The Understory (27 page)

Martin Baxter looked at his watch, then up at the oversized dollhouse with the inviting porch. “Ten minutes. And I’m not taking this kid on a goddamned vision quest in the jungle,” he said, turning off the ignition.

“Got it,” Story said, just happy to get him out of the car. While they walked up the sidewalk toward the wraparound porch, Story said, “By the way, I’m a botanist, too. And I work for
National Geographic.”

“Fine,” he said, shaking his head.

When Claire Payne opened the door, she grinned, something she hadn’t done a lot lately. A day away from the office, plus the prospect of making her son smile again, was enough to make her hostility disappear—so much so, she hadn’t said the “F” word in three hours. “Hey, Story, we’re pretty much packed, and . . .”

She stopped to stare at Martin. Her smile grew wider when she said, “Hello,” and tucked her hair behind her ears as she did whenever she was nervous. “You must be the plant genius Story was telling us about.”

Against his better judgment, Martin Baxter cracked a smile. “She’s being inflammatory.”

“No, really,” Claire said, showing her enthusiasm. “I think it’s fantastic we’ll have such an expert with us on the trip.”

“I’m actually not—”

“He’s actually not . . . here to talk about the trip,” Story said. “I have a surprise for you.”

Claire beamed. “Another one? I don’t know if I can take any more surprises,” she said, still glancing at Martin with a curious eye. “Sorry, I don’t know what I’m waiting for—come in, come in. I’ll get us some drinks.”

They walked through the entryway, past the collection of umbrellas, and after seating her guests and fetching their drinks, Claire sat down on the couch across from them. “Well . . .” she said, throwing her hands in the air.

“I know Martin from my work at the magazine,” Story said, “but you know him, too. You just don’t know you do.”

After Claire gave her a confused look, Story said, “Claire, meet Martin Baxter.”

Claire’s smile left her face. She’d heard his name every night for the last year, and it wasn’t that she didn’t recognize it, but more that she didn’t know how to react. After all, he’d been Claire’s stiffest competition for months. She’d cursed him and his damn book so many times, she wondered if somehow he knew. “So, you’re the one,” she said, still staring, but now with a softer gaze.

After an awkward silence, Martin finally said, “Story tells me your son Cooper might like me to sign his book.”

As Claire continued to stare, Cooper came bounding down the stairs and into the living room with
Once Upon A Moonflower
tucked under his left arm. “Story!” he yelled. He then added a casual “Hey,” trying to sound cool instead of excited. “I was just trying to fit my book in my . . .” He trailed off, spotting Martin.

“Hey, Sport,” Story said. “I have someone I think you’d like to meet.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Cooper,” Story said, “this is Martin Baxter.” She looked at Cooper in anticipation.

Without blinking, Cooper cocked his head to the side in a skeptical tilt. The moment dragged on until, finally, Cooper said, “What did Hope eat with her dad on Sunday mornings?”

“Cooper . . .” said Claire.

“No, it’s all right,” Martin said. He looked Cooper in the eye and let out a sigh of regret disguised as a mere breath. “They ate chocolate-chip pancakes. Together.”

Something in the way Martin said
together
turned doubtful Cooper into a believer, but still Martin added, “And at her grandmother’s she ate meatloaf.” He smiled. “But she didn’t like it very much.”

And then a dreamy-eyed Claire joined in, taking in all of Martin, the man whose words she knew as if they were her own. “First the treasure box,” she said softly, “then the moonflower.”

“It’s really you,” said Cooper, sitting down between Martin and Story, the book on his lap. “You’re Hope’s dad.”

Martin Baxter glanced down at the book’s cover, which featured a two-dimensional version of the delicate blonde fairy he still saw in his dreams.

When Martin didn’t answer, Cooper sat up straighter, and said again, “You’re Hope’s—”

“Yes, babe,” Claire said, eyes on Martin. She recognized the look in Martin’s eyes. It was a look she’d seen in her own eyes on the rare occasions when she looked in the mirror. To most, it would appear as mere sadness, but to someone linked with unimaginable loss, it’s recognized as an unrelenting ache, present every second of every day, leaving only when their tired eyes . . . rest. It was then that Claire knew Hope had left Martin Baxter’s life.

As Martin stared at the book cover, Claire said, “There’s a Hope that lives in the story, in the forest.” And she felt the tender twinge which she and Martin both shared flare up as she said, “And there was a real Hope.”

“Real?” Cooper asked, confused by the notion of an unreal Hope.

Martin dismissed himself to the kitchen to dull the sharp reality. He pulled a small flask from his cargo pant pocket, poured bourbon into his iced tea, and drank it down. His throat was still warm from the burn when Claire entered the kitchen. “Those two are busy sharing their visions for the trip,” she said, smiling anxiously. She joined him as he leaned on the center island. “I’m sorry about Cooper. He feels like he knows Hope, so . . .”

“He would’ve liked her,” he said, taking another drink. “Everyone did.”

Before she knew it, another apology came out of her mouth. “I’m so sorry about her.”

“
Them
,” he said, staring at his hands. “You’re so sorry about
them
.”

