The April Tree

by Judith Arnold

  Elyse dreamed big. She wanted big. A person could get hit by a car and killed in an instant, without warning. Fate could be that way. Might as well live big, because in the end it was all pointless, anyway. One way or another, you wound up dead.

  In the kitchen, the answering machine light flashed. Elyse didn’t want to hear the message—it could be from that cop, Romano, with more questions. Or from someone wishing to offer condolences, which Elyse was in no mood to listen to.

  But the message could be from Becky, who usually got home from school before Elyse and might have phoned her first thing. Becky would have phoned Elyse’s cell, but maybe she’d been unable to get through, for some reason. And if it was a message from Becky, Elyse wanted to hear it. She pressed the phone-mail button.

  “Hi, Mommy? It’s Katie. I went home with Tiffany Silverberg, I hope you don’t mind. I don’t have any homework, just a math sheet, and I finished it on the bus. Tiffany’s mom said she’d drive me home later, okay?”

  Tiffany Silverberg, Elyse thought sourly, stalking out of the kitchen. Who in their right mind would name their daughter Tiffany Silverberg?

  Idiots. The world was crawling with them, and for some strange reason they were allowed to live. They were allowed to give their kids names that contained bad puns, and they were allowed to have car accidents that left people dead, and they were allowed to break promises and not show up, not be there, not do what they’d said they would do. Despite these appalling transgressions, they got to keep living.

  She stormed up the stairs to her bedroom and slammed the door, annoyed that no one was around to hear the hinge-rattling thump. Door slamming was therapeutic, but the therapy worked better when it carried the side benefit of scaring the shit out of Katie.

  Elyse had homework, but she didn’t feel like doing it. She was tired, aching inside. All day at school, kids had come up to her to say they were sorry. Some of them had hugged her—some of them she didn’t even know. Guys had hugged her, and she wasn’t sure what that was all about, whether it had become some sort of game among them, to see who could score a hug with Elyse Fabiano while she was grieving.

  Some of the guys were cute. At least two were seriously good looking. She would have enjoyed getting hugged by them if she wasn’t so damned angry and sad and miserable.

  She sat on her bed, her hands planted on the windowsill and her chin resting on her knuckles, and stared out at the street. The most boring street in Wheatley, she was convinced. House after house, all of them built at the same time, a forty-year-old subdivision. All of them comfortable and well-maintained, because Wheatley was a perfect suburb, with perfect houses set on perfect lots, inside which lived lots of perfectly boring middle-class people. Nothing happened here—unless it was bad, like April’s death.

  The sky was gray, varying shades that gave the clouds texture and depth. Elyse wanted to believe heaven was on the other side of those clouds, the sunny side, the side you saw when you flew above clouds in an airplane and looked down on what appeared to be an endless carpet of cotton. She wanted to believe April was up in those clouds, dancing on that carpet. But she didn’t believe it. She didn’t believe anything

  Except maybe the tree.

  Becky was wise. Elyse had always considered Becky kind of peculiar, but she was so smart. She was the kind of girl Elyse could learn things from, the kind who didn’t care what anyone else thought. Becky trusted her own mind. It was a skill Elyse aspired to.

  Becky had been right about the tree. Sitting under it, Elyse had felt—well, maybe not closer to April, but closer to the earth, closer to the breath and pulse of nature. Living was simply part of nature’s rhythm. So was dying. What happened to April seemed a little less tragic when Elyse thought about it that way.

  A car cruised slowly along the street. Elyse watched it because there was no other activity on the block, not even a squirrel or a gust of wind or a preschooler hot-rodding down the sidewalk on a tricycle. Nothing moved except for that car. A BMW coupe with the rag-top up, not the sort of car you expected to see on this street at three o’clock on a Monday afternoon. It was a man’s car, not a mommy car, and this was the mommy hour, the time of day when mothers were driving their children to the orthodontist and soccer practice, piano lessons and gymnastics.

  The car stopped at the foot of Elyse’s driveway. The passenger door opened, and her mother got out.

  Elyse tried to see the driver. Probably one of her mother’s friends, borrowing her husband’s midlife-crisis wheels for a cheap thrill. Although if one of her mother’s friends’ husbands had bought a car like that, she would have told the family about it over dinner. “Sharon’s husband got that new BMW model, you know, the convertible muscle car. He spent a fortune on it. I don’t know what he’s earning these days, but it must be a lot,” she would say, leaving unspoken an accusation that Elyse’s father lacked the money to buy an overpriced German convertible, or the testosterone to desire one. Everything Elyse’s mother said could be translated into a put-down of Elyse’s father.

  Not that Elyse necessarily blamed her mother. Her father was kind of a non-entity.

  She saw her mother hurry up the front walk, yanking her key ring from her purse as she walked. She was wearing an above-the-knees denim skirt and Elyse’s rib-knit pink sweater. It looked better on her mother than on her—the pink brought out the undertone of her mother’s complexion more effectively. Another good reason for Elyse to hate her mother.

  When her mother reached the front porch, disappearing from view, Elyse pushed away from the window. She was going to have to talk to her mother, tell her how school was, pretend she considered parent-child communication a worthwhile pursuit. She was afraid, though, that if she opened her mouth she would start to cry.

