The Family Tree (3 page)

She read the notes to Phil, waiting while he tapped them into the computer. Actually, the two of them made a pretty good team because she could do what he hated, like type and spell and put words together, and he didn’t mind doing stuff Dora hated, like changing tires if they had a flat or dealing with drunks.

Jared came in the back door that night, so he didn’t see the weed. Next morning, when Dora stepped out to get the mail before leaving for work, it had grown a foot. The coiled green had uncurled into lacy fronds of leaflets, multiple pairs of them along wiry stems. The
top of each frond swayed in the light breeze as though it was nodding to her.

“Good morning,” she said, bowing a little. It was what Little Dora had done, talking to plants and trees and stray dogs. Even when they quit talking back, she’d kept up the habit. It embarrassed her when she got caught at it, so she’d mostly stopped whenever people were around. Phil was okay about it. He didn’t mind her talking to animals or pigeons or flower gardens. He just thought she was nuts, but then a lot of cops were, one way or another.

The mailbox held a card from Jimbo. He’d found a job in California, running a cultivator in fruit orchards, lots of other stuff needed doing, so it could be permanent. He was teaching himself to play guitar. Happy Birthday. Good Lord, he sounded almost grown up. Maybe there was hope, after all!

Kathleen had also remembered her birthday with a funny card covered with dolphins. An all-porpoise birthday card. And there was a letter from Polly, saying she’d be dropping in on Dora Friday for a birthday visit, a couple of days, maybe, on her way to visit friends in Seattle. Dora had always shared the July Fourth birthday cake with Polly and Jimbo, so of course the two of them had remembered her birthday. Dora wished Polly had given her some notice of the impending visit. Jared hated surprises.

Dora leaned against the door jamb, rereading Polly’s note while the weed went on flirting its tendrils in the wind. “My sister’s coming,” she told it. “She’s a botanist. She’ll understand you better than Jared will. If you want to be around to meet her, better duck. Jared won’t let this go on.”

As Jared didn’t. The minute he drove in that night, he saw the weed. He went on into the garage with a grim look on his face and came out a few minutes later with the sprayer. Dora, who had seen him from the kitchen, went to the living room window to watch him drenching the weed in weed killer. Then he stood there, mouth
working, white in the face, his eyes bulged out like some actor in a Kabuki drama, as though waiting for it to cough or utter last words or something. Finally he stomped back into the garage and the door went down.

Dora went back to her salad making in the kitchen, shredding carrots and cabbage for slaw, not allowing herself to react to what she’d just seen. From Jared’s facial expression you’d think he’d been slaying a monster that had eaten his family.

Jared slammed into the kitchen, banging the door behind him. “That damn weed came back.” He scowled his way past her. She heard water running, doors jerked open and slammed closed. The banging and hammering diminished, slowly, and he had a less unpleasant expression on his face when he came back to the kitchen. They always ate in the kitchen unless they had “company,” that is, Jared’s mother. Jared didn’t like to mess up the dining room unless they had to.

“Supper ready?” he asked from the door. He always asked if supper was ready. Even when it was on the table, he asked, as though what was on the table might be leftovers from some other meal she had served to someone else.

“Just dishing up,” she said, setting the bowl of slaw on the table. “Did you have a good day?”

“As good as could be expected,” he said, plopping himself down in the chair and reaching for the bread and butter. It was what he always said. Never good. Never bad. Just as good as could be expected. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t ask him, but she always forgot and the question popped out. As though he’d programmed her.

Maybe he had. Here she was, getting the meat loaf out of the oven, dishing up the attendant mushy potatoes and carrots, taking the lid off the saucepan of overcooked green beans, foods she had never prepared before she married Jared. The too-sweet slaw was on the table with the required white bread and the real butter and the grape jelly. Jared looked it over, slowly, as
though tallying each item, then helped himself and fell to. It was a typical Jared meal, all prepared in accordance with the rules for “feeding a working man,” that had been communicated to Dora by Jared’s mother. Meals were uniformly dull, uniformly high in calories and fat, and Jared didn’t gain an ounce.

Dora took a helping of slaw, a small slice of meat loaf, and some carrots.

“You need more food than that,” he said disapprovingly.

“I really don’t, Jared. I’ve gained five pounds the last couple of months.”

“Ummm. Not enough exercise.”

“Probably.” Though how she could get more exercise without disrupting Jared’s mealtime schedule was a problem.

“Tastes good,” said Jared, around a mouthful of meat loaf. “Mom’s recipe?”

“Of course,” said Dora. Personally, she thought the meat loaf tasted of bread crumbs and steak sauce, but not at all of meat. If she substituted soy-something or sawdust for the meat, the taste would be the same, a flavor she identified as vague tomato. But then, Jared liked vague tomato. He liked vegetables boiled into submission. He liked things deep fried or chicken fried or barbecued. He liked his eggs hard boiled or scrambled or fried crisp in bacon grease, with the yolks broken so they didn’t run at all. Salad dressing was okay, but not mayonnaise. She couldn’t imagine why he didn’t gain weight. All the exercise he got most of the year was walking from the car to his office.

Of course, mental activity could burn up the calories, and Jared probably did a lot of that at Pacific-Alaskan. Jared worked in the research and development department, thinking up more ways to use wood pulp, or designing machines to cut down and chew up trees more easily. Jared not only designed the machines, but he made the models. Jared probably made quite a good salary, too. Though Dora had never been told, or asked,
about Jared’s financial position, she knew he could have lived a lot more luxuriously if he wanted to. A few times he’d mentioned a trip one of his colleagues was taking, or an event he’d like to see, but when she’d suggested he go ahead and do it, he’d always said no, he’d rather spend his money on tools he needed, on expensive equipment he couldn’t do without. He was always building weird machines in the basement, but what they were for, God only knew, because Jared never said.

She waited until his eating had slowed. “My sister Polly wrote me,” she said in a casual voice. “She’s dropping in tomorrow for a couple of days.”

He put his fork down and scowled. “Couple of days? Well, thank you for the notice!”

“I just got the letter this morning, Jared. If you don’t feel like company, I can put her up in a motel.”

“I don’t feel like company, but you won’t put her up in a motel. She’s family.” His mouth clamped into a thin, dissatisfied line, meaning she wasn’t his family, no member of whom would ever, ever arrive without at least six months’ notice. Come to think of it, Jared and Momma were all there were of Jared’s family, so how the hell would he know how families acted!

She had the sop ready to throw him when he growled. “I thought I’d take her out to dinner tomorrow, just us sisters, for girl talk.”

His brow cleared at this. “Fine. Okay. I’ll eat with Momma.” Jared hated girl talk. Come to that, Jared hated talk. And he would eat with Momma, just as he always did when Dora got home too late to fix supper. Dora had known he would.

“If you got the mail this morning, you probably saw that weed,” said Jared. If she had seen it, his tone implied, she should have done something about it.

She regarded her plate in silence for a moment. “I’m sorry, Jared. I was reading Polly’s letter, and I guess I didn’t notice.”

He fixed her with a suspicious glare. “You had to notice. The damn thing was three feet high!”

She opened her eyes very wide, giving him the willing but stupid look, another expression perfected since their marriage. “Was it really? My gracious. What do you suppose it was?”

He was successfully sidetracked by the look and the tone. He nodded. “It was some kind of vine. I sprayed it with weed killer. Enough to kill an elephant. That ought to follow it down underground and finish off the root.” He came close to smacking his lips at the idea.

“I’m sure it will.” Poor weed. Didn’t have a chance. Why hadn’t it picked somewhere other than Jared’s place?

“Maybe it’s a shoot from that damned tree,” he muttered. “The roots are coming up under the garage! They’re making huge cracks in the floor! I’m going to have to have it jackhammered out and relaid.”

She didn’t reply. Jared wouldn’t expect her to. After all, construction was men’s business, just as doing the supper dishes was women’s. He didn’t expect her to lay concrete; she shouldn’t expect him to wash dishes. While she washed and put away, Jared went down to the basement and moved stuff around in his equipment room. Dora never went down there. She’d looked in, once, when they’d first been married, but Jared made it clear he’d do the cleaning down there himself, he’d prefer she just leave it alone. So, hell, she left it alone. Walls hung with glittering sets of blades and sockets and benches stacked with complicated contraptions didn’t exactly make her salivate.

Dora was getting ready for work the following morning when she heard Jared yelling and ran to see what the matter was. He was standing on the stoop, his face pale and rigid with anger.

“Damn, stupid chemicals, damn directions were all wrong, they’ll pay for this….”

The rosebushes down either side of the front walk had turned a seared, ashen hue, and most of the leaves had dropped. The little round evergreens on either side of the stoop were a sick yellow. Most of the leaves had
fallen from the crab apple trees, too. The kill was so total that it looked as though someone had purposely sprayed everything with acid. Only the hankies of lawn remained untouched, green as ever, like plastic.

The weed was still there.

“Maybe the wind was blowing, Jared. The mist blew over onto the other plants…”

He snarled, his teeth showing. “Don’t be stupider than usual, Dora. There wasn’t any wind. Not a breath. I wouldn’t have sprayed it if there’d been any breeze at all.” He reached for the offending weed, grasping it firmly, only to yelp in pain and drop it. “Damn thing has thorns!”

He brushed past her, almost knocking her down on his way to the first aid kit in the bathroom.

Dora stood rigid, suddenly burning with anger. “Watch out,” Dora snarled to the weed. “He’ll take the ax to you next. And then he’ll probably start on me.”

The leaf tips stirred, turning toward her. She looked up, startled, seeing nothing else moving. There was no wind. Still the leaf tips turned, following her until she shut the door behind her and leaned against it, giggling helplessly. She was living in Weirdsville. The world was off its pivot, and old Jared was really shaken up, and here was Dora, doing nothing about any of it except giggle. It had been a long time since she had felt any emotion over Jared, and if she’d had to guess, she wouldn’t have guessed she could feel this half-hysterical disgust.

Jared stomped out of the bathroom, his hand bandaged, almost yelling at her, “Since you seem to be unable to do anything around here, I’ll take care of the damn thing this evening. You said you were going out with your sister. How late will you be?”

She actually opened her mouth to scream back at him, then clashed her mental gears and managed to keep her voice utterly neutral. “Not late. We’ll go to the Greek restaurant at the mall. We’ll probably walk over, it’s so close.”

He turned on his heel and left, not saying good-bye, leaving her to let the rage seep away into her customary calm. For a moment there, she had almost told Jared what she really thought. That wouldn’t do. She wasn’t quite sure why it wouldn’t do, but she was certain that telling Jared anything about how she felt was a very bad idea. It was a lesson you learned, being a cop. Telling people what you really think is often a very bad idea indeed. As Grandma used to say, sensible people pour oil on troubled waters, not nitroglycerine.

She and Polly did walk to the restaurant, leaving before Jared got home. They went out the front, where Dora explained the mostly dead landscaping and pointed out the weed, taller than ever. Polly looked at the weed with a good deal of interest and agreed that no matter what Jared had said, he had to have sprayed the trees and bushes to kill them like that.

The avenue was only a block and a half away, and the mall was only six long blocks west. It had cooled off quite a bit and they strolled, enjoying the evening, stopping to buy some stockings for Polly, a blouse for Dora. They spent twenty minutes looking at shoes before going on to the Athena, where they had egg lemon soup and stuffed grape leaves and moussaka loaded with cheese. They laughed a lot, and drank wine and cried a little over old memories.

“Milly killed herself, didn’t she?” Polly asked, as they were gathering up their purses and shopping bags.

Dora’s mouth dropped open. “I told you…”

“I know what you told us. But she did, didn’t she?”

Dora sat back down. “Yes. I don’t think she meant to, but she did. You knew she was on drugs?”

“We were only a year apart, Dory. When Grandma died, you were up to your neck being a cop all day and taking care of the house and us all night. Sure, I knew she was on drugs. I used to beg her to stop, but she said it made everything easier. It didn’t, really. It just made everything disappear.”

“You should have told me, Pol.”

“You had a lot on your plate. I figured you’d done enough, all those years, and then after Gran died, staying there to take care of Milly and Jimbo and me.”

Dora fretted. Polly should have told her. Maybe…if she’d known. Oh, if she’d known, what? Her mind squeezed tight, the way it sometimes did, shutting grief away. Shutting the pain out, refusing to let the emotions strangle her, making herself go on. Not unscathed, but capable.