The Family Tree (4 page)

“That’s what the good Lord gave us repression for,” Grandma had often said. “So we can put the grief and anger dogs in their kennels and go on with our lives. If we let the dogs run, they’ll follow the trail until they drag us straight to destruction.”

“Whenever I remember Milly, I think maybe some people are survivors and some aren’t,” Dora commented, holding herself very still. “Seeing the things I do every day, I think sometimes it’s better if we just let the nonsurvivors go. They don’t enjoy life. They suffer through it, being angry all the time, hating people, grieving over things, and everyone who loves them suffers right along. They’re like a fish out of water, flapping the whole time, from this disaster to that disaster, and we flap with them, feeling the air burning our gills, getting drier and drier with the pain. Better if we let them go.”

Polly frowned. “Oh, that’s hard, Dory.”

She nodded solemnly, spoke through her teeth. “I know it is, Pol. It’s just a feeling I get. I know it doesn’t sound nice, but if they were animals, suffering that way, we’d put them out of their misery.”

“You may be right. Milly was never happy. She was like Daddy, from what Grandma used to say.” Polly looked up and spoke, as though to no one in particular. “But you’re not that happy either, Dora. And I don’t think you will be if you stay married to Jared. Why did you marry him in the first place?”

My God. Everyone wanted to know why she married him. Including herself!

She half giggled, shaking her head. “Oh, Pol! You
kids were all gone, and I’d sold the farm. And during the day, on the job, I was okay, but at night, when I tried to sleep…” How to describe that feeling, finding herself caught in an undertow of memory, thrashing around, trying to get something solid under her feet? “Jared asked me to marry him and share his house down the street. He said we were mature adults, we’d be able to design ourselves a comfortable life. And I thought, well, why not?”

“You didn’t love him!”

“No. I’ve…I’ve never loved a man, not like that.”

“You were afraid it might be your only chance, weren’t you?”

Dora flushed. “That’s probably true.”

“Okay. I can understand that. But why in hell have you stayed married to him?”

Well, why not be honest? “He’s never pleased about anything, Pol, but he is easy to keep contented. He lives by rules; all I have to do is remember them. And I’m comfortable.”

“But Dora, God, you deserve more than that! You must know there’s something missing! What’s the matter? Are you afraid if you admit it, you’ll have to do something about it?”

“Like go look for it? Aren’t half the women in the world looking for ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is? Good sex, real romance, love and lust and ecstacy, pink clouds in the skies and violins in the shrubbery. Trumpets, trumpets, madly blowing! Thumpety-thump on the bedsprings. Wasn’t living with Mama and Daddy enough of that!”

Polly laughed, and flushed, and they let the matter go as they crossed the parking lot. Sprouting up around the light posts were clusters of feathery green, and Dora stopped to point them out to Polly, saying they looked like Jared’s weed. They laughed about that, feeling a gossipy and sisterly camaraderie as they strolled along the avenue looking across toward the pale bulk of the boardinghouse.

“She’s a funny woman,” said Polly, nodding toward the house.

“Who? Jared’s mother? You’ve only seen her once, haven’t you?”

“Um. At your wedding reception. That was the strangest bunch of people!”

“Well,” Dora laughed, “they were my fellow boarders. Since we had the reception at the boardinghouse, it didn’t seem nice not to invite them.”

“What was that woman’s name? Michaelson?”

“The talker?”

“Talker! That’s like calling Everest a little hill. And the guy with the fish…”

“Mr. Singley. Mr. Singley talks to his fish. He has names for each of them. He calls them woozums.”

“And the fanny pincher. The one with the strange eyes.”

“Mr. Calclough. And Mr. Fries who does martial arts. When he shouts ‘Haieeee,’ the whole house shivers.”

“You somehow just didn’t fit in with that bunch, sis.”

“I was only going to be there temporarily.”

“I wasn’t too crazy about the questions Momma asked, either. Were you a reliable cook and housekeeper? That pissed me off a little, and I told her just how lucky Jared was to get you, and what a great sister you’d been. Here’s where we turn.”

Something clanged in Dora’s mind, like a coin in a pay phone. She chased the idea around, whatever it was, like chasing a memory of a dream when one first wakes up, only to lose it entirely.

They crossed the avenue and started down the empty street. Everyone was home from work, cars were put away, doors were closed, everyone was inside having supper. The street was like a vacant movie set as they moved down one block, then past the first two houses on the next block, then the house with the Tree, or the two with the Tree between them. Dora looked up at it as she always did, nodding to it. The Tree seemed to nod back, as it always did.

The next place was Jared’s. Dora saw two of her neighbors standing on the sidewalk with their mouths open, staring. She saw what they were staring at: a pile of laundry on the stoop. Then her mind sorted out what she was seeing, and she realized it wasn’t a pile of laundry, it was a body, Jared’s body, Jared lying on the stoop, a set of clippers fallen from his hand, one arm curled protectively around his head. Dora broke into a run.

He wasn’t breathing. “Call for an ambulance,” she cried, handing Polly the key that had been in her hand. “Quick!”

Polly went in, Dora rolled Jared off the stoop onto the grass, got him face up, started doing CPR, just the way they’d taught her, push push push push push, breath, breath; push push push push push, breath, breath. He was a funny color. He had little wounds all over his face and hands. Maybe other places, too, for his shirt and trousers looked as though he’d been through a barbed wire fence. Push push push push push. Breath. Breath. Push push push…

Polly ran out of the house. “They’re on their way.”

Dora just went on doing what she was doing. She heard the neighbors talking, then there were sirens coming, she heard the ambulance stop at the curb, shoes come running across the sidewalk, and she was suddenly thrust to one side of things, no longer responsible. She took a deep gasping breath, looking around for the neighbors. They were standing by the curb talking to a patrolman she knew, Ralph Gadden. He dismissed them, then came over to Dora to ask what the hell was going on. She told him what had happened.

“You had any killer bees around here?” one of the paramedics asked. “Hornets, wasps, anything like that?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“This guy looks like he’s stung all over, neck, chest, back, even his legs. The medics are running him to Memorial. You have any idea what caused this?” He ges
tured around himself at the dead trees and the dead roses and the dead junipers.

“No,” she said, truly baffled. “That is, I’m not sure. Jared used some weed killer yesterday…”

“Anybody hanging around?” Ralph asked. “Any strangers?”

“I didn’t see any. Maybe the people you talked to, those two by the fence…”

Ralph shook his head. “No. They saw him just before you did.”

She turned away helplessly, seeing the weed lacily arranged against the front of the house, now almost six feet tall. As she watched, all the leaflets turned in her direction. She shook her head, telling herself she was seeing things, then got into the ambulance with Jared. Polly would bring the car, she said. The two raggedy persons watched them go.

Jared was put into intensive care at the hospital. Ralph was replaced by another cop, one she didn’t know, and he had her tell the story at least five times while someone else queried Polly. Neither of them had anything worth telling, no matter how many times they told it. No, Jared hadn’t yet come home when she and Polly went to the mall. Yes, they could prove they’d been to the mall, they had their sales slips, their dinner check stub. They’d walked home. They’d been together all evening until they found Jared. Neither of them could possibly be suspected of anything.

“She tried to kill him,” said Jared’s mother, from out in the hall, early the following morning. “She was responsible…that woman he married.”

Dora, hearing this, felt anger again. She almost never got angry, and here lately it was getting to be a habit, overreacting to stuff.

The detective said, “Dora couldn’t have, Mrs. Gerber. She and her sister were elsewhere, and we’ve checked the story. The waitress at the restaurant remembers them. It all checks out. Besides, we don’t even know how he was hurt, yet.”

Jared’s mama made an exclamation of surprise. Dora didn’t hear her say anything else.

The next day, when the medical tests came back, they led only to further confusion. Jared’s heart had almost failed following the injection of an herbicidal compound. He had at least a hundred different puncture wounds on his arms, face and torso. Dora cried, “The weed by the front stoop! Jared sprayed it with weed killer. And when Jared grabbed it yesterday, he said it had thorns.”

The lab sent someone to look at the weed, but as Polly pointed out to Dora, it had no thorns. “Jared must have been stuck by something else, Dora. Maybe there were bees on the plant when he grabbed it. The plant isn’t thorny at all. It’s just…just…well, I don’t know what it is exactly. The leaves look like oak leaves, but they’re in a frond like some kind of acacia. And look at the little seed heads.”

“I didn’t know it had seeds,” said Dora. “It’s only been there a few days.”

“It must have bloomed some time ago,” remarked Polly. “See the little puff balls? Like tiny dandelion heads.”

There was a frothy bubble, no bigger than a pea, an assembly of mist or spiderweb or something equally tenuous. As they watched, the wind broke the tiny sphere to send its particles flying, silken shreds glinting with an almost metallic light as they spun and twisted, borne upward and outward on the soft breeze. Now that she was looking, Dora could see other seed heads all over the vine, and the next puff of wind surrounded them with glittering floss.

Dora sneezed. “Cut that out,” she exclaimed.

The weed just flirted its tendrils and went on shedding seeds into the wind.

“I’d be glad to stay with you,” said Polly, who had already extended her visit to be with Dora through all the fuss. “I don’t want you to be alone here.”

“I’m not going to be here for long,” she said, surprising herself. “You’ve sort of focused my mind, Polly,
and I’m thankful for that. Now that you’ve done it, I’m going to get a divorce.”

Polly rubbed her head as though it hurt. “Well, I’m not going to talk you out of it. You deserve a lot more than this.”

Dora shook her head, torn between annoyance at herself and irritation at Polly’s taking it so calmly. “Everything dropped into place when you told me about Mrs. Gerber asking if I was a reliable cook and housekeeper. I’ve really known all along that’s what Jared wanted, just someone to cook and keep house, so he could move into his own place without sacrificing any of the comforts of home. I’ve known it, but I haven’t dealt with it. I’ve been acting as though I’d been hypnotized.” She giggled helplessly. “Maybe he put some kind of spell on me.”

“Be thankful it didn’t last. I don’t suppose there’s any possibility you’re pregnant? It could foul things up if you are.”

She would never have confessed it to anyone but Polly. “Giving Jared CPR the other night was as close as I’ve ever come to kissing him. There’s no possibility I’m pregnant. The very idea scares me. I don’t want to end up like Mother.”

Polly hugged her. “Well, for heaven’s sake, Dora, nobody has to have nine children, one right after the other. Mother did that because it was easier than thinking, that’s all. If Mama and Daddy had been able to think, they’d have known it was selfish and wrong and they wouldn’t have done it!”

“I know that. Intellectually I know it. Emotionally, though, what I remember is the mess and the confusion and nothing ever getting done. The clothes piled on the floor because no one put them away. The messy beds. The dirt in the corners, the cobwebs. The dirty plates all over the house. The smell of rotten food in the refrigerator. The cat poop in the back hall. The lawn that died because nobody watered it. The dead houseplants. I used to try, when I was there, but I couldn’t do it. I remember
how Mama and Dad looked at each other, that steamy look. And then the noises from the bedroom….” She laughed, embarrassed. “And then afterward, all that luxuriating, mindless lethargy.” She shook her head, amazed at herself.

“So, when you leave Jared, where are you going? An apartment, maybe?”

She thought about it. “I don’t want an apartment. I need more privacy than that. I think a house. I’ve worked since I was eighteen, and I’ve saved some every year. Then I’ve got my share of the money we got for the farm when we sold it. I’ve got almost enough for a house of my own.”

“You want me to stay and help you look?”

Dora came back to herself and considered the offer. “Polly, sweetie, I think you’ve hung around here long enough. I think you ought to go on and have your vacation; you’ve earned it. My friend Loulee’s dying for a chance to be useful. And Charlene Dermot, Phil’s wife, is a realtor. Between the two of them, they’ll find me a place.”

Polly said she’d leave the day after next; and while she was on the phone making reservations, Helen Gerber rang the doorbell. Dora asked her in, not too politely.

Jared’s mother flushed, then fixed her eyes on the carpet. “I know you were upset with me the other day. I didn’t mean you, you know. When I said it was that woman’s fault—”

“Well, who the hell else did you mean?” Dora wasn’t in a mood to be forgiving. “You said the woman he married—”

“He was married before. To that Dionne girl, the slut.”

Dora’s mouth fell open. “Married? Jared?”

“She wasn’t even old enough to get married, only fifteen, but he ran off with her. First I knew of it was when he called me and said he’d run off with her and gotten married. I had to tell her mother, and she cursed him up one side and down the other and me, too. She
said Jared had interfered with the girl, that he’d have to pay for it someday. Then when I told her I was having the marriage annulled, she just laughed. She said what Jared had started you couldn’t annul.” She sniffed. “Well, I got it annulled anyhow.”