The Forgetting Tree

by Tatjana Soli

  Claire, astonished at such a question, spread her arms to embrace the groves stretching out all around them. “Isn’t it obvious? This is all there is!”

  Minna gave her a look she couldn’t read. “If I could just see the colors, you know? The smells. Just for a moment the sight of the ocean.”

  It became clear that Minna made her brave way through life on her charm, but it was a cultivated thing, a thing put on like a piece of clothing. Here the mask dropped, and Claire realized Minna was without protection, helpless against the world.

  “We can fix that,” Claire said, more desperation than plan.

  Minna wiped her nose with the back of her hand like a child. “How?”

  She looked around for some answer that would stop the tears. Years ago she bribed the girls when they were young with coins, trinkets, ice cream, anything to stop the crying. “I could take you to the beach? Or you could do up your room? Make it more like home? It can’t feel normal being stuck in a teenager’s room.” Was Minna’s power over her that she had turned Claire back into a mother?

  At first Minna seemed unimpressed, but she sat in thought for a few minutes. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “I’m asking you to do it. Make it yours.”

  “But when I leave…”

  “That’s a long way off.”

  Claire neglected to mention that Lucy’s lavender room had formerly been Josh’s. She hated going in there, despite the changes, always looking for what she knew she would not find. A good excuse to put yet another imprint on the room, dull its previous incarnations. The next day Minna, with new energy, dropped Claire off at the nurses’ station a full fifteen minutes early for her chemo appointment. Minna couldn’t hurry her through the door fast enough, and then she took off shopping. When she picked Claire up after the treatment, the backseat was filled with bags.

  All afternoon, while Claire lay on the couch sucking on ice chips for nausea, Minna carried pails, brushes, and extension poles up the stairs to her room. Claire almost felt sorry for herself at the neglect, but at least Minna seemed to have forgotten her dirges and tears, her homesickness. The paint fumes grew so strong Claire moved to her bedroom and closed the door, but soon it wasn’t even breathable there, and by necessity she escaped to the orchard.

  * * *

  Octavio watched her walk listlessly up and down the rows like a child orphaned in the forest. Finally he came and suggested she rest in his stand.

  For years he had remained unfazed by Claire’s mood swings, loyal to her wish to remain aloof to the outside world. Ten years before he had bought a house on Rosarito beach in Mexico with plans of an early retirement, but then Forster and Claire divorced, and the girls moved away. He felt responsible for Claire, never able to forget the sight of her in that dark grave of orchard. Years passed, Sofia had already quit her job and moved there, but he stayed on at the ranch.

  “How is Sofia?”

  “She has the grandchildren this week. Driving her crazy.”

  “How many now?”

  “Five.”

  “Five! And me with two. We are getting old, my friend.”

  Octavio laughed. “Not until our grandchildren’s weddings are we old.”

  Although they never talked of it, Claire knew he was waiting till he could safely shepherd her into the future, but she stubbornly kept falling to pieces on him. He would have to be brutal and finally just abandon her to her fate if he was ever to be free.

  He led her to the shelter he had constructed from castoffs so that there was nothing that could be ruined or stolen. The place, an unlikely refuge, served its purpose and could be abandoned in a moment, like a child’s makeshift playhouse. Claire found its transience a kind of perfection: patched outdoor umbrellas pushed together under the green gloom of a towering avocado tree; underneath, a roughly nailed table and collection of broken-down lawn chairs; a hammock stretched between two pepper trees; a dented cooler filled with ice water and sodas; a scratched-up boom box. It was the place workers could find Octavio for problems, where messages could be scrawled on scraps of paper and weighted under a rock on the table.

  In her preoccupation with her illness, it surprised Claire that the farm functioned just fine without her. The workers had their own version of the farm, one as separate, yet real, as Claire’s own.

  “You would like some iced tea?” Octavio asked as he fished for a bottle in the cooler.

  “Gracias.” Claire sat and sipped while he did paperwork.

  “De nada.”

  “Es dificil…”

  Octavio nodded—his face a cross-hatching of deep creases from the constant sun—polite but wary, wanting to be of service but not to be too deeply involved. A carefully calibrated distance they had maintained over the years since the attack. Octavio made sure his sense of obligation stayed limited to the running of the farm.

  “Problema del cáncer.”

  Relieved, Octavio stood up. “You want for me to get the girl?”

  Claire shook her head.

  “You like this girl?” he asked, clearly indicating he did not.

  “She’s very smart.” Claire knew firsthand the animosity between Minna and Paz. “She’s a city girl. Just not used to us country people.”

  Octavio shook his head and wiped at his mouth. “The workers see her in the orchard late at night. With Señor Richards.”

  Claire paused, but not so long as to appear that the news was entirely unexpected. “She’s young, spirited.”

  “When you do not watch, she walks the farm like she is the owner. Orders workers to stop what they do to get her water. Orders one to hold an umbrella over her against the sun for hours. She calls them names.”

  Claire was shocked but did not want to appear so. In all her years with him, she knew Octavio always to be honest, and so she could not doubt the truth of what he said now. Her dilemma lay in what to do about it.

  A diplomat, Octavio changed the topic to spraying schedules for the orange crop.

  “Why was the last crop so small?” she asked. They staggered plantings and harvesting so that they had crops of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, avocados, or strawberries going out all year long.

  “Minna, she said you ordered not to spray. She told me to wait another two weeks to pick. Many of the naranja, they go bad.”

  “It was an experiment,” Claire said, furious and trying to hide it.

  “I talk to Mr. Forster,” he said, shrewdly guessing the truth of the situation.

  “You will not.”

  “If you make me listen to this girl, I farm badly.”

  “Let me take care of things,” Claire said.

  * * *

  Hours passed. She liked being out in the open air and had no desire to confront Minna just yet. Despite her anger, the drugs made Claire woozy, and she fell asleep. The workers stopped by on their way home, Octavio acting as adviser and informal bank, giving small cash loans as needed out of his pocket, writing everything down in a small spiral notebook he kept in his shirt pocket.

  “You used to not write anything down,” Claire said, when they were alone.

  “Many years have passed.” He winked and tapped his head. “Viejo.”

  “I’m sorry about my words earlier. I’m not myself lately. Things are going wrong, but I will fix them, I promise you.”

  “Maybe it is time for us all to retire? Both of us go live with our familias.”

  “I’ve been selfish. Do you want to leave?”

  Before he could answer, they both saw Minna slam the front door of the house and walk toward them, calling out Claire’s name. She wanted to intercept her, but felt too weak to move from the chair.

  “She is here, Señorita Minna,” Octavio called out. His face was stony.

  A group of workers whispered as they watched Minna approach. Claire heard, “La negrita.”

  Minna looked at Claire with irritation. “You should tell me where you’ve gone.”

  “She visited with me,” Octavio said,
but Minna didn’t look at him, or even register that she’d heard his words.

  “Help me take her back to the house.” Minna directed her words to the group in general, to the air, instead of to Octavio.

  “I’m not a child,” Claire said, struggling up.

  “Help her!” Minna repeated, louder and more emphatic.

  No doubt that she would slap him if Claire didn’t do something. “Did you pass on my request to delay picking the Valencias?”

  Minna stopped short. “Yes.”

  “And to not spray?”

  Minna nodded, not daring to look at her.

  “Well, it didn’t work out so well. So we’re going back to the old schedule.”

  Claire was standing, perspiring from the effort despite the coolness of the afternoon air. Octavio and Minna stood, rooted, at a standoff while Claire swayed back and forth like a pendulum between them. “Please, Minna, take my hand,” she ordered, and almost collapsed into her arms. “I need to lie down.”

  Minna almost lifted her off her feet, her arm around Claire’s waist. “Luego!” she hissed behind her.

  They staggered back to the house, Minna seething.

  “Put me down now,” Claire said at the door. It took her a minute to catch her breath. “You will never give an order again having to do with the running of this farm. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  Claire raised her hand. “I don’t want to hear about it. I covered for you this one time only, but you aren’t making any friends. You better start.”