  April was a gaping wound. Painful and bleeding, maybe infected, the kind of hurt that would never heal. It had taken every milligram of Elyse’s strength not to cry when her classmates had approached her, when all those guys had hugged her.

  She hadn’t cried then. But after holding back the tears for so long, she couldn’t count on herself to hold them back now.

  “Katie?” her mother called out. “Katie, are you home yet? I know I’m late—”

  Instead of tears, Elyse felt a hot tide of anger rise up in her. Her mother sounded so fucking cheerful, prancing through the house looking for precious little Katie. How could her mother sound that way when Elyse was in agony? You weren’t supposed to have a musical lilt to your voice when your daughter was grieving, especially when what she was grieving over was your fault.

  “Katie? Honey, Mommy’s home!”

  Elyse opened her door a crack and glowered at her mother ascending the stairs. Her mother’s cheeks were rosy, her eyes dewy, her hair triumphantly mussed. Elyse wished her mother looked like Becky’s mother, or even Florie’s—dowdy and drab, in jeans or stretch pants. Not clothes that Elyse might wear, not make-up like Elyse’s and a hairdo that could have been copied from one of the websites Elyse had bookmarked.

  Spotting Elyse, her mother paused halfway up the stairs, then continued to the top step. Reluctantly, Elyse opened her door the rest of the way.

  Her mother’s smile tightened, as if invisible hands had pulled on her cheeks. She glanced at her watch, then lifted her gaze back to Elyse, looking mildly frightened. Maybe she knew how much Elyse hated her. “Gee, it’s later than I thought,” she said brightly. “I was sure I’d be home before you. Where’s Katie?”

  “Tiffany Silverberg’s house,” Elyse said.

  “Ah.” Her mother seemed to be waiting for elaboration. Forget it, Elyse thought. I’ve got nothing more to say to you.

  “Well. I guess I ran a little late.”

  The story of your life, Mom. Never getting where you’re supposed to be on time. If you ever looked at your goddamn watch or answered your goddamn cell phone, you might have picke
d us up at the tennis court on time last Saturday, and then April would be alive right now.

  “Well. So. Katie’s at Tiffany’s house. All right, then.” She must have realized Elyse wasn’t going to say another word, because her mother headed down the hall to her own room, went inside, and closed the door with a quiet click.

  Chapter Five

  WHAT BOTHERED Becky was the concept of nothingness. She just couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

  She had a good mind. “Intellectually curious,” her math teacher had described her—as if there were any other kind of curiosity. Well, she supposed, there was: spiritual, sexual. She was curious enough about sex, although the few times she’d kissed a boy, she hadn’t felt anything beyond a sort of damp, rubbery friction between their mouths. She’d watched her share of R-rated movies featuring scenes of simulated sex, and what the actors portrayed hadn’t reflected in any way the sensations she’d experienced locking lips with boys. A kiss ought to trigger something lower, and Becky would admit to a certain curiosity about the mechanisms involved, but so far her curiosity was more intellectual than physical.

  The same with spiritual curiosity. She thought about spiritual issues, but she thought about them intellectually. She couldn’t accept heaven, because there was no proof for it. Or God. There was more proof that God didn’t exist than that he did. If God existed, April wouldn’t have died.

  But April had died; therefore, God didn’t exist. QED.

  Which meant death was nothingness. An absence of being. Eternal black, an infinite vacuum. The world kept going, growing, moving along—and April would never know about it.

  It didn’t make sense. The mere act of thinking about it argued against the idea. Becky tried to think about not-thinking. It made her head hurt.

  She found herself going to the tree every day after school. Just a half hour under those boughs of slowly ripening leaves before she headed for home. Her parents didn’t know—they usually stayed on campus, meeting with their students until four o’clock, at least—and even if they did know, they wouldn’t care, as long as this strange tree ritual made Becky happy. Her parents really, really wanted her happy.

  She would never be able to smile the secret smile like them. She would never be as happy as they were, not when she was carrying such a burden, a bleak, horrible understanding that April no longer existed, that her consciousness was gone, her ability to see, think, and feel erased. Life continued, a long highway lined with scenery, spawning detours, leading on and on. But April had been tossed to the side of the road. The trip proceeded without her.

  At least she’d been tossed under a tree.

  Was her heart beating in someone else’s chest now? Was some lucky recipient viewing the highway of life through April’s corneas? Someone filtering blood through April’s kidneys? What parts of her were still alive?

  It didn’t matter. Her mind was gone. That was death.

  Becky wished she could believe otherwise, but she couldn’t. Belief was for other people, like Elyse and her family’s routine Catholicism, and Florie and her crap about how much God loved April.

  The only thing Becky could believe in was that April’s final instant of life came beneath this red maple tree on a sunny afternoon, with the blue, blue sky stretched above her and the scent of newborn leaves and damp bark in her lungs. The tree was the last thing April would remember, if only she had a memory.

  Maybe that was what death was: the end of memory.

  Chapter Six

  “AH, HERE HE IS,” Danny murmured, his voice gritty with sleep and fury. “Mr. Fuck-Up.”

  Mark didn’t turn. He stood by the sink, staring out the window that overlooked the backyard. The tