Beneath the Night Tree (27 page)

The boys assaulted him with a chorus of
please
s as I made my way to the car. Parker’s answer was a foregone conclusion, and by the time we were buckled in and pulling out of the driveway, I was sure that he would be around when we came back.

While Parker turned our immaculate kitchen into his personal culinary playground, Simon, Daniel, and I chauffeured Grandma home. She was still pale and delicate, a frail woman who seemed half the size she had been only weeks before. But she was smiling, and her eyes shone with something that could only be labeled pure joy. She stared at the boys, clutching their hands, their faces, their arms, as if she longed to crush them to her but didn’t have the strength. And she pressed my hand to her lips, murmuring hopes and prayers against my fingers as the nurse pushed her out of the hospital in a wheelchair.

“I’m so ready to go home,” she whispered, just for my ears.

“We’re so ready to have you home,” I said. Gazing at the top of her snowy head, I added, “Don’t ever do that again.”

She laughed. “I’ll try not to.”

The boys were a little ahead of us, taking turns setting off the automatic doors at the hospital exit. I reached down and secured the quilt I had brought along around Grandma’s legs. “I should warn you,” I began, “Parker is going to be at the house when we get home. Are you okay with that? Because I have his cell phone number and I can call him and tell him that—”

“Julia,” Grandma interrupted, “I’m happy that Patrick will be there.”

“You are?” I looked at her quizzically, desperate to ask her about Parker’s visit and why she seemed so open to his presence in our lives. But I didn’t dare.

“He’s a nice boy,” she murmured, patting my hand.

“He’s hardly a boy. He’s thirty-one.”

“You’re right. He’s not a boy. He’s a baby.”

I laughed. “What does that make me?”

“Just starting out, my girl.”

I didn’t tell her that I felt old. Closer to an end than a beginning.

The drive home was peaceful. Grandma dozed a little, and that was fine with me. The boys played travel Yahtzee in the backseat and I snuck peeks at my grandmother’s sleeping profile. She seemed so serene with her head tilted back and her hair like a halo against the crepe of her pale skin. I wished I had my camera with me. I would have loved to capture the way the light fell on her face, the tranquil half smile that graced her lips.

In some ways, she was the grandmother I had always known and loved. In others, she was a stranger to me. Uncertainties aside, I looked forward to getting to know her. To exploring the boundaries of our new relationship.

By the time we got home, I was actually anticipating the noise and chaos that seemed to follow Parker like a whiff of cologne. It was impossible for him to enter our house and not elicit giggles and shouts, and I was anxious for the rowdy games that would undoubtedly take my mind off Grandma’s mortality.

Not to mention the home-cooked meal. Even if it was a paltry Crock-Pot offering, it was better than serving my grandmother frozen pizza on her first day back. Suddenly I remembered the meal plan her nutritionist had drawn up, and I grasped the fact that frozen pizzas were a thing of the past in the DeSmit house. Maybe it was time to dust off our own Crock-Pot and start putting it to better use.

I pulled the car as close to the porch as I could, packing the thin layer of snow into the dead grass of our lawn without pausing to wonder if my off-roading would do permanent damage. I hoped that Grandma felt strong enough to do the steps with a little assistance, but my worries were put to rest when Parker materialized on the porch. He jogged down the wide staircase and opened the passenger door, then offered Grandma his hand like a true gentleman and welcomed her home.

“Thank you, Patrick,” Grandma said, and though I couldn’t see her face, I could hear the smile in her voice.

“It’s a bit slippery,” he told her. “May I do the honors?”

“Absolutely not. But you may help me.”

“Good enough,” he agreed.

I watched as he half lifted her out of the car and wrapped a thick arm around her waist. Grandma didn’t want to be carried over the threshold, but I could see that Parker supported much of her weight as they made their way up the steps. Her doctor had told me to continue slowly increasing her level of activity but that at her age it was unlikely she would ever regain all she had lost. In short, my grandmother had aged ten years in two weeks. The change was evident in the way she leaned into Parker and painstakingly made her way up the same steps she had all but raced up only a month or so before.

By the time I parked the car and took off my snow gear in the mudroom, Grandma was seated at the kitchen table with a cup of tea between her hands. I noticed that Parker had settled her on the seat with the new cushion, a red gingham-patterned pillow that didn’t even seem to compress beneath her petite frame. And through the archway I could see that Parker had turned on the TV for the boys. Not my first choice of activity, but considering the gravity of the day, I could hardly complain that he had given them the chance to unwind.

“You’re so domestic,” I told Parker in greeting. I sank into the nearest chair and marveled at the realization that for once there was absolutely nothing for me to do. The house was clean, the kids were quiet, and supper was made. In fact, the kitchen was thick with the tantalizing aroma of spices and roast chicken, and I could see a chocolate cake on the counter by the refrigerator. “You’d make an excellent housewife.”

“Not really. I tossed a chicken and some onions and carrots into a Crock-Pot. The potatoes are from a box.” He looked at Grandma and mouthed,
Sorry
. “And I bought the cake from the bakery.”

“Smells delicious,” Grandma told him, and I had to agree. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and my mouth was watering as if I hadn’t eaten in days.

“If all you did was throw a chicken in a Crock-Pot, what did you do with all those hours?” I asked.

“I cleaned the garage,” Parker admitted, pouring me a cup of hot water and passing the tin that contained our tea bags.

“You did what?”

“I didn’t know what else to do. Besides, it was messy.”

It was more than messy. It was a disaster. Since I knew nothing about hardware, tools, or organizing a traditional “man’s space,” I had let the garage go for years. There were coffee cans of rusty nails, haphazard piles of the boys’ outdoor toys, and even old equipment from the days when my grandpa still ran the farm. I had found a rusted scythe in the far corner once and shoved it up in the rafters so that the boys couldn’t get ahold of it.

“It took a while,” Parker said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“We don’t mind,” Grandma assured him. “We’re grateful. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I echoed numbly.

We chatted for a bit and Grandma took tiny sips of her tea. I could tell within minutes that sitting up in the kitchen chair was draining her, and when I had counted one too many long blinks, I gently suggested that she take a nap.

It felt good to tuck her into her own bed and pull the crisp sheets all the way up to her chin. I perched on the edge of the mattress for a few moments, holding her hand and watching as she slowly gave in to sleep.

To my surprise, a hot tear slipped down my cheek when her breathing became slow and even. My ribs felt ready to crack at all the emotion I couldn’t contain. It was a building pressure, a geyser of love and hope and grief. But I couldn’t cry over her. Not now. Not when she was sleeping so soundly. So I drew a shaky breath and swallowed my tears, bending for just a second to lay a whisper of a kiss on her cheek.

As I stood up, I wondered how many times she had hovered over me like this. How many nights had she cried at my bedside? spun wishes around me? prayed?

More importantly, when had we switched roles?

Parker was waiting for me in the kitchen with his own unspoken question. I could see it in his face the moment I laid eyes on him, and though I was dying to grill him about his visit to the heart hospital, I simply wasn’t in the mood to talk. I tried to give off an aura of detachment. Maybe if I acted aloof, he’d leave me alone.

He caught on quickly. “Why don’t you go take a nap? I have a little project to do with the boys.”

A nap sounded like heaven, but Parker’s project piqued my curiosity. “What are you going to do?”

“We’re going to decorate a night tree.”

“Excuse me?”

Parker pushed back from the table and grabbed a pair of cookie sheets that had been resting on top of the fridge. He set them on the table before me, and I marveled at the layers of narrow apple rings that he had painstakingly sliced and laid out to dry. They were crimson at the edges, but curled and browning where the soft ivory flesh had once been. Even wasting away, they were pretty—earthy and honest.

I picked up an apple ring and studied the way Parker’s sharp knife had split the black seeds in two. “What are they for?”

“Garlands.” He retrieved a giant bowl of popped popcorn and the last shopping bag that had been hiding in his laundry basket. Upending the paper sack, he poured out fishing line, a bag of sunflower seeds, pinecones, glue, and dried cranberries. “Haven’t you heard of a night tree?”

“Never.”

Parker shrugged. “It’s a family tradition. My sister and her husband have been doing it with their daughters for the past several years.”

“You have a sister?” I asked, suddenly becoming conscious of the fact that I knew absolutely nothing about Parker’s personal life, history, or family.

