to clear out the coal bin in the basement wasn't nearly enough, he said. But it was a start.

A few months ago, after Clarisse gently relocated her new litter of kittens from their post outside the guestroom door, Echo told Clarisse she wasn't sure how she was going to be able to move on without Joseph. She told her, what good's a spirit when it can't hold you in its arms? She had asked Clarisse what right she had to any happiness, knowing that Joseph had suffered. Clarisse had to set Echo straight. Now that Echo was going to be a mother, she had to rid her mind of that kind of thinking. Echo had thanked Clarisse and said she felt indebted to her for the fact that Joseph was not alone in his final moments, that at least Clarisse was with him. Echo could take comfort in that, just as Clarisse had done, in the mornings following his death when her tears formed upon waking.

Clarisse can tell a thing like pregnancy in a woman's face just as easily as she knows the names of her eleven cats. There's Ella Fitzgerald, and Oliver. Well, the rest will come to her. At seventy-eight, Clarisse has finally gotten the family she always wanted. Stranger things have happened.

Just as they've done every Sunday, Grant, Echo, and Clarisse leave the graveyard and drive out to a picnic spot on Bare Hill. Now they are standing near the edge of the path. Grant Shongo's face doesn't register a hint of regret. He is staring down at the Diamond Trees, which still stand tall, unscathed by the fire, their leaves flickering at the sky. Clarisse will be glad when the snow comes and covers the lake. It needs time to recover, to sleep. She takes a deep breath, dizzy. It must be the air, she thinks, noticing that strange movement in the branches of the Diamond Trees. Or somebody jumping on that one branch, the way it is moving like that, up and down, even though there is no wind.

Clarisse watches Echo and Grant walk arm in arm back through the tall buffalo grass. Soon the girl will see that there's as much truth in happiness as there is in suffering. Echo's daughter will know this better than anyone; that will be her purpose. Echo has said she knows she will have a girl. She just keeps dreaming of a little girl with dark skin, green eyes, and curly hair, laughing and dancing in the sunlight.

The day lilies with their thick glassy leaves are in full blossom when Echo and Grant reach the marsh, Clarisse following behind. The petals curl toward the light. Then they pass right by the wild peonies, with their pure white layers of tissue-paper petals. What makes them bloom? The ants are drawn to them because of the sugar. They crawl inside and this helps force the petals to open.

Near the cattails, Clarisse calls out that she's going to stop here, as the ground is damp and mud is getting in her shoes. She spreads out a blanket and sits down.

Everyone has advice as to what to do. But nothing has to be decided in a hurry. Take it all in. Don't make any decisions yet, Clarisse has told Echo in her best motherly tone. The girl could sell the Feed & Grain after the remodel or keep it and turn it into a restaurant or a gift shop, or it could stay just how it is, an old-fashioned local grocery store, the kind that's rare in America these days. Echo and Grant could run it and Clarisse could help, or she could just watch the baby, whatever they decide. There are so many choices now. She knew her life was starting over when Echo returned to Canandaigua. She had the surest feeling. Whatever they decide, Clarisse is content to make herself useful. Hopefully the remodel will take a long time and Echo and Grant will want to stay with her for a while, even after Grant's cabin is cleaned out and updated, and all that horrible yellow shag rug has been pulled up. She, herself, had tried
to get out all the soot marks but they refused to disappear. For now at least, Echo needs a mother. If she's lucky, she'll become the roots for people who don't have any of their own. And then she'll no longer be alone.

Clarisse watches Echo sift through a flock of Queen Anne's lace. The little purple spot in the center of each spray of white petals is the crown over the heart, she has told Clarisse. She'll search for the one missing its center. When she finds it, she'll save it in a book for Melanie.

Clarisse and Echo and Melanie are not so different. They all loved Joseph.

How wonderful to feel it, Clarisse thinks, her hair loose, the wind spinning it into tangles like it hasn't done in fifty years.

 

P
EOPLE AROUND HERE SAY
the same stories in your life are repeated over and over until you learn the lesson. Echo has always missed the chance to say good-bye. These days, her eyes are blurry with tears. Her doctor says she's emotional because of the hormones, yet she doesn't mind it because tears are what connect her to Joseph. She can't yet stand on Joseph's grave, even with Grant taking her hand. She can't see much else in front of her at all lately, except being with Grant and being a good mother. There is solace here that she has never known, such a strong sense of peace when he holds her for hours and lets her bury her face into his chest as they lie under the old crazy quilt in Clarisse's guest room, Echo examining the fabrics of a lifetime as Grant watches the moonlight change from orange to ash and back.

Each morning the life growing inside her sends her spilling onto the bathroom floor, wrenching her body apart from itself. Grant holds her hair back and then dabs her face with a cool washcloth. Each night after they say good night to Clarisse,
Grant rubs lotion on her stomach and talks in a quiet voice to the little girl. They both talk to her from here.

Eat, sleep, and walk. These things she will do for her daughter.

Now standing under the feathered sky, Grant lets go of her hand. Echo's dress makes a swishing sound as she moves through the reeds. She knows she is safe with him watching her just a few feet away. She whispers to the little girl and tells her about her grandfather. She tells the child that Joseph will be her guardian angel. Then she tells her all about Grant, because he never will. She knows her daughter will be tall just like him. Maybe the girl will have two front teeth that almost touch, and though she'll hate this when she's younger, she'll eventually grow to love it just that way because she can whistle through them.