  “They hate me.”

  “Stop giving them something to hate. Change your behavior. I don’t want to ever hear about you abusing the workers again, do you hear? Don’t think I won’t fire you if I have to.”

  * * *

  One of the mysteries in life was how one took for granted its joys—health, love, and happiness—until they disappeared, and then one was consumed in mourning their passing. There had been happiness in Claire’s life, but it passed too quickly, overwhelmed by the drudgery of work, bills, and tending to family. There had even been rare moments of grace after Josh’s passing.

  Claire remembered one particularly bad day afterward when she had walked out alone to the lemon tree where he had been found. What had she been looking for? Grief and sorrow weighed her down, and she lay on the ground beneath the tree. Without a sound, Gwen came up behind her. Had she been following her? For how long? And why? Side by side they lay on the ground till they both fell asleep, so many hours that nature forgot about them in its midst. Claire woke and felt she was in an enchanted garden—dragonflies flew above her face, one bumped into her motionless knee, while Gwen slept the slumber of an enchanted princess, small twigs scattered in her beautiful long hair.

  Claire lost herself in the blue of the sky, the white clouds emptying her mind. A hummingbird balanced in the air above her, in the silence his whirring the engine of the world. Would it be too crushing a burden to carry on one’s life filled with the knowledge of one’s luck, the richness of the gifts bestowed on one?

  * * *

  After the first month of treatment, Claire’s hair had begun falling out, but one morning, she rose to find a majority of her hair had stayed behind on the pillow—a last, blond nest. She sat stranded in the bed. Claire did not consider herself as formerly possessing a beauty that was now lost. Her hair had always been too fine and thin, never growing past her shoulders. Rather it was simply that she had the eerie premonition she was losing parts of herself—as if an arm had come off here, a leg there—what would ultimately be left? Sans hair, sans breasts, sans pillowcases, checking accounts, orange trees, daughters, dishes, husband, son. How many parts equaled the sum total that formed the essence of each person? Certainly not hair—hair must be the least of the markers of one’s being—yet there she was, stranded, hysterical, in mourning for her hair.

  Minna came in with breakfast. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  Claire shook her head and pointed, accusing, to the pillow, speechless. Mrs. Girbaldi was expected for lunch, but Claire wanted to hide forever in her bed.

  “Oh,” Minna said, and set the tray on the floor, sat on the bed, and took her in her arms. She rocked Claire like a child, till she was soothed. Claire felt too destroyed to be reserved or shy. She cried abjectly, all self-consciousness and inhibition gone. In just such a way, she had comforted her girls when, inconsolable, they grieved over the death of a pet, or some other long-forgotten misfortune. To them such grief was deadly serious, and she treated it as such. Likewise, no matter how foolish she might appear now, the sick had privileges. She would be forgiven by Minna. Rage and confusion poured out. When she finally settled down, Minna kissed her forehead and said, “Now that’s over, we must get to work.”

  After Claire had dressed, Minna placed her on a kitchen stool (the same stool that Claire had used to cut Gwen’s, Lucy’s, and Josh’s hair) and took out a small pair of silver sewing scissors and began to snip the last straggly remnants. Each cut strand carefully placed on an outspread cloth, added to that from the pillow, not allowed to fall on the ground, sparing her evidence of her weakening, disappearing self. When Claire had only a soft buzz cut, Minna took out a razor and a can of shaving gel. As the razor skimmed Claire’s head, Minna hummed a tune Claire thought sounded like a lullaby she used to know. Claire looked out the window, pretending it was an ordinary haircut, pretending that all this was happening to someone else.

  Ersulie nain nain oh! Ersulie nain nain oh!

  Ersulie ya gaga gaaza, La roseé fait bro-

  dè tou temps soleil par lévé La ro seé fait bro-

  dè tou temps soleil par lévé Ersulie nain nain oh!

  The phone rang—Gwen’s day—and Claire motioned to Minna the excuse that she was asleep. Minna talked on the phone several minutes, then hung up.

  “You must let them know you are okay,” she said. “They will blame me.” Minna brought out a small jar of red paste and rubbed it on Claire’s head. “This is to soothe the skin.”

  Claire nodded, eased by the gravelly, warm feel of the tincture, like sand mixed in warm honey, compared to her chilled nakedness without it. Her skull felt small and fragile as an egg.

  Next Minna took out a small pot of brilliant blue liquid and a small paintbrush. “This is for good healing. The hair will grow more beautiful than before. I will make you as beautiful as the goddess Erzulie.”

  Claire sat still and refused to think what she looked like, simply basked in Minna’s attention.

  A knocking at the door, and Mrs. Girbaldi, as usual, let herself in. When she walked into the kitchen, her lipsticked mouth dropped open. “My lord, you look like a Purple People Eater.”

  All three of them howled with laughter, and so Claire was able to survive into the next hour.

  * * *

  After lunch, Claire’s newly bald head wrapped in the magenta scarf, Minna led them single file out over the lawn. She sang the same song she sang earlier, but this time it was clear to Claire that it was familiar only in her attraction to it. At each turn, Minna threw a small curl of hair, then she gave them each a handful to accompany her. Bits of Claire were scattered over the lawn. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mrs. Girbaldi turn away and wipe at her face. Was it indeed a rehearsal of a funeral? But Claire did not feel ghoulish. She imagined her hair lining birds’ nests, squirrels’ dens, rabbit warrens. She herself, formerly insubstantial and windblown, would become rock solid, sinking down into the earth, forming roots that fingered their way down into the soil. Her hair, herself, resurrected.

  * * *

  Mrs. Girbaldi, caught in Claire’s need, stayed through the afternoon, read while she slept, made her famous corn-and-tomato soup for dinner. The phone rang, and Claire asked her to answer it. It was Lucy, alarmed by the news from Gwen that Claire wasn’t well.

  “What do they expect? I’m going through chemo,” Claire said when the call was over.

  “Why aren’t you talking to the
m?”

  “Whenever they hear I’m ill, we start with the selling of the farm again.”

  Mrs. Girbaldi shook her head. “But it’s just land. Not kin.”

  “No! Those acres are as born from me as the children are. Maybe more so. The girls turned away from it all.”

  Mrs. Girbaldi shook her head as if something valuable had been dropped and broken. “They escaped, child.”

  “They betrayed.”

  * * *

  For dinner Claire lit candles at the kitchen table, pulled out the cloth napkins, creating a minicelebration. When Minna came downstairs, she wore tight jeans, high heels, a glittery, low-cut camisole that used to belong to Lucy when she was in college.

  “Night,” she said, letting herself out the door, not bothering to look at the table with its three settings.

  Mrs. Girbaldi spied on her out the kitchen window. “Where’s she going?”

  “A date,” Claire said. “Just spoons? Or forks, too?”

  “She goes out regularly?”

  Claire shrugged. “Quite a few nights.”

  “That’s not her job. Her job is to keep you company.”

  “This is a job, not a prison sentence. I can’t expect her to take vows of celibacy, can I?”

  “She spends the night? With who?”

  A sly smile. “Don.”

  “That was quick work.”

  “I like having her here. It gets me through. And I have you, don’t I?”

  “Of course. And you have your daughters. Have you forgotten about them?”

  “No.”

  “I think you have. This girl has bewitched you.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Claire said, but wondered if it was true.

  “Something I wanted to talk to you about. I was at the club, having lunch with Margaret Parker. You know Margaret?”

  Happy to change the subject, Claire nodded, wagging in a noncommittal motion as one did with Mrs. Girbaldi’s sprawling narratives, like genuflecting toward the points of the cross, indicating a familiarity, rather than intimacy, with said person.

  Mrs. Girbaldi continued, undeterred, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. “Well, her cousin came down with the cancer.”

  Claire smiled at the idea that one could come down with the cancer, as if it were the flu.