The Memory Trees

by Kali Wallace

  “But,” Sorrow began, and Grandma pointed again.

  Sorrow let herself be steered outside, across the porch and down the steps, Grandma following right behind her. Ethan hadn’t left; he was waiting on the lawn.

  “Is she okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Sorrow said. “I don’t think she’s badly hurt. Who is she calling?”

  Grandma held out her notebook.

  On the first line: You have to call Dr. Parker.

  The name was familiar. Verity’s psychiatrist, the woman who had been treating her since her first hospitalization eight years ago. She had come up during their phone conversations over the years.

  And on the second: You are scaring your daughter.

  A storm of questions crowded into Sorrow’s mind. This was terrain she didn’t know how to navigate. She hadn’t even noticed that Verity wasn’t eating—but that wasn’t entirely true. She had noticed, but she hadn’t known she was supposed to pay attention. Long hours of quiet, days spent in bed, a quiet retreat from the world, these were the things she had been worrying about, the anxious thoughts gnawing at her mind like bugs hollowing out a fallen log, but she hadn’t known to look for this one.

  She and Grandma and Ethan stood side by side at the base of the steps, staring toward the house, waiting. They could hear only the murmur of Verity’s voice, see only her silhouette through the screen door. Sorrow rubbed at her arms. The air was damp and misty, teasing her skin with the faintest promise of rain. She hadn’t known. She should have known.

  27

  DR. PARKER WAS an older woman with buzzed gray hair and horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a brown cardigan, a flowing long skirt, and hiking shoes. She didn’t look like a psychiatrist; she looked like any woman who might be browsing the weekend farmers’ market, arguing over the price of ramps and fiddleheads.

  “Sorrow,” she said, and she smiled. “You are Sorrow, aren’t you?”

  Sorrow nodded stiffly.

  “My name is Miranda Parker. I’m your mother’s doctor.”

  “Are you going to—can you check her out? She fell—”

  “She told me about that. How are you feeling?” Dr. Parker blinked at Sorrow expectantly.

  Sorrow stared right back at her. “I’m not the one who fell down the stairs.” And I have my own therapist, thanks, but she kept that thought to herself.

  “You did have a very traumatic experience the other day,” Dr. Parker said. “It’s okay if you’re not fine. Is your grandmother here?” Dr. Parker leaned to look around Sorrow. “Good morning, Miss P.”

  Grandma stood in the doorway to the kitchen with her arms crossed. She didn’t even nod a greeting.

  “Where is Verity?” Dr. Parker asked.

  “Upstairs,” Sorrow said. “She went to get dressed.”

  “Well.” Dr. Parker was still smiling. “Let’s go talk to her. May I come in?”

  Sorrow stood aside to let her through the door. The doctor had said let’s but she brushed by Sorrow to climb the stairs; she didn’t have to ask where to go. Sorrow considered following, then considered eavesdropping, but in the end she shuffled into the kitchen to sit with Grandma. She wanted to feel better that an adult, a professional, was here to take over. She wanted to be relieved there was somebody who could help. Instead she only felt tired and anxious and sick to her stomach.

  And angry. She was angry too. Verity was a grown woman. She shouldn’t need somebody holding her hand just to remind her to eat. She shouldn’t need somebody watching her just to be sure she didn’t get so dizzy she fell down the stairs. She could have been seriously hurt. The wrong angle, a different tumble, and she could have snapped a bone or given herself a concussion or broken her neck and it was so stupid, so incredibly stupid, and the longer she stewed on it the angrier Sorrow became.

  “Dr. Parker has been here before?” she asked.

  Grandma nodded.

  Sorrow looked at her, eyes narrow. “Has this happened before? The not eating?”

  A pause, then another nod.

  “Well, I didn’t know that. I had no fucking idea.”

  Grandma raised an eyebrow, and Sorrow fidgeted in her chair.

  “Sorry. But I think I’m entitled to a little bit of bad language. What are they talking about? What’s Dr. Parker like?”

  Grandma toyed with her pen a moment before answering: She has very firm ideas about what’s best.

  Sorrow sighed. “Yeah. I don’t like her either.”

  That earned her a small smile, and Grandma reached out to squeeze her hand. Sorrow only let go when Dr. Parker and Verity came down the stairs.

  “I’m going with Dr. Parker for a while,” Verity said.

  Sorrow shoved to her feet. “Going where? Do you need X-rays or something?”

  Verity paused at the front door. When she looked back at Sorrow, her expression was tired, but her eyes were clear. “I already told you I’m not hurt. If it rains later, you’ll need to make sure the French drain on the side—where’s Ethan?”

  “Uh, he left,” Sorrow said. “You know, after you yelled at him for trying to help?”

  Verity looked momentarily chagrined. “He didn’t have to leave.”

  “Well, I’m sorry that your favorite kid who you like better than your real kid took off, but will you—what’s that?”

  Sorrow pointed. Verity was holding an overnight bag in one hand.

  Verity shifted away from her, turning toward the door. She had her purse over her shoulder, a jacket on. She hadn’t just gotten dressed. She had packed to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Sorrow said. “Are you leaving?”

  Dr. Parker stepped between them. She was still smiling, her expression as mild and pleasant as could be, but her voice was firm when she said, “Go on outside, Verity. I’ll talk to Sorrow for a little bit.”

  “Wait, no, don’t—”

  But Verity was already going outside, her head ducked and shoulders hunched like she was glad to have Dr. Parker telling her what to do. When the front door snapped shut, Dr. Parker turned to Sorrow and said, “We’re going to my office to talk for a little while, then decide what happens next.”

  “What does that mean? Decide what?”

  Dr. Parker’s expression was patient and sympathetic. “This is the first time you’ve visited your mother since you were a child, isn’t it?”

  There was no censure in her voice, but still Sorrow heard an accusation. “Yeah. But we talk.”

  “I know that, and I’ve always thought that was healthy for both of you. But it’s important for you to realize that there’s a lot you don’t know about how your mother manages her illness. Not,” Dr. Parker added pointedly, when Sorrow opened her mouth to respond, “because you don’t care, or because you aren’t old enough to understand, but because it’s very personal and very difficult for her. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, not after the terrible few days you’ve had, but the fact that Verity called me this morning is a good sign. She’s asking for help, and that’s a good thing.”

  Sorrow didn’t like the way Dr. Parker was looking at her, knowingly and maybe a little bit condescendingly, like she was waiting for Sorrow to catch up to something everybody else had already figured out. It didn’t feel like a good thing. It felt like Verity had stopped eating for three days, risked injuring herself seriously with a fall, and then decided to run away, leaving Sorrow and Grandma behind.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Sorrow said. “Where are you going?”

  “If she doesn’t feel up to coming home today, we’ll do as we’ve done before and admit her for an observation period,” Dr. Parker explained.

  “You mean admit her to a hospital. That’s what you mean, right?”

  “It’s a possibility. We’re going to talk about it.”

  “But she’s—but before this week, before our neighbor—”

  “I know about the Abrams girl.”

  “Julie,” Sorrow said, her voice hoarse. “
Her name was Julie.”

  Dr. Parker nodded slightly. “I know about Julie. And I agree that her death is a large part of why your mother is struggling. But it’s not the only major change in her life recently, is it?”

  “No, but—”

  She meant Sorrow.

  Here, now. Visiting for the first time in eight years. That was what Dr. Parker was talking about. Verity had never invited her. Sorrow had done that all herself. She had insisted. All she had cared about were her own reasons for coming back, and she had never once thought that she might be steamrolling decisions Verity had made to protect herself.

  “Sorrow,” Dr. Parker said.

  Sorrow hated that she said her name with such familiarity, like they knew each other.

  “This isn’t a bad thing. The fact that she recognizes that she has to take care of herself following these difficult days is a good thing.”

  “She wasn’t even going to call you until Grandma told her to,” Sorrow pointed out.

  Dr. Parker was unfazed. “And it’s good that your grandmother is looking out for her too. Trust me, Sorrow, what Verity is doing right now is exactly what she should be doing to take care of herself. This is her life, and she is handling it the best she can.”

  “When will she be back?” Sorrow asked.

  “Nothing is decided yet. We’ll be in touch later, okay?” Dr. Parker smiled. “Try not to worry.”

  Sorrow watched them drive away, and she stood there in the open door for a long time, staring at the driveway and the maple trees. The wind rose, rustling the leaves and pushing damp, cool air into the house. She felt a spattering of droplets on her arms. She wiped them away, leaned out to look at the sky. The clouds were so low they obscured the tops of the hills, shrouded the trees with gauzy gray. It would be raining soon. She didn’t even know what a French drain was, much less why Verity was worried about it. She wondered how that would go over if she called Ethan: She didn’t say she was sorry for snapping at you, but she does want you to fix the drainage.

  Sorrow shut the door and went inside. She joined her grandmother at the kitchen table again, took a breath, and said, “I have a lot of questions.”

  She thought her voice was admirably steady, all things considered, but her lips were dry, her hands trembling. She curled her fingers into a fist and tucked them in her lap. Grandma politely pretended not to notice. She opened her notebook and picked up her pen.

  “Were you avoiding Dr. Parker on purpose?” Sorrow asked. “You didn’t even come to the door.”

  A crook of one eyebrow answered her question even before Grandma started writing. We’ve had disagreements in the past.

  “So you left me to deal with her. Thanks for that. What did you disagree about?”

  About what’s best for my daughter.

  “What do you mean?”

  Instead of answering, Grandma tapped the pen thoughtfully on the page.

  “Do you know how long she’ll be gone?”

  It depends. Could be only a few days. Could be longer.

  “How many times has she been to the hospital before? Since the first?”

  Three since then.

  “Three?” Sorrow thought back, counting through the years.

  She didn’t want you to know.

  And Sorrow had never asked.

  When they talked on the phone, she asked about the farm, about the town, about the mountains and the weather, but no matter what she heard in Verity’s voice, no matter what silences fell between them when they ran out of things to say, she didn’t ask. Even without the specter of Patience in her mind, shaking her that last day in the orchard and saying, Don’t you dare, she had never asked.

  “I don’t even know where she goes,” she said helplessly. “Where is the hospital?”

  The inpatient facility is in Burlington, ever since Dr. Parker transferred.

  Sorrow considered that for a moment. There were so many things she had failed to do, and every one felt like a deep furrow inside her, wounds old and new being ripped open and exposed.

  But that wasn’t all that was going on. There was something else missing.

  “I get the feeling everybody thinks I know something that I’m not sure I know,” she said carefully. She watched her grandmother’s face as she spoke. “But I’m not an idiot. I know that nobody checks into a psychiatric hospital just because she’s feeling bad. I know there’s more to it than that. But I don’t remember. There’s just this . . . space. Dad’s only ever told me that Verity had a breakdown. He’s never told me anything else. Maybe I should have asked, even if I didn’t want to know. But I want to know now.”

  Grandma waited, pen hovering above the page. She was looking at Sorrow like she couldn’t quite figure out what Sorrow was asking. Like she was waiting for Sorrow to come around to the answer herself.

  “Even you’re looking at me like that. What is it? What is it that everybody thinks I remember?”

  A slow nod, and Grandma began writing.

  Rain struck the window in a sudden burst. The storm was rolling across the western orchard in broad gray sheets. They would have to close the windows. They had to check the drainage. There was still work to be done.

  When she turned away from the window, Grandma had finished writing.

  You were the one who found her.

  28

  EIGHT YEARS AGO

  AFTER PATIENCE DIED, spring came to Abrams Valley, but not to the Lovegood farm.