Echo will tell the child all about freckles.

But she won't say a thing about the birds. They'll have to wait and see.

She looks around. She needs to make sure the two people she loves are still there. In the distance, Clarisse is stretching her stocking feet out on the blanket.

Up ahead, Grant is leaning against the tree, his arms folded against his blue T-shirt. His face is bright, his smile filling up the sky. Sometimes when she looks at him, Echo's heart swells and she feels so much love, she thinks she won't be able to stand it a minute longer. And then she reminds herself she can. That this is the good stuff. Happiness is just as hard to get used to as anything else.

In the same year, Echo will become daughter and mother and a wife. How amazing that everything can change so quickly.

Ahead, a kingfisher with a bent wing flies past her before settling on a cattail. Echo looks down. Her fingers are delicately
brushing the edge of the Queen Anne's lace. Is this the one she's been looking for, the one with no center?

Her fingers reach to pull it up from its roots. But instead, she lets go. Everything contains the possibility of change, yet with that has to come trust. It's a deal that the earth makes with the sky. It's a level of trust that is present all the time. It's in the way the earth lets go of the sun each evening and the moon each dawn. Not pushing them away, just quietly trusting they will be back.

Echo turns toward the scent of bonfires weaving across the water. Sooner or later she must grow wise with the time she has, savoring the minutes like gifts, like the words of a precious book that has been lent to her, or a child. To find the right country is the greatest gift. To realize it as the one that has always felt like home is even greater, as Joseph once said. She is certain she has found it.

She walks back toward Clarisse and Grant, who have both been patiently waiting for her for a very long time.

 

A
T THE
H
ARVEST
P
ARADE
, an end-of-summer tradition that marks the beginning of the Ring of Fire festivities, a crowd is funneling onto Main Street. Standing in a float adorned with six-foot papier mâché ears of corn, a young Harvest Queen with a spiral perm is waving to the crowd. Just this morning Georgia Petrograss, who has just quit her job at Kelley's Bar, got a belly-button ring, though she knows her mother will ground her for life when she sees it. Georgia is standing up, dancing lightly to the drumbeat of the Buffalo Creek Dancers. On the sidewalk, Lion's got Lucas on his shoulders as he follows Melanie toward the stage. As the dancers shake their rattling instruments, Lion bounces Lucas up and down, which Lucas loves. He peels with laughter, gripping onto Lion's dreadlocks and pulling them so
excruciatingly hard that Lion's eyes tear. Standing to the right of the stage, an old man in a feather headdress hits the drum strapped to his side. As he calls out his song, a dozen dancers in brightly colored dress weave in and out of a circle, their eyes holding ground. The chain of bells around their knees jingles with every stomp of their fringed moccasins. Four women flash by, lifting baskets into the air, an homage to the corn god. “I never want to see another corn dog again,” says Melanie, holding her stomach. She's wearing a purple bikini top and army pants rolled up to the thigh.

“Then you'd better learn to cook, sweetie,” Leila says, tugging down her long T-shirt that Melanie made for her, which says,
MY CHILDREN WENT TO CALIFORNIA AND ALL I GOT IS THIS SHITTY T-SHIRT
.

“There aren't any corn dogs in Long Beach,” says Lion.

“Oh no?” Leila asks.

“They're all off chasing corn cats,” Lion says, and laughs.

“Ick,” says Melanie.

“Ick,” says Lucas.

They find the car and drive down the hill toward the beach and park a few feet back from the water. Every time Lion glances at Leila she looks as though she's about to cry. She reaches her hand into the cooler and pulls out five peanut-butter sandwiches. But she can't hide her tears, and she starts crying into the plates. Melanie puts Lucas in his stroller and then gets up and puts her arms around Leila. She thinks Leila is crying because of Maya choosing to go back to Cheever, and because they're moving away, but that's only part of it.

Getting Melanie back has replaced the space for grief. But only for a time. The grief still seeps out when Leila is caught unawares. It can feel overwhelming when Leila actually lets herself stop and think about all that happened within a short span
of a few days. And yet it wasn't just a few days. If she traces it all back, it was, in fact, a lifetime of mistakes. And it rattles her, how years of mistakes can catch up with a person in a span of a few hours. How lives can be lost, suddenly, without warning. She had only been trying for love, trying all these years, for she was a person who thought she needed love to survive. Had she been different, had she not needed it so badly or been that sort of person, her whole life might have been different. But she was that sort of person. As long as she'd been able to breathe, she'd been ruled by it. Love of a man. Love of her children. She had no way of knowing that a blizzard would bring her love, that it would later almost cost Charlie Cooke his life, right there in her house when she was only upstairs trying to wash the scent of sadness from her skin. Charlie Cooke nearly died in a pool of blood in her kitchen, after telling her only minutes before that he still thought about her. He had left her with a bit of foolish hope, just as he always had. It would have been harder if he had said that he loved her. And she is grateful to him that he never said it, even though for years she prayed she would hear those words from his lips. That was the only thing she ever wanted to hear.