“You go inside. I’m staying.”
“I’m so sorry,” Callie said to Emily. Hildy had been holding dinner for Rose, and now it was in danger of overcooking. “I just don’t know how to get her to come in.”
Since they’d arrived an hour earlier, she and Paul had tried everything they could think of to lure Rose inside. She wouldn’t budge. At Emily’s insistence, Callie had taken Rose a heavier coat and a blanket.
“I suppose we should just go ahead and have dinner without her,” Callie said, trying and failing to look Emily in the eye. “I really don’t know what else to do.”
“I think we should join her,” Emily said. “An alfresco Christmas dinner is something we haven’t tried before.”
Paul stared at his mother. “Oh, Dad’s going to love that.”
“As it turns out, Finn is ill and won’t be joining us for dinner,” Emily said, dismissing his concern.
“What’s wrong with him?” Paul asked.
Emily didn’t answer. “Put your coats back on and let’s go outside.”
Paul exchanged a glance with Callie but let the subject drop. With a few brief directions to the staff, the moving process began. The glass and wrought-iron table that stood outside the orangerie was moved under Rose’s oak, and four places were set. If the staff thought this was bizarre holiday behavior, their expressions did not give their thoughts away.
Rose wouldn’t leave her tree to join them at the table, so they made her a plate and tray and served her where she sat. The table was close enough to engage in conversation, though. Rose said, “How do you do?” when introduced to Emily.
“I’m quite well. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rose.”
The meal was much simpler than it had been on Thanksgiving; a crown roast, with wild rice and apples, Parker House rolls, sweet potatoes, and brussels sprouts. With the addition of Christmas poppers and the party hats and favors they yielded, it almost felt like a child’s birthday party. Without Finn present, Emily did not bother to say grace.
Rose was the only one who didn’t put on her party hat, and yet she seemed almost amused by the sight of the others at the table. But she was preoccupied, and soon she retreated to silence, listening to the tree as if it were telling her something. Not wanting to interrupt Rose’s reverie, they sat quietly, every so often breaking the stillness with some inane bit of small talk.
Emily kept glancing at the house, as if fully expecting Finn to make an appearance and growing more and more annoyed when he didn’t materialize. “As I mentioned before, Callie,” she said, doing her best to sound upbeat, “you are welcome to move into the boathouse when Paul goes back to Italy in February.”
“Thank you. That’s very kind,” Callie said flatly. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about Paul going back.
“And if Rose would like to stay with you on occasion, I’m sure that could be arranged.”
Paul shot his mother a look. “I’m sure Dad would approve that plan.” He said it as if sincere, but his mother picked up his subtext.
“I think it would be good for all concerned.”
Callie said nothing. Luckily Rose was ignoring the entire exchange.
If conversation had been sparse before this remark, now it became almost nonexistent.
They stayed outside at the table long after dessert, until the sun had set and it was growing dark. Rose had two pieces of apple pie as well as a piece of the savory mince.
“I promised to have you back in Salem by six,” Callie said to Rose. “We have to get going.”
“I’m not leaving,” Rose said.
“You may come back anytime you want, Rose,” Emily offered. “I’ll send my driver for you. This can be your tree. I know you already have a tree in Salem. Now you can have one in Pride’s Crossing as well. You may sit under it as much as you’d like.”
Rose considered, looking wary. “Anytime I want?”
“Anytime,” Emily said.
“Okay,” Rose said, taking the hand Paul extended to help her up.
They hustled Rose into the waiting car, and as they crossed the Beverly Bridge on their way back to Salem, Paul asked, “What did the tree say to you, Rose? I saw you listening.”
“They’re here,” Rose said.
“They’re here?” Callie repeated. “That’s what the tree said?”
“The missing remains of those executed in 1692?” Paul asked.
“Remains, yes,” Rose said, staring out the window, “and their unresting souls.”
“That’s what the tree said to you?”
“That and something else.”
“What else?” Callie asked, steeling herself, not certain she wanted an answer.
“Sometimes the only healing is death.”
It took Paul a while to calm Callie down after they dropped Rose back at the shelter.
“I have to acknowledge that Rose is sicker than I thought,” Callie said.
“That was always a possibility, wasn’t it?”
“Like Zee says, it’s denial. And what was that bit about Rose staying at the boathouse? How could that ever work?” Callie asked, confused.
“That was an interesting offer to say the least,” Paul said.
Now Callie’s mood took a dive. “I don’t want to think about you going back to Italy.”
“Let’s not think about that today.”
Neither of them wanted to go back to Pride’s Heart right away. Instead, Paul had Emily’s driver take them over to Nahant, stopping at the old fort, where the ocean view opened up all the way to the Boston skyline.
They didn’t get back until after eight. “Come to the boathouse?”
“I think I’ll check on your mother first.”
Paul walked her to the door but didn’t go inside. “My father’s not ill,” he said. “He’s just being cruel. He wanted Marta to come to dinner, and when she refused, he played sick. He doesn’t care how my mother feels about the whole thing. He never has. I’m afraid of what I might say if I run into him.”
“I’m guessing it’s not ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”
“No, definitely not ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”
Callie found Emily in the orangerie.
