The Wedding Tree (3 page)

“I'll order something to make you more comfortable. Just relax and get some rest, and I'll be back to check on you later.” He said something to the nurse. As she fiddled with the IV drip, he scribbled on the chart, then signaled for us to follow him into the hall.

“How is she?” Eddie asked as soon as the door closed behind us.

“I'd say she's doing very well, considering her age. There are no signs of a stroke. But she's had a severe brain injury.”

“She's awfully confused.” Eddie folded his arms across his chest as if he were trying to hug himself.

Dr. Warren nodded. “That's to be expected.”

“How long will it last?”

“She's likely to improve, but at her age, and with this level of trauma . . .” He paused. His face got that apologetic-sympathetic-uncomfortable look people get when they have to deliver bad news. “I'm afraid this was a life-changing event.”

A life-changing event
. A chill went down my arms. Such simple, everyday words, yet put together in that order, in this situation, they were catastrophic.

The doctor flipped through the chart. “She was living alone?”

Eddie and I both nodded.

“I'm afraid that's no longer going to be possible. You'll need to make other arrangements.”

“She's very independent,” I said. “Can't we wait and see how her recovery goes?”

The doctor shook his head. “The fact she fell indicates that living alone is no longer a safe option. When you add in the effects of severe brain trauma, well, it's just not advisable.”

“What if she won't agree?” Eddie asked.

“You'll need to convince her.”

“What if we can't?” I asked.

A tense pause stretched in the air. “If a person is deemed to be
a danger to herself or others, Social Services will step in. It's preferable, of course, for the family to reach a resolution.” He looked at Eddie, then at me, his eyes full of that apologetic-sympathetic-uncomfortableness again. “Does she have any family in town?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Well, then, I suggest you contact Pine Manor.”

“Gran hates Pine Manor,” I protested. I'd gone with her to visit some of her friends who lived there last Christmas.

On the way out the door, she'd grabbed my hand. “Promise you'll give me cyanide before you let Eddie put me in this place,” she'd begged.

I can't say that I blamed her; the place smelled like old carpet, canned peas, and pissed Depends.

“Well, it's the only elder care facility in Wedding Tree,” Dr. Warren said. “But there are some fine nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Hammond and Covington.”

Eddie shook his head. “There's no point in moving her someplace where she doesn't know anybody. If she has to move, she'll come with me to San Francisco.”

“That's your call, of course.” He closed the chart and pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose. “In any event, she'll be here for several more days, so you'll have a little time to reach a decision. If need be, we can temporarily put her in Pine Manor or a similar facility until you complete your arrangements.” He slid the chart into the plastic holder on the back of the hospital room door. “I'll check back on her in the morning.”

Eddie rubbed his jaw as the doctor's loafers thudded down the hall. “Ralph and I have tried to talk her into moving to California for years. She can live with us, or move into an assisted living center.”

I'd sat in on many of those conversations—the last one being during the past holiday season. “As I recall, she wasn't really opposed to moving.”

“No. The problem is, she insists on sorting through everything in her house here first. She keeps saying she'll do it, but the truth is, I don't think she even knows where to start.”

Ralph's lips curved in a wry smile. “Well, it
is
a daunting task.”

“Beyond daunting,” Eddie sighed.

They weren't kidding. Gran had grown up during the Depression, and her mantra seemed to be “Never know when this will come in handy.” She'd mended socks and underwear, saved bread bags and twist ties, and reused sheets of aluminum foil long before recycling was trendy. Her home was clean and orderly—she was by no means a candidate for
Hoarders
—but every drawer, every closet, every shelf was stuffed.

“We should hire one of those estate liquidation companies,” Ralph suggested.

“I tried to talk her into that a couple of years ago,” Eddie said.

I remembered it all too clearly. “It was the Thanksgiving you were in London, Ralph.”

Eddie nodded. “She threw a fit. I've never seen her like that.”

I'd never seen Gran so agitated, either. She'd thrown her napkin on the table, her face flushed, the cords standing out on her neck. “I won't have some stranger pawing through my things!” she'd hissed. “I'll do it myself, and that's all there is to it.” She'd left the table in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and refused to sit back down until we promised to drop the topic.

“Well, she doesn't have a choice now,” Ralph said.