“Just one. She’s five years older than me and has two girls.”

“I bet you’re a great uncle,” I murmured.

“I try.” Parker began to gather everything into neat piles. From his back pocket he extracted a small, cardboard folder that contained a few thick needles with blunt tips. “Do you trust Daniel to use one of these?”

I put my finger to the point and pressed. “I think so.”

“I’ll watch him carefully, I promise.”

“I will too.”

“I thought you were going to take a nap.”

“Nah,” I said. “I think I’d rather learn more about this night tree.”

Although I had worried that the boys wouldn’t respond well to Parker’s little art project, their excitement mounted as he explained the particulars of a night tree. While we threaded popcorn, apple slices, and cranberries on the fishing line and glued sunflower seeds to the pinecones, Parker relayed stories of his nieces’ night trees and the Christmas evenings they had spent beneath the boughs of their chosen evergreen.

“So you wrap these garlands all around the tree and hang the pinecones just like you’re decorating a Christmas tree.”

“But it’s for the animals?” Simon asked.

“And the birds. It’s a winter offering. A gift to everything that lives in your grove.”

“And what are we supposed to do?” Daniel wondered as he put a sunflower seed at the very tip of a large pinecone.

“Watch,” Parker said with an air of mystery. “Sit and watch and wait. Listen. There is nothing quite so beautiful as when a bird sings her winter song. And in the morning you can take stock and see what’s missing.”

“You said it’s called a night tree,” Simon said.

“That’s because it’s most beautiful at night. When it’s dark, you can enjoy a still world. You can talk or just look at the stars. Or pray.”

“Pray?” The word slipped out before I could stop it. “I didn’t realize you were religious.”

“I’m not,” Parker confessed. “I’ve never been a big fan of religion.”

“But you said
pray
,” Simon reminded him. “Who do you pray to?”

Parker’s lips curled in a secret smile. “The same God you do, Si.”

“So you’re a Christian?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never been a big fan of labels, either.”

I just stared at him. He had spent the last several months trying to convince me in word and deed that he was a different man, but I had no idea that this was part of his transformation. I thought back to our fledgling relationship all those years ago and realized that religion was something we had never really discussed. He knew that I went to church, but his own faith—or lack thereof—had never come up.

Parker caught my eye and seemed on the verge of saying more. Then he clamped his mouth shut and handed Daniel a new pinecone. “Let’s just say I’m asking a lot of questions these days. Embracing the faith of my youth. Trying to figure some things out.” He bumped Simon with his elbow. “Life’s hard, kid. Even grown-ups don’t have it all together.”

Simon looked confused for a moment, but something in Parker’s words must have made sense to him because he began to nod slowly. “Yeah,” he affirmed as if Parker were the arbiter of true wisdom.

Though Parker’s allegedly nonreligious beliefs plagued me like a nagging itch, I didn’t have the energy or inclination to engage him in front of the boys. So instead of trying to learn more, I set his enigmatic confessions aside and focused on the project in front of us.

There was something undeniably appealing about Parker’s vision of a night tree. I loved the thought of standing beneath one of the saplings in our grove and watching the night sky fade from blue-black to onyx as the galaxies spun above me. It sounded peaceful. Like a place where I could indeed pray. Or cry. Or shout.

When the kitchen table was teeming with our homemade swags, Parker began to gather everything and place it in his empty laundry basket.

“You going with us?” he asked when I didn’t move to stand with the rest of them.

I cast a glance over my shoulder in the direction of Grandma’s room. “I’ll walk you to the porch.”

“She’s sleeping,” Parker said gently. “Let her sleep.”

“But . . .”

“We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. She’d be furious if she knew you stayed back.”

Unconvinced, I bit my bottom lip and tried to come up with a better reason to stick close to my grandmother. But as I watched, Simon lifted a finger and quietly, secretly summoned me to him. How could I not go?

There was a wordless excitement in the air as we all stepped into our boots and searched for our mittens in the box of winter gear. The sun was already setting, but I knew the perfect tree, a young fir that had sprung up amid a ring of tall-standing oaks. Years ago, I had believed that it would not survive, but now the lovely little tree arched a couple of feet above my head and spread out thick branches of beryl-colored needles that seemed extended in welcome.