“Where’s Paul?” Emily asked.
“He went back to the boathouse,” Callie said. “He’s trying to avoid Finn.”
“Smart boy.” Emily closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, she looked directly at Callie. “I’m not afraid of dying, you know.”
Callie was shocked—especially since Emily was doing so much better.
“I don’t think we need to talk about you dying.”
“Oh, my dear,” Emily replied, sinking farther into the downy cushions of the couch. “We both know how this thing is going to end.”
With cancer, death was always a possibility. But it wasn’t something Callie saw on Emily. She’d been fooled before, of course. There were patients she’d thought she was helping who’d succumbed more rapidly than she’d expected, but Emily didn’t seem like one of them. Ever since the day Callie had lifted her pain, Emily had been looking better and better. Today, sitting on the couch, she seemed the picture of health.
“I’ll tell you what I am afraid of.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m afraid of leaving my son unfinished.”
“ ‘Unfinished.’ ” The word resonated as odd. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Children of privilege,” Emily said, “confuse having resources with being resourceful. I’m afraid for my son. I’m not sure he has the…survival skills he’s going to need. He’s a good man,” Emily continued. “Any faults he might have come from his youth and privilege. Which is my fault, and Finn’s, not his.”
That Emily believed she was going to die soon bothered Callie in a way she hadn’t anticipated. Somehow, in the past weeks, she’d come to feel really attached to the woman. It was the same way she’d felt about her first foster mother. Callie didn’t want to remember h
ow that had ended.
The oaks take their rest only during the winter months. Winter is the only time it is possible to forget the loss of those they loved.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees
“I don’t know why you’re so happy,” Towner said. “A storm this big is going to create more trouble for you than the exhumation would have.”
The exhumation of the Goddesses had been scheduled for January 27. Now it was delayed because of heavy snow. When they could reschedule was anyone’s guess. Take that, you old biddy, Rafferty said silently to Helen. Maybe Rose does have a bit of magic about her, he thought. She’s certainly got the weather behind her.
Rafferty had caught the four o’clock AA meeting at the Methodist church, then picked up Chinese takeout and walked back to the coach house. Towner had already lit the fire and was setting up for s’mores. They had planned to watch a movie Rafferty liked, a rare copy of an old favorite that Towner had bought him for Christmas, but, in the time it had taken him to get home, the electricity had gone out.
“I love a good snowstorm, don’t you?” she said.
“I love you,” he said, leaning down to kiss her neck.
They’d spent Christmas through New Year’s with his daughter, Leah, in Nyack, New York. Leah had a new boyfriend and now answered to the name Lee.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she’d said to Rafferty. She’d always been uncomfortable with her name, so different from those of all her friends, the Brittanys and Amandas she went to school with. When she was a kid, she’d looked up the derivation. “Do you know what it means?” she’d demanded. “It literally means ‘weary’ or ‘exhausted.’ Plus it’s a Jewish name, which would be fine except that we’re not even Jewish.”
“It’s an Old Testament name,” he’d explained. They’d talked about it for a long time, with Rafferty explaining how Leah was the wife of Jacob, the mother of seven of his children. His explanation did nothing to appease his twelve-year-old.
He’d had some vacation weeks to either use or lose, and it had been the perfect getaway. After Nyack, instead of going into the city as planned, they’d ended up at a B and B near Sleepy Hollow. The escape had done Rafferty a world of good. It was a romantic week, long dinners by candlelight, no interruptions. On the second day, Towner had taken his hand. “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time now,” she’d said. “I just never knew quite how to say it. That time we were separated?”
“What about it?”
“I was never unfaithful to you,” she’d said. “I never slept with anyone else. I know you thought I did.”
There was a lot that still remained unsaid between them about that time. What Towner had told him was the last thing he expected to hear.
“I just thought you should know.”
She’d looked at Rafferty curiously. If she’d expected relief on his part, he knew that wasn’t what his face was showing. “Thank you for telling me” was all he could manage to say.
They hadn’t talked about it again in the weeks they’d been back but instead had settled into the welcome routine of New England’s inevitable winter. The snows were late this year, which made some people feel almost giddy, as if they were getting away with something. Others, like Rafferty, knew this wasn’t a good sign. The delay only meant that, when the snows finally fell, they would fall with a vengeance.
Now she laughed and kissed him. “You smell like snow.”
They’d both come so far to reach this place. Rafferty had never thought of himself as someone who would end up content, but here it was. He tried to live each day in the present, enjoying their quiet moments together and not thinking too hard about the time they were separated, in an attempt to keep from having his thoughts read by Towner. They had never been as happy as they were lately, and he didn’t want to do anything to mess it up.
Still, now that they were back in town, the nagging and persistent dread that it couldn’t last had returned. Today he’d had to consciously push it away, which was why he’d made sure he got himself to the meeting. He needed to hear the “one day at a time” stuff again. He needed to believe it.
Rose dressed for the cold, layering every warm item of clothing she owned under her big red coat. The boots Callie had given her for Christmas were not quite broken in, so she added extra socks to pad the heels.
