The Wishing Trees (19 page)

Her body mimicked her eyes. She’d once been strong and athletic. Her legs and arms, defined by subtle muscle and smooth skin, had carried little fat. Now she appeared withered, like fruit left too long on a branch. Her skin was wrinkled from her loss of weight. Her legs and arms looked like those of an old woman. Even her hair seemed to have aged, falling from her dying body, covering her pillow and sheets.

Only her mind remained intact. Her memory lingered, as did her ability to focus under most any circumstance. Sometimes she didn’t fight her illness as much as he wanted her to, but this change had come near the end, when she was so exhausted that not even the thought of her daughter could prompt her to battle on.

Ian leaned closer, kissing a freckle on her cheek, the same sort of freckle that Mattie had inherited. Kate sought to smile, but strength seemed to have fled even from her lips. When Ian saw her try to smile, and fail, his tears began anew. No matter how much he loved her, how strong the bond between them, she was being taken from him, and he could do nothing about it. He was utterly bereft of power, of hope. Though she was the one dying, he was also being ground to dust. With her gone, he knew, a part of him would go as well. One could not strip his world of color and expect that world to look the same.

“Once . . . I go,” she said, tears welling beneath her long lashes, “give all your love to her.”

He felt faint, as if he’d just run a race that he hadn’t trained for. Nodding, he turned and watched Mattie as she slept on a nearby couch. Midnight approached, and Mattie had finally closed her eyes an hour earlier. She’d cried herself to sleep in Kate’s arms, and Ian had later carried her to the couch. He had suffered such pain when lifting her from her mother, knowing that her mother would soon be stolen from her, and that she would grow up with only one parent, the parent she loved less.

“I think . . . I think I’m dying,” Kate said, her voice weaker than a whisper.

“No, my luv. Don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me that.”

“I can’t . . . open my eyes. And it’s hard . . . to talk.”

“That’s not right,” he sputtered. “That can’t be right. You’re just knackered.”

“I can’t feel anything.”

His tears fell to her face and he carefully wiped them off. “The medicine . . . it’s too bloody strong. That’s why you can’t feel anything.”

“I’m going.”

“No, you’re not. That’s impossible.”

“I love you.”

He began to breathe too fast, causing the room to twist, his thoughts and vision to blur. “I’ll fetch a doctor.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I want . . . you to be happy.”

“I can’t be.”

Her brow furrowed as tears tumbled down her cheeks. “You have to be. For Mattie. For yourself.”

“Please don’t go.”

“Promise me . . . that you’ll make her happy. No matter what. Promise me, Ian. Please.”

“I can’t pr—”

“Please.”

He nodded, his forehead touching her chest. “I promise.”

“She’s been sad . . . for too long.” Kate paused, trying to fill her lungs, to be strong for her family’s sake. “Maybe . . . maybe you could remarry, give her a little sister. She’s always wanted one.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“It would be good . . . for her . . . and for you.”

“No.”

She nodded, perhaps to herself, perhaps to him. “Will you . . . tell me the story?”

“The story?”

“Of how you proposed.”

Ian closed his eyes, the memory of that day like a bag over his head, suffocating him. He didn’t want to relive the event but knew that Kate was desperate to. And so he gathered his reeling thoughts, focusing on the task at hand. “We . . . we’d been in Indonesia for a week,” he said quietly, stroking the side of her face. “In the Gili Islands. We . . .”

“Go on, Ian. Please.”

“I should get a doctor.”

“Please don’t stop.”

He felt the warmth between them, was afraid of the looming cold. “We had that bungalow with the wobbly ceiling fan. Right on the beach. Right in paradise.”

“I remember.”

“One morning . . . when you were knackered and reading, I went down to the water, near the reef. I had my mask and snorkel, a secret bottle of wine, and a ring. I swam out to where the water was calm, to a sandy place between the reef and shore.”

“Then what?”

He shook his head, longing to turn back the clock to that day, to relive that day a thousand times over. “I had tied the ring, and a weight, to the bottle. I dove down, maybe three meters, and set the bottle on the bottom. And then . . . then I took stones and shells and pieces of dead coral, and I spelled out, ‘Will you marry me?’ in the sand.”

“I remember . . . swimming out with you, hand in hand.”

“Me too.”

“I was so happy . . . to see what you’d done. I’d never been . . . so happy.”

Ian kissed her eyes, her lips. “Don’t go, luv. Stay with me. Please stay with me. We’ll . . . we’ll go back to that reef. Just like we planned.”

“I’ll stay. But not like before. My body . . . it’s shutting down. But something else . . . is opening.”

“Oh, Kate. Please don’t . . . shut down. Not now. I need more time. A heap more time.”

She tried to kiss him but could barely stir. “Would you . . . put Mattie next to me? Please? But don’t . . . don’t wake her. I don’t want her . . . to see me like this.”

Ian struggled to stand up. His vision remained blurry. His legs didn’t work properly. Still, he lifted Mattie and laid her down next to Kate. He took Kate’s arm and put it around Mattie’s sleeping form. More tears emerged from Kate’s eyes, trickling down her face. Ian caught them with his forefinger as he stroked her cheek. He leaned over the bed, one hand on Kate, the other on Mattie. He tried to keep his family together, even as it was pulled apart, as he felt Kate growing weaker beside him. “Stay,” he whispered. “Please stay.”

“I will.”

