Lineage

by Juniper Black

  How magical to know that this was the way the earth gave you sugar – and how disappointing it was to see white sand-like sugar in bags at a friend’s house. How even the cookies tasted dead inside, and how you never wanted to eat any sugar unless it was brown and warm and liquid.

  The groves are ancient here. Once upon a time, the Pattersons stumbled upon the land as well as the Natives who knew the trees for what they held inside them. They would eventually build their first ramshackle sugar shack among the stand of maples. One of the dray horses would have been bridled once a day to collect the sap that started to run before spring even began. As the weeks passed and the sap flowed faster, the dray would venture along the pails two or three times a day just to keep up. Over the slowly running years, the Sumac spiles were replaced by cast iron and then later to ones of tin. Covered steel buckets replaced the wooden kind that had been used for so long. Finally, even the dray was let out to rest at pasture and a mechanized tractor did the sap runs.

  Still, even with modern conveniences, there is no getting around what the syrup needs. Time, heat, constant attention. During the time the sap flows faster, no one sleeps more than they must since the sugar requires to be attended around the clock or else it is lost.

  The Pattersons marry spouses who understand that they’ll always come second to the sugar. Always, the trees and the soil will be first in their hearts. Even with all the machinery that has crept into their lives, the Sugar Master will still take the children out to the original stand of trees where the family had first been shown by the Natives how to sugar.

  The children who come of age that year will be taught how to whittle the spiles from wood. They’re shown how to bore the small holes into the trees with a bit and a brace. Then they’ll drive inside the spiles they made. They’ll hang the wooden buckets as their kin had done for generations, and they’ll watch the sap start its slow journey towards collection. The children will even boil the sugar as it was done so long ago.

  The Sugar Master will do this so the next generation won’t forget how it is to collect this gift from their earth. From tree to table, they’ll remember forever this sweet pact made between them. They’ll remember that as much as they care for the trees, the trees care for them.

  One child in every generation will take over as Sugar Master. All the children may apprentice and work, but the one who earns the title is the one who is born with something the others simply do not have. They know which trees need to rest and shouldn’t be tapped. They know the day that the first sap is ready and when the last tree has given all it will. They know this not through science. Not even through intuition, although some in the family believe it is. Those kin don’t know the secret.

  The secret is: the Sugar Master asks the trees. And the trees answer back.

  ********

  The Heritage of the Gerbers as told by Katie Gerber’s Granddaughter

  I tend the flowers as my grandmother would have: I speak to them. I tell them stories of my adventures from a younger time. I coo to them in the morning and sing to them in the evening. For me, and me alone, they flourish in a way that is nearly unnatural.

  Peonies as large as cabbages. Wisteria that braids itself around the entirety of the second story of the house. In spring, Witch Hazel blooms with a warm, spicy fragrance and hints at the warm summer nights to come. By midsummer, the starry white of Virgin's Bower infuses the entire neighborhood with a heady, delicious scent. Autumn turns them to fuzzy, tufted seed heads that seem like magic when they catch the evening light, and the boughs of the apple tree strain under the burden of its fruit. Even in January, the moon garden glows silver across the front yard where it meets the winter blooming jasmine exploding in tiny yellow flowers.

  Once upon a time, I ran from this quiet life. I had watched my grandmother totter around the garden and could only think how dull this life was. The tiny 4th of July parades, the endless monotony of hot summer days, even my friends from school seemed boring. I often left them at parties after they began drinking. They did stupid things, and I had no desire to let one of the boys try to maneuver me into the backseat of a car. The last thing I wanted was to find myself pregnant and trapped; stuck in this small town with its small town life. I dreamed of adventure and hoped to meet someone who had dreams as large as my own.

  I was proud of the fact that I had not settled for Tommy Berger when he asked for my hand on the night of the Spring Formal. We were too young. How could he possibly know I was the one that he wanted forever? I left early for college that summer and rarely thought of him again.

  After college, I met a boy on a train, and we talked all night long. Legs tucked up in the tilted seats of the Observation Car full of windows, we chatted about the scenery while the light held and then stayed rooted through the dark with traded stories of where we were headed.

  We had rolled out of Illinois as strangers, but into Oregon as travel partners. We saw the sun rise over the Gorge, travelled south to San Francisco, wandered into Arizona and New Mexico. On a cold, starry desert night, huddled in warm clothing at the Volcano Cliffs, he asked me to stay with him always. He had known me only six months, though. I had wondered if he simply wanted me with him in the place with which he had fallen in love more than he actually loved me.

  Later, there was an older man introduced by a mutual friend who two months into our relationship began saying we should get married. What was fairly clear was that he wanted to get married to someone – anyone. Feeling like I was “as good as any” wasn’t good enough.

  When I found myself at the far end of my twenties and got to know a sweet brown-eyed boy with a fire that seemed to run all through him and his whole life full of potential ahead of him, I held on tight. Until one day I looked at him and thought, “I’m going to marry that boy.”

  We bought a house. There was a little rickety fence on the West border and a line of Cypress on the East. Our home was tiny, but it belonged to only us. Settled and grounded, I found a peace I had never before experienced. I even surprised myself by filling the yards with flowers. I was shocked one night when he told me that I had become boring.

  I had always thought that a boy of promise would become a man with occupation and drive. I had not considered that a boy with a love of life is seldom satisfied with the restrictions that come with a wife and a home. I had achieved so much in my life, I didn’t understand why he would begrudge me a year of nesting. Instead of tackling the world again, I just wanted to tame my garden for a while.

  Years of fighting tore me apart, one long gash at a time. There was a night he told me he was never in love with me – I was a good choice for a wife is all. The night he told me we should sleep in separate rooms. The nights he never came home at all. Unconditional love for him slowly withered and became resignation, like a mother who must love her wayward son simply because he belongs to her. Heart stitched like a rag doll’s, the thin strands of thread have a tenuous promise of repair. I began having affairs. They were easy enough to start. Over the years, I began to realize why we gravitate to younger people for our lovers. They still believe that a happiness is possible with another in this world. Someone of my own age will feign an interest and present an optimism in which they don’t believe. In a few brief weeks, they cannot maintain it. Their smiles wither on their face, and just like that the affair is over.

  I never knew for certain if he also sought comfort elsewhere. I didn't care. I stayed until one day my grandmother asked me to come home. She was sick and needed help with the plants, she said. Packing four bags, taking more than I needed, I returned to Eversburg to find my grandmother dying of cancer. I remember shaking my head with a half smile on my face. I could not believe my grandmother had been more concerned with the plants than her own health.

  "What if I had not come? What if I had said I couldn't be bothered to return home because the flowers needed me?" I asked.

  "But I knew you would," Katie’s voice was weak but sure.

  I stayed with
my grandmother and never went back. My husband eventually sent me papers to sign. The night I mailed them, I made myself a cake and sat in the garden spooning icing off the top.

  "So long ago, now," I croon to the Brown Eyed Susans, and spend another year among the mugwort, sage and smoke bush.

  After I walk the garden in the early morning, I retreat to the porch rocking chair. It's fall again, and I pull my hat over my ears to keep out the chill. I play my ukulele as I rock. Soft plucks that won't wake the neighbors but loud enough to call the attention of the children on their walk to school. The young ones say hello or good morning and sometimes call me by my name. I acknowledge them with a nod or a smile, but I prefer to be called what the old women call me, the ones who remember older times. I’m more than content to be known as Katie Gerber's Granddaughter. The one who tends the flowers now and plays the tiny guitar on the front porch in a knit cap.

  ********

  The Heritage of the Mackeys as told by Jonathan Mackey

  Twenty-seven times, I have been kissed fully on the mouth by complete strangers. Deep, longing breaths of kisses from women met only seconds before. Some had not even given their names. They had just stared at me moon-eyed and then leaned all the way in until I was in their arms. To be fair, they were in my arms, too - I never pushed one of them away.

  I was seventeen years old the first time it happened. Mary Connell was walking towards me in the hallway after 5th period when she put her hand out, pushed me gently against the lockers, and pressed her lips on mine. Later, I would find that the ridges in the locker had pressed against my scapulae and left marks, but I never felt it at the time. Even with the shock of it, my first kiss really, I had pulled her closer and let the kids around us hoot and holler.

  After that, it happened yearly. For the first five years, I tried to discern a pattern, but it was always a different girl, a different time of year, various dates, random locales. Over the years, I dated a few of them. For others, it seemed as if their sole purpose had been to appear out of thin air, disrupt my day with an earth shattering need, and then disappear in almost the next instant. When I turned thirty, I gave up trying to figure out what was happening altogether. I met a pretty girl who made me wait until our third date before she would let me kiss her. We were married a year later, and we built a house on the hill next to my father's land. I thought my encounters would stop then, since I was a married man. The universe didn't seem to agree with me. I kept waiting for the day when Thea would catch me lip-locked with a mysterious blond, and I would need to try to explain myself. Luckily, though, my Kisses never happened in front of Thea. Somehow I managed to get through my whole marriage without incident.

  Shortly after I was married, I began to recall things from my childhood. In my mind, I saw images of my mother coming home from a trip to the grocery store and another from an out-of-town trip. Her face was flushed, her eyes were bright, her hands were slightly shaking. I realized my mother had the same occurrences that I was having. Partly, I wished she had still been alive so I could have asked her about her strange encounters. The other part of me was glad I didn’t have to experience how awkward that talk might have been.

  One day in my mid-forties and alone, I found himself wishing for one of those strange days. I walked my usual route from home to the sky-bridge that connected to the university grounds. Every block I would think, "Around that corner, a red-head, and she'll stop me as we meet at the light on 3rd Street." The difficulty with this line of thought was that the embraces never happened when I wanted them. They never came to me when I wanted to be kissed. They only seemed to come when the universe decided I needed to be kissed. Which made it all the more surprising when I turned the corner onto Elm at the same time a delicate, freckled ginger turned onto Davis ahead of me. My strides were longer than hers by nature, and for some reason the light at 3rd Street skipped a sequence. She was still waiting at the crosswalk when I arrived.

  Hearing someone else approach, she turned to comment on the light delay. She didn't remember how she ended up standing on the corner with her hands thrust into some random man's salt and pepper hair. Later, I would tell her that her bright blue eyes had found me, she had made a sound, "wuuu," and then wrapped herself around me. Later, I would remind her that as she realized what she had done and hurriedly grabbed her hands away, I had put my own hand to her red curls and stayed her by saying, "I was waiting for you, too."

  ********

  The Heritage of The McLaren Clan as told by Betsy McLaren Jones

  Whether born plain or a beauty, every McLaren kissed their future mate, whether by design or happenstance, in the Rupert Covered Bridge No. 56.

  Not that anyone called the bridge by its official name. It was just The Rupert or the Bridge to Light Street. To the old-timers, it was the Kissing Bridge. Covered Bridges were once plentiful in Pennsylvania. The state had always boasted the greatest number of them built. Long after the rest of the country chose iron and steel, the people here built their bridges with wood and preferred them with a roof. Various support designs developed over the years, all of them pretty in their own right. For the people of Eversburg, there was no finer place to steal a kiss than under the concealment of the Rupert.

  Aimee McLaren's beau kissed her as they crossed the Rupert on their way home from apple tasting when she was seventeen. Michael McLaren was so enamored with Angela Caine at the age of twenty that he lured her to the Bridge to steal a kiss. He wasn't sure he believed the stories his family told, but he wanted Angela and figured he should stack as many odds in his favor as he could manage. Eight year old Myrtle McLaren was arguing so vehemently with her best friend Tommy Quick regarding the best way to catch frogs that she accidently pushed him down as they crossed the river. She watched him hug his bloody knee as he cried inside the covered bridge. She felt awful, and she did the only thing she knew to do. She sat beside him, as her mother would have done, and stroked his hair. She kissed his knee to make it better and heard his crying cease. When she straightened up, Tommy had a look on his face as if his tummy hurt. Married at sixteen, they fought like cats and dogs for fifty years. They laughed just as often, though, and died two hours apart.

  Generations go by, and tastes are as fickle as the wind, but once a McLaren is kissed at the Bridge, there is no halting what it sets in motion. While every marriage of the McLaren's begins the same, the kiss at the Rupert Covered Bridge No. 56 may not mean forever. Two years or two decades, there is no guarantee how long a union will last. But then, that's true for the rest of the world as well.

  ********

  The Heritage of The Miltons as told by Ed Milton, Jr.

  Edward Sr. was in the hospital again, but he knew he’d be home by Tuesday. No Milton had ever died from an illness that couldn’t be healed all on its own. In his line of the Milton family, if he died before he turned eighty-five, he’d be the only one to do so since his ancestors had first come to the New Country. He’d die peacefully in his sleep, free of illness, and in his own bed as all the Milton men had done for generations.

  That’s not to say that Edward hadn’t been ill in his life. He had had a few doozies, like the spot he was in now. Stage 3 kidney disease. Check ups every three months. All the doctors just waiting to click their pen and sign the papers for him to begin dialysis.

  “They’re going to wait a long time,” Ed said to his jello. His fingers were tingling at their ends, a sure sign he was on the mend. By tomorrow, there would be a young doctor standing before him in his crisp white coat. A look of disbelief would be on his face, and he would be forced to reveal to Ed that his ailing body was actually getting better.

  All the Milton boys learn what their body is capable of sometime early on in their life. There’s usually a fairly horrific initial event followed up in subsequent years with a rather less exciting ailment presenting itself. Once a decade was typically how the maladies ran in his family. Only with the men, though. He never could puzzle out why the women lived ordinary lives with r
egular illnesses and all kinds of ages for their demise. He remembered the story his own father had told him years ago. While that might explain the reason for their healing ability, it didn’t solve the question of why only for the men in the family.

  Everyone else in town always referred to the Miltons’ “good genes,” but Ed knew that was bull. Good genes didn’t put you back together after a car wreck. They didn’t fix his father’s leg when the tractor backed over it in the field that year. Good genes didn’t save one of his own sons when he took shrapnel overseas. Riddled with holes, the docs had said he’d have to give up the arm. Only hours later, they sang a different tune.

  The acute injuries, the violent ones, seemed to heal quicker. As if the body knew it had to take immediate action. The other illnesses - the cancers, the tumors, the organ failures - they always presented as they usually would. They would progress over time, just like any other person would exhibit. Then, at the last moment, they would begin to recede. The body would clear itself of any trace of rot or decay.

  Dealing with the doctors could get tricky. Occasionally, someone in the medical field would take notice. They’d want to run tests. They’d ask to write a paper on the patient. To study him. The Milton men learned it was best to laugh at them. They’d wave their hand as if they were shooing a fly. “Why, that’s just how our family works. All the men live to at least eighty-five. That’s common knowledge.” The men would pause and smile, and they’d use the excuse that they’ve heard all their lives from others. “We’ve got good genes.”

  The Miltons had no interest in finding a scientific explanation for their healing. Who cared? Ed Sr. veered heavily toward that opinion. He did have a question or two about his healing process. If he thought that science could answer them, he might have relented and let them run their tests.