  The rain cleared, the days warmed, and blue skies reigned. A soft green blush crept over the land as tender grass sprouted and trees unfurled their first leaves. The last lingering patches of snow sank into the soil, and the air was rich with the scent of damp earth. Bees emerged from wherever they hid during the winter, and with them mosquitoes and flies, ticks and crickets, the incessant insect hum punctuated by the cheerful chatter of birds and the chiming chorus of spring peepers.

  The mountains and valleys were returning to life after a long winter, but the Lovegood orchard wasn’t waking with them.

  Sorrow stood at the window in Mom’s room, her elbows folded on the wooden sill.

  “Grandma’s planting beans today,” she said. “Beans and carrots and peas. She says it’s warm enough.”

  In the garden below, Grandma’s pale blue dress and yellow straw hat were the only spots of color. The garden and yard were still brown, and every morning there was a crackle of frost that took far too long to burn off. None of the early flowers had sprouted from their bulbs, and even if they had, the biting chill would have shriveled the petals as soon as they blossomed.

  “I hope it’s finally warm enough,” Sorrow said, a little quieter.

  She crossed the room to her mother’s bedside. Mom’s eyes were damp and there were dried tear tracks on her cheeks. Sorrow brushed a strand of dark hair back from her face; her skin was warm to the touch.

  “Sorrow,” Mom said, her voice as hoarse as sandpaper.

  “Mom?” A bright burst of hope flared in Sorrow’s chest.

  Mom took in a shaky breath, as if to brace herself. “Are they going to let her come home?”

  As quickly as it had sparked, Sorrow’s hope pinched out. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

  “She’s my little girl,” Mom said. “I want her to come home.”

  “I know, Mommy.”

  “It’s so cold. We need her home. The orchard needs her.”

  “I know.”

  It had been two weeks since Patience had died, but they weren’t yet allowed to bury her. Sheriff Moskowitz had explained to Grandma that the police investigation wouldn’t be finished until they were certain the fire had been an accident. Only when that was settled could Patience have a funeral.

  Sorrow kissed her mother’s cheek. “We’re going to make chicken and biscuits tonight. It’ll be really good. I know you like that.” She rounded the bed and walked to the door, but before she left she looked back. “It’s a lot nicer today. Maybe you can come out and sit in the sun
for a little bit?”

  Mom didn’t answer. Sorrow left her alone.

  Sorrow wanted to help, but she didn’t know what to do. Mom never wanted to eat, and at night she only slept when she took medicine. She didn’t get dressed in the morning and she hadn’t left the farm in over a week. The last time, when she had taken Sorrow into town for groceries, she had started crying in the middle of the store, big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks while her shoulders shook and her breath shuddered. Sorrow had pulled her arm and pleaded with her to leave, until finally they’d abandoned their cart and walked out empty-handed. The clerks and other customers had gaped and whispered, but nobody had tried to help.

  Sometimes Sorrow woke to hear Mom pacing up and down in the hall, from the top of the stairs to the closed door of Patience’s room. She walked back and forth, over and over, the slow rhythm of her steps lulling Sorrow to sleep.

  The worst of it was that some days when Sorrow woke, first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night, there was a moment when she forgot. She forgot Patience was dead. Before she opened her eyes, before she felt the sun through the window or heard the rooster crowing to accompany dawn birdsong, there was a moment where her traitorous mind listened for the sound of voices downstairs, the familiar morning chatter of Mom and Patience making breakfast. For Patience’s steps quick on the stairs, for the turn of her bedroom doorknob, for a cheerful voice calling Wake up, sleepyhead, wake up—

  Then she would remember, and everything would crash over her like an avalanche.

  Sorrow pulled on her bulky green sweater and heavy boots and went out into the orchard. She searched the apple trees for opening buds, but after she checked ten trees in a row and found none, she had to admit nothing had changed since yesterday. Not a single apple tree was sprouting its leaves. The orchard was as grim and gray as it had been in the middle of winter.

  Witch weather. That was what Mrs. Roche had called it when she’d stopped by with a casserole the other day. She had sipped the tea Grandma made for her and nodded knowingly toward the kitchen window and she’d said, “This witch weather will break soon, Perseverance. It will break.”