His tears fell faster as finally, at the very end, he admitted to himself that she was dying. Once he understood the finality of the moment, he no longer tried to keep her from departing. Instead he thought about how he might make her journey better. “You don’t ever have to fret about Roo,” he said, touching Kate’s face, her hair, her hands. “I’ll give her everything possible. And she’ll smile. And laugh.”

“No one . . . can make her laugh like you.”

“And she will. Not next week . . . or next month. But we’ll get there, I reckon.”

“I love you,” she said, trying to squeeze his fingers.

Ian kissed her again. “Will you . . . take a part of us with you?” he asked, his voice strained and cracking. “Of each of us?”

“Yes. And . . . I’ll be with you . . . wherever you go.”

“I know.”

She closed her eyes. “I’m so tired, my love,” she whispered as he cried quietly, the beeps of various monitors interrupting her. “Will you tell . . . tell me another story? Of the day Mattie was born?”

He nodded, glancing at their sleeping girl, seeing Kate in her face. But instead of telling Kate the story of Mattie’s birth, he told her what he saw in their little girl, for he saw so many beautiful things. He saw Kate’s eyes, her mouth, her nose, her freckles. Even better, Kate had somehow infused her best qualities into Mattie, who was generous and loving, artistic and bold.

Ian continued to whisper as Kate’s breathing weakened. From time to time, the trace of a smile alighted on her face. Ian kissed these smiles, holding them with his lips until they left. He spoke about Mattie’s birth, their first family trip, and his love for them both. He told Kate a story about a boy from the Australian Outback who fell in love with a girl from Manhattan, whose soul merged with his. They began their life together with no money or power or wisdom, but they hadn’t needed such things. They were content having nothing but each other. Nothing else had mattered, he said, not when their love prompted them to write poetry, talk about creating a life together, feel each other’s pain.

He was blessed to have discovered her, he said, trying not to weep. She’d come to him from afar and he would never let her go.

IAN AWOKE FROM THE DREAM, QUIETLY WALKED into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet, and cried. He wept as the sun slowly chased away the blackness of night, pushing light into the world, but not into him. As he thought about his dream, he realized for the first time why Kate hadn’t sent Mattie and him to Indonesia. He’d proposed to her there, of course, and she wasn’t willing to send him to such a place. It was too sacred, and some memories were best left unvisited.

After plucking three antacids from a bottle, Ian began to chew, the salt of his tears falling to his lips, to his mouth, and mingling with the taste of the medicine. He clutched at his stomach, needing to stop the pain, the tears. Soon Mattie would awaken, and he had to settle his emotions so that he could crawl back in bed with her.

Rubbing his face with a towel, Ian managed to calm himself, though he still felt overwhelmed, both from the responsibility of raising Mattie alone and from the weight of his sorrow. So much of him was dead.

But as he always did when he was in the depths of his sorrow, he reminded himself of Mattie. His love for her was what kept him going, through the cold, into the warmth of day. As he opened the bathroom door and reentered the sleeping area, he saw her face. She looked so beautiful—a reincarnation of her mother as well as a perfectly unique being.

Ian eased back into bed beside her, continuing to watch her face, hoping that her dreams were happy ones. He kissed her forehead lightly and tried not to grimace from the pain in his belly, a pain that had been growing worse as the days passed.

I love you so bloody much, Roo, he thought. You keep me steaming ahead when no one else could. And I’m going to keep my promise to your mum. You’ll be content and fulfilled. You’ll laugh. I don’t know how the bloody hell I’ll do it, but I will. So just sleep, and dream about lovely things, about whatever makes you smile.

THE LONGBOAT WAS ABOUT THIRTY FEET FROM bow to stern, composed of long wooden planks that once had been varnished but were now weather-beaten. The bow curved dramatically upward, as if preparing to face a phalanx of approaching waves. Dangling around the bow were wreaths of plastic flowers. Wooden planks spanned the boat, serving as seats. A canopy that sheltered only a small portion of the craft was held upright by rusting steel rods. At the stern, a large unenclosed motor was operated by a simple throttle and steering pole. Emerging from the back of the engine, a rod, perhaps fifteen feet long, ran almost parallel to the water. At the end of the rod was a propeller. The design of the engine and the prop allowed the boat to be driven into shallow waters.

Ian saw that the longboat had only two haggard-looking life jackets but he wasn’t worried. Mattie was a strong swimmer, and they weren’t going out far. They both sat near the bow. A red, white, and blue Thai flag rippled in the wind beside them. The boat rose and fell as it met gentle turquoise-colored swells. Their guide, Alak, stood in the stern and used the steering pole to navigate his craft around reefs and the contours of Ko Phi Phi. They were now near one of the island’s vast butterfly wings. Waves crashed against the limestone cliffs, booming like distant fireworks.

As they neared the cliffs, Mattie studied the formations of rocks, wanting to sketch them later. The morning hadn’t started out well for her, as she’d heard her father crying quietly in the bathroom. His sadness had made her shed a few tears as well, but she had dried them by the time he crept back into bed and put his arm around her. She’d felt safe at that moment—sad, but at least safe. He had tried to make her smile over breakfast, and now, as they rounded a bend and entered a placid stretch of water, she wanted him to forget whatever he had been thinking about.

“Did you and Mommy snorkel here?” she asked, twisting a long braid around her forefinger.

“I reckon so, Roo. I recognize some of it.”

“Is this where the sharks were?”

“The sharks?”

“Daddy, you know what I’m talking about. You and Mommy told me all about Ko Phi Phi’s sharks.”

Ian nodded, impressed with her memory but wishing it wasn’t so keen. “Those critters, luv, are a bit farther around the island, at a place called Shark Point.”