Even before the sound of the word had ceased to resonate, Martin’s doubly tragic sorrow hit Claire in the gut. In an instant, she saw the solemn policeman at her door asking, “Are you Mrs. Payne?” and the sympathy cards with big, billowing flowers, abundant and full of life. She suddenly felt guilty for being paralyzed over just one loss, and she wondered how the hell this man got out of bed every day. The psychiatrist in her felt obligated to ask him where he was in the grieving process: denial, anger, acceptance? But the widow in her—the part that identified with the anguish of losing a lover, and who knew that on most days, the grieving stages were reduced to
sad
,
pissed
, and
fucking sad and pissed
—asked him a more realistic question.

“Need a Zanax?” Claire said, popping a little white pill in her mouth, careful not to use the word
want
, because that’s the thing about grief—there’s no energy left for want, only need.

“No. Thanks,” Martin answered. He took out his flask again, reloaded his drink, and smiled. “Having a bad day?”

She looked at her watch, and laughed. “Let’s see. Yeah, several . . . hundred bad days in a row. What are the odds?”

Martin nodded.

Claire fell deep in thought. “Haven’t had a truly good day since . . .”

“June 20th, 2011,” they said in unison, their voices trailing off as they realized yet another horrific fact they shared.

D
avid Payne, Katherine Baxter, and Hope Baxter all died during the tenth hour on the twentieth day of the sixth month. It happened to be a Monday, the second day of the week, and although many other numbers are connected with the hour of their deaths—one phone call, two vehicles, four onlookers—it is the number three which is important. What sparked the tragic string of events was a three-minute conversation between Jake Harmon, a strung-out twenty-one year old, already high at ten in the morning, and his father Jim, driving his semi-truck down Portland’s I-5.

Jake called his father, who, as always, was on the road. Perhaps the call was Jake’s ill-fated attempt at being talked down from the proverbial ledge, or maybe it was to say goodbye, but either way, Jim Harmon sensed the desperation in his son’s voice, and spoke into his cell phone, trying to sound fatherly. “Calm down, son” and “Don’t do anything stupid” were the last things he said before he heard a gunshot. Startled by the fact that his only son had either shot himself or someone else, Jim Harmon looked down at his phone in disbelief—and then, trying to right his now swerving twenty-ton truck, he drove, head on, into Katherine Baxter’s Subaru. The massive force of the collision collapsed the car in one split-second, reducing it to a compressed accordion, melding it onto the truck’s front grill as a permanent fixture, and crushing and killing Katherine and Hope Baxter on impact.

The girls had been on their way to Portland’s annual Rose Festival to see, as advertised, three thousand roses, of every variety and color, thriving in the city’s shady, moist climate. Katherine, not enamored of flowers, loved how her husband and daughter took delight in them, and facilitated their enjoyment of them whenever she could. Three seconds before the accident, Katherine Baxter, out of nowhere, was struck by the beauty of her lucky, charmed life—a husband she adored and a daughter she lived for—and by chance felt compelled to tell Hope, who was leaning against her window, soaking up hints of sun, how she felt. “I love you,” she said, and then it all ended.

Three minutes.

Three thousand roses.

Three seconds.

Three words.

Three people—ceasing to be.

And three weeks later, after Martin Baxter and Claire Payne had finally realized it was not just a horrific nightmare, but a real-life horror, Martin watched the Portland roses wilt, and Claire found herself enveloped by hundreds of post-funeral roses, all dying.

But neither Claire nor Martin knew the particulars which connected them, because life doesn’t always provide them. It simply waits until those inevitably linked manage to find each other.

After saying
June 20th, 2011
aloud, they chose not to discuss it, but rather leave it to coincidence, and as they stood together in Claire’s kitchen, bonded by one fateful day, Claire put her hand on top of Martin’s, only for a second, to feel how someone else’s pain felt. She decided it felt a lot like hers.

When Martin looked up at her, she removed her hand and focused her attention out the kitchen window, to the backyard, at five paloverde saplings. She and David had planted them two weeks before he died. In her grief-stricken state, she’d neglected them, and now three of them were weak, brown, and on the brink of death.

“
Cercidium floridum
,” Martin said under his breath as he looked out at the five saplings. “Two of them are going to make it—if you take care of them. They’ll bloom soon. Little yellow flowers.”

Martin studied Claire’s glistening skin and thought about how all women look different in different light. Claire’s skin became almost translucent, with a trace of shimmer, in direct sunlight. Fighting the allure, he broke his gaze, and directed his attention back to the trees outside. The hardiest trees, the two on the end that showed the most hope for survival, stood together.

He used his eyes to direct Claire’s attention to the trees, which reached for the sun.
They might make it
, Martin thought,
if they let the sun do its job.
It was, simply, the nature of things.

C
laire and Martin left the kitchen together and rejoined Cooper and Story in the living room. Cooper looked at Martin and held up the book “Would you sign it?” he asked, as Story handed Martin the pen she’d bought for him at the mall.

When he noticed the wooden morning glories adorning the pen, he let his fingers glide over the petals and the heart-shaped leaves, and for the first time in a long time, the urge to smile felt stronger than the urge to cry. “Sure,” he said, opening the book’s cover and signing the inside.
For Cooper . . .
he wrote. And then, he asked Cooper a question he often asked when he was signing books: “What do you want to be when you grow up, Cooper? What do you see in your dreams?”

Cooper looked up at Martin with wide-open eyes. “My dad said as soon as I found the magic treasure box,” he said, letting out a slightly embarrassed laugh, “we’d run around with our grown-up flashlight, and lead everyone out of the jungle.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And
then
he said I would be a Rainforest Superhero.”