“Maybe she does.” I was thinking aloud, and was a little surprised to find the words coming out of my mouth. “Maybe I can stay in Wedding Tree and help her.”

Eddie put his arm around me. “Hope, honey, that's a sweet thought, but it's just not practical.”

“Why not?” The idea felt like a beacon in my brain, clear and bright, shining through the fog of depression and lassitude and indecision that had immobilized me since my divorce. My pulse rate kicked up.

“Hope, it would take months,” Ralph said gently.

“I've got the time.” The light in my brain gained additional wattage. Heat flowed through my veins.

Eddie's arm tightened into a squeeze. “I know you want to help, but you haven't thought this through, honey.”

What he really meant was,
Here Hope goes again, making another rash decision.
It hurts to admit it, but I have a bit of a track record of acting first and thinking second.

There was that time on my college study abroad program when I didn't make the plane home from Athens because I'd decided to run by the Acropolis one last time, and the professor in charge called Mom, who insisted he file a missing person report—but something got lost in translation and the police thought I was a fugitive wanted by American authorities, and I ended up spending two terrifying nights in jail.

And the time I lost the rarer-than-hen's-teeth entry-level job at the Art Institute of Chicago that my mother had pulled all kinds of strings to get me, because I changed around an exhibit to showcase Renoir's little-known
Vase of Flowers
instead of his more famous
Two Sisters
, which, in my opinion, is overexposed.

And, of course, there was my disastrous decision to marry Kurt four months after my mother's death.

My mother used to say I am overly optimistic and too impulsive, even on my ADHD meds, but I didn't believe her. Her death and my rebound-from-grief marriage had changed all that. I no longer had boundless faith in the goodness of the universe, the intentions of others, or my own abilities.

“You'd have to put your whole life on hold,” Eddie said gently.

“What life?” I turned my hands palm up. “I don't really have one.”

Ralph patted my back. “All the more reason you need to stay in Chicago and build one.”

“Maybe this is just the way to do that.” Conviction swelled in me like a religious experience, infusing me with a sense of energy and purpose that had been lacking for months. Maybe years. “A few months in Wedding Tree would give me a chance to figure out my options and decide what I want to do next.”

“A few months in Wedding Tree will make anything look like a better option,” Ralph said.

“And maybe that's exactly what I need.”

Ralph and Eddie exchanged dubious looks. But then, they didn't know what my life was really like—how isolated and shut off and rudderless I'd become. You couldn't even say my life was adrift, because drifting implied movement. My life was stuck on a sandbar and completely fogged in.

“Look—I'm working as a temp. My sublet is up in two months, and I don't have a clue where I'm going to move. My friends are all married and busy with their families or else they've moved away, and jobs in the art world are harder than ever to come by in this economy.” I was voicing things I hadn't even allowed myself to think. Depression had kept me catatonic, but apparently I'd subconsciously been fretting about my future, because relief flooded through me as I talked. The prospect of getting out of Chicago and helping Gran sort through her belongings gave me a sense of direction, of meaning, of usefulness. “This is perfect timing. Helping Gran would help me.”

Eddie sighed. “Hope, honey, do you remember what Mom's house looks like?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you looked in her attic and storage shed and garage and closets?”

“It's been a few years.” Maybe even a decade. Come to think of it, I might have been twelve the last time I was in the attic.

“She's only continued to add things to them. Every square inch is crammed and bulging.”

“Well, it has to be tackled by someone. Might as well be me.”

“You can't simultaneously sort out the house and take care of Mom. We don't even know what level of care she'll need.”

Ralph thoughtfully rubbed the auburn stubble on his jaw. “We can hire home health care workers.”

Eddie and Ralph exchanged another long look, the kind of look
that's a whole conversation. I felt a burst of longing; I'd never been that closely attuned to anyone. Certainly not to my husband, not even in the early days, back when I'd thought things were good.

Eddie ran a hand down his face. “Hope, honey—you're tired. This is a huge commitment, and it doesn't need to be decided right now. Go to the house, take a good look around, and sleep on it.” He reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a key, and handed it to me.

“You need sleep, too,” I said, noticing the shadows under his eyes. “Why don't we take turns staying here with Gran tonight?”

“Nah. I'll be fine. I can sleep like a log anywhere.”

“That's true,” Ralph said, kneading the back of Eddie's neck. “He fell asleep at a Warriors game last week and nearly slid off the seat.”