The train had stopped running. It was 3:00 A.M., too late to call for Emily’s driver, as she had done a few times in the past weeks. Tonight she would have to walk. Outside, she didn’t see any vehicles save the occasional plow on the main streets. As the plows passed, the force of the wind drove the snow back, filling in the pathways behind almost as quickly as they had been cleared.
The wind stung her face as she walked along the North River on Route 1A. She had to lean into it to keep from being pushed backward. Already, several cars had been abandoned, covered in rising snow until they looked like a tiny mountain range along a vast white plain.
When she got to the Beverly Bridge, the wind force doubled, gusting off the open water, and, for a moment, Rose lost her balance completely. Determined, she righted herself and pressed on, leaning forward until her torso was practically parallel to the ground. As the bridge crested at its highest point, the screaming wind faded to an eerie stillness.
Rose felt suspended in time and space.
Whiteness stretched in every direction.
As she descended the downward slope, the wind picked up again, and the momentary calm gave way to a renewed fury. For just a moment, Rose regretted the journey.
When the bridge ended, she stayed to the right on Cabot Street. By the time she reached Route 127, she could no longer feel her feet. The snow turned to sleet, and the road beneath her was slippery. Her fingers ached, so she balled them into fists in the palm of each glove to warm them.
When she finally reached Pride’s Crossing, the thick stands of trees provided relief from the sting of attacking wind. By the time she found the Whitings’ driveway, the sleet had turned back to snow.
The world was quiet here, insulated, so perfect that it startled her in both its frozen beauty and its white silence. In the glow of solar lights leading to Pride’s Heart, Rose watched the snowflakes dance to the faint music of wind through bare elm branches. The lights were crusted and glowing on their windward sides, luminarias lighting her way.
As she walked past the big house, Rose looked in a window of the library and was surprised to see Emily sitting alone by the fire reading a book by candlelight. Rose walked on toward the orangerie; the glass structure was covered with snow, its spiny frame creating a pattern that mimicked the branches of the trees.
When she arrived at the oak, Rose began to cry, her tears almost freezing as they fell to her cheeks. She put her arms around the tree, and its branches seemed to sway forward, reaching for her, the oak pulling her close under the shelter of its heavy limbs.
Rose sat down, leaning her exhausted body against the trunk, disappearing into its strong embrace. She turned her face to the oak’s dark and rippled skin, her fingers clasping the bark. She could feel the thrum of life in the tree’s scarred beginnings, tracing it back to birth and then to each spring’s rebirth, the unfurling light green of every new leaf.
“Mother Mary, hallow this ground,” she began to recite, remembering that night so long ago on Proctor’s Ledge.
She raised her arms like tree limbs and opened her fingers wide, imagining tiny sprouts of life springing from them: budding, blooming, and greening, then vibrant with color, and finally withering and letting go. She felt her blood-sap cool and slow until she could feel it no longer, and she lay down, resting under the tree, her arms spread wide like the branches of the sacred oak.
From the top of the hill, the Whitings’ groundsman spotted the colors: red, purple, deep green, yellow, bright against the snow.
Rose was an island of color in an ocean of white. Her frozen body floated on top of the snow, her arms spread out like angel’s wings. She captu
red motion, as if she were a statue carved at the very moment she moved between the realms. She was beautiful in a way she had seldom been in life: her clear blue eyes looking forward, lips turned up in a smile, and cheeks painted the palest pink. Her long white hair, once so wild, now framed her head like a halo.
“A snow angel,” the groundsman told anyone who would listen. “That’s what she looked like. A genuine, honest-to-goodness snow angel.”
Considered sacred in almost every culture, the oak is known as a protector. That it was forced to participate in the killings of 1692 was not only against its nature but an unforgivable sin, and one from which the tree has never been absolved.
—ROSE’S Book of Trees
In February, snow fell from the sky until it insinuated itself into everyone’s consciousness. Piles grew higher and higher on the ground. Ice encased the tree branches, and, on the few days the sun chose to appear, it glared with a light more blinding than summer’s. At night, everything sparkled and strobed. When the short-lived annual thaw finally came, the snow and the ice melted and pooled. Fooled, some of the trees attempted to quench their thirst. When the water froze again, it split the trees in half.
All over town, people deserted their cars, narrowing the historic streets even more; vehicles were plowed in too many times to number. Forced to walk, people slipped on sidewalks, fracturing ankles and cracking ribs. Old people broke their hips and died of the resultant pneumonia. One hand-lettered sign on a Salem street corner advised: PRAY FOR GLOBAL WARMING. That message was crossed out and replaced with scrawling red letters: THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING, ASSHOLE.
“This isn’t depression you’re experiencing, Callie,” Zee Finch said. “This is grief.”
Callie looked out the window at the falling snow. Great, more snow.
It was all so hard to believe. After Christmas, Rose had seemed to be doing so well. She had come to Pride’s Heart to see the tree a few times, and she’d even seemed to make some friends at the shelter, something Callie had never expected. Callie had been able to focus her concern on Emily, and, by the end of January, she, too, had still seemed to be doing fine.
The Fifth Petal Page 32