“You can't blame me.” Eddie tilted his head down to give Ralph better access to his neck. “Our team was twenty points ahead.”

“My point is, he can nod off in a chair just as well as on a bed. Maybe better. He'll be sawing logs as soon as his butt hits a cushion.”

Eddie nodded. “It's one of my many mad skills.”

Ralph ended the neck massage and swatted Eddie's butt. “And you have very many, very mad skills.”

Eddie playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “Not in front of the children.”

I laughed, but felt more wistful than amused. Eddie and Ralph had been together for more than a dozen years and shared the kind of warm, easy affection I'd hoped for in my own marriage.

“I, on the other hand, require a prone position,” Ralph said, “so I'm off to the Mosey On Inn.” Ralph was allergic to dogs, and Gran had a shaggy mixed breed named Snowball, so Ralph and Eddie always stayed at the town's only inn whenever they visited Wedding Tree.

Eddie hugged him good-bye, then kissed my cheek and turned toward the door to Gran's room.

“Sure you'll be okay here alone?” I asked.

“I won't be alone. I'll have Mom for company.”

“Not to mention his grandmother on the ceiling,” Ralph said dryly.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “I'll chalk your insensitivity up to sleep deprivation this time, but it better not happen again.” He turned the “Visitors Welcome” sign on Gran's door around to read “Patient Sleeping—No Visitors Allowed” and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Now get on out of here, you two. I need my beauty sleep.”

I peeked in as Eddie entered the room. Gran was sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling. Eddie plopped into the bedside recliner, kicked back the footrest, and closed his eyes. Satisfied, I backed out. Before the door even closed behind me, the soft snuffle of Eddie's snore rose from the chair.

hope

I
always wax nostalgic when I first see Gran's house after a long absence, but this time, I steeled myself against it. I'd watched quite a bit of HGTV over the last few months, and I'd learned about the importance of curb appeal. I would try, I decided, to view the house through the objective eyes of a potential buyer.

My heart sank as I pulled my rented Sonata onto the familiar herringbone-patterned brick driveway and gazed at the gabled two-story house. I'd been here at Christmas, but my eagerness to see Gran and my sentimental attachment to the place apparently had obscured the fact the house was in need of an extreme makeover. Well, maybe not extreme, but at least substantial; the gingerbread trim needed painting, the gray wooden siding was dingy with mildew, and the railing on the wraparound porch looked like a gap-toothed fighter who'd lost a few rounds.

The landscaping wasn't any better. The gardenia bush on the west side hulked over the living room window, the azaleas in the front bed gasped for fertilizer and a trim, and the centipede grass had been hijacked by dollarweed and dandelions. The only spot of color was a large patch of tulips blooming in the front flower garden.

I climbed out of the car, grabbed my bag from the backseat, and headed toward the house, noting additional needed repairs with every step. A board on the third porch stair shifted under my foot,
the paint curled and flaked off the porch railing, and the screen door sported several tears and dents. The hinges squeaked as I opened it and inserted the key into the faded red front door.

The lock tumbled, and I pushed the door open. The scent of Gran's house—of a million home-cooked meals mingled with floor polish and old furniture and the lavender potpourri she always kept by the door—flew out to greet me, sweeping me up in a whirlwind of olfactory-borne memories. All attempts at objectivity abandoned, I stepped through the door and into my past.

Funny, how almost all of my childhood memories were based here. I'd only visited Gran at Christmas and during summer vacations, yet my recollections of this place were sharp and clear, while memories of most of my childhood in Chicago were blurry or nonexistent.

Maybe it was because this was where I'd felt most alive, I thought, dropping my keys on the bureau in the foyer. Gran's house had always buzzed with possibilities, with wonderful things just about to happen—Christmas presents waiting to be opened, cake icing needing to be licked from beaters, long summer days stretching out like magic carpets, as full of promised delight as the stack of canvasses Gran always bought me.

Mom used to fly me down to Louisiana when school let out in early June, then pick me up again in August. While she managed portfolios and brokered big deals in Chicago, I ran barefoot, frolicked through schedule-free days, and indulged my passion for painting.

Gran has always been my biggest fan and supporter. She'd noticed my love of art when I was about four years old and she caught me sitting cross-legged on her white chenille bedspread, staring at the print of Van Gogh's
Starry Night
that hung over her high oak headboard. I told her that if I looked at it long enough, the stars seemed to spin.

“Would you like to paint a picture like that?” Gran had asked.

I'd nodded, and that very afternoon, Gran had taken me to the
store, bought me paint supplies, and set me up with a little easel on the back patio. I worked out there until nearly bedtime, when I'd declared my painting finished.

“That's beautiful, sweetheart,” Gran had said.

“It's very nice,” my mother had remarked when I'd proudly shown her the piece a couple of months later. “But shouldn't the big star be on the other side?”

“Oh, I wasn't copying,” I'd said. “I looked at the sky myself.”

“That's my girl.” Gran's laugh had vibrated against me as she enfolded me in a big hug. “Don't ever stop viewing the world through your own eyes, sweetie.”

“Who else's eyes would I use?” I'd asked.

Gran had laughed again. “You'd be surprised, honey. You'd be surprised.”

To my delight, Gran had hung my painting right over the Van Gogh print in her bedroom—and she'd taken to framing and hanging each summer's crop of paintings in the “art gallery” between two of the three bedrooms upstairs.

“You shouldn't encourage her,” I'd overheard my mother say one evening years later, between my sophomore and junior years in high school. She and my grandmother had been sitting in the kitchen, and I'd been in the dining room, sketching a mural on the wall. I was listening to my CD Walkman, but I'd pulled the headset off for a moment, and the solemn tone of my mother's voice had made me put my ear to the door. “She needs to start thinking about colleges and majors, and art isn't a serious career.”

The words had knifed me in the heart. My mother was an investment advisor, all about P&Ls, track records, and potential.

“She seems pretty serious about it to me,” Gran had said.

“Come on, Mom. There's a reason the word ‘artist' is usually paired with the word ‘starving.'”

“She could always teach.”

“Then she'd be starving for sure. Traditional female roles don't allow a woman to make a decent living.”

“Well, dear,” Gran had said, “making a living isn't the same as making a life.”

I'd failed at both, I thought now. My shoulders slumping, I left the main door open so air could circulate through the screen, shuffled into the living room, and flipped the switch for the overhead light. The old chandelier cast a soft glow over the cypress floor, the floral chintz curtains, and the hodgepodge of furniture that ranged from inherited Victorian antiques to 1980s-era “modern.” My eye went to the crowded collection of photos that covered the walls—a rogue's gallery of my family, with a special emphasis on my mother and Uncle Eddie as children.

Centered over the sofa hung an old sepia-tone photo of my great-grandmother and great-grandfather. In the manner of old photos, they were formal and unsmiling. Next to it was a photo of them sitting on the back porch, playing cards and laughing. If Gran hadn't told me who they were, I never would have recognized them as the same people.

Gran had taken the porch picture with a Kodak Brownie when she was seventeen. She'd told me she'd hidden in the bushes and caught them unawares so that they wouldn't stiffen up like a couple of corpses.

As long as I could remember, Gran always had a camera handy. In the back of the house, she'd had a darkroom, where she used to let me help develop close-ups of flowers and bugs and leaves. I inhaled deeply as I stepped further into the house, hoping to detect a hint of darkroom chemicals. No such luck.

I'd once told my mother how I loved the smell of Gran's darkroom.

“Oh, I don't,” Mom had replied. “I think it smells like thwarted dreams and female repression.”

My mother had been big on female empowerment. Gran said she was a women's libber, although Mom preferred to think of herself as a feminist. She was certainly a glass-ceiling breaker, a role model for women who wanted more out of life than a home,
a husband, and children. She'd told me that Gran had worked as a photographer for the New Orleans newspaper during World War II and had dreamed of being a travel photographer, but she'd been the victim of a “misogynic era” and a “chauvinistic husband.”

My mother had been talking, of course, about her father.

According to Mom, he'd been withdrawn and silent, always hiding behind a newspaper or a TV program. When he did talk, it was usually to offer some kind of “helpful” criticism, usually about her appearance or demeanor. She needed to smile more and study less. Her hair always needed combing, or her clothes needed pressing. He was dismissive of her deeply held political convictions or even her stellar grades. “No man wants to marry a know-it-all,” he used to say.

Mom said he lacked respect for women. Gran said he was just old-fashioned and stubborn and sincerely believed that he knew best. He'd been raised to always please his parents, and he couldn't understand children wanting a life beyond their family and hometown. Gran said the fact he was paralyzed in his late twenties had left him out of touch with the changing world. My mother said there was no excuse.

He'd died before I was born, so I don't have any memories of him. I do have a memory of Gran and my mom visiting his grave when I was about five. They'd taken some roses, and I recall Mom crying as if she were trying to squeeze her soul out of her tear ducts as Gran laid the bouquet on the headstone.

The savagery of my mother's grief had scared me. Mom was always in control, always logical, always practical. I thought she was above sentiment. Where had this storm of emotion come from? What could I do to make it stop? Was it somehow my fault?

Years later, when I was a teenager—I must have been fifteen, because I was driving my mother's Mercedes and she was in the passenger seat, and the only time she willingly relinquished control of the wheel was when I'd been a student driver—she said something disparaging about her father.

“If he was such a jerk,” I'd asked, “why did you cry so hard that time we visited his grave?”

“Because I never had a chance to impress him.” She'd smoothed her already-smooth hair, which was an unusual thing for Mom to do.

“You wanted to impress him?”

She'd lifted her shoulders. “‘Impress' might be the wrong word. I wanted to—oh, I don't know. He just always made me feel . . .” My mother, who was always so sure of herself and never at a loss for words, had an uncertain wobble in her voice. “. . . inadequate.” She'd clamped her lips together and turned her head to the passenger window. I'd kept my eyes on the road. I was afraid she was crying again, and the thought of my always-together mother crying scared me to death.

Mom never said that her father was the reason she disliked spending time in Wedding Tree; she said Gran loved to visit us in Chicago and that there was a lot more to see and do there, which was true enough. Besides, she'd always add—Wedding Tree was too rural, the people too nosy, and the pace of life too slow.

Which were the very things I'd always loved about Wedding Tree. The community was like a fuzzy blanket—it made me feel safe and relaxed and cozy. In Chicago, I always felt hurried and pressured. Maybe it was because Mom packed my after-school life with activities and appointments and play dates. When we were at our apartment, she was always working on something, and I felt like I had to be constantly productive, too. “It's important to make something of yourself, to become someone,” Mom used to say.

“Isn't everyone already someone?” I once asked.

“You know what I mean,” she'd said. “Successful.”

Yeah, I knew what she meant. Success to my mother meant academic achievements, professional accomplishments, and important titles. A type-A overachiever, Mom went from high school valedictorian to summa cum laude MBA graduate at Northwestern to vice president at a publicly traded investment firm at a time when
female executives were unheard of. She'd wanted her only daughter—the daughter she'd had at the age of forty-two—to follow in her footsteps and benefit from all the inroads she and her fellow female type As had made in the seventies and eighties.

The problem was, my idea of success didn't jive with hers. I didn't want to become an attorney or doctor or high-powered executive. I didn't want to wear designer clothes or go to power lunches or board meetings. I just wanted to paint—to lose myself in a flow of creativity, to produce art that captured my thoughts and feelings.

Mother never said I was a disappointment, and I know she didn't want to make me feel like one, because her father had done that to her. But deep inside, I'm pretty sure I disappointed her all the same.

Pushing aside my thoughts, I opened the front windows to let in a breeze—it was a cool day in late March, not warm enough to warrant air-conditioning—then went upstairs to my mother's old bedroom, the room where I always stayed. I dropped my bag on the floor, peeled off my clothes, and took a long shower in the vintage black-and-white-tiled bathroom. When I came out, I rummaged in my bag and threw on a pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt. I thought about taking a nap, but it was getting late and I felt kind of wired. I decided to look around the house and see just what I was getting myself into. I wandered downstairs into Gran's bedroom.

It looked the same as it always had. Gran's big oak bed with a curved footboard sat against the wall opposite the door, the large, elaborately framed print of
Starry Night
hanging over the high oak headboard, my smaller painting, in a simpler frame, hanging above it.

I smiled and focused my gaze on the Van Gogh print. I still love it, but now I appreciate it for different reasons. Now I love the way Van Gogh lets you see his brushstrokes, how he didn't try to hide the effort, how he lets you see where he dabbed and dawdled and meticulously layered color on color, where he reworked the parts that weren't right until they matched the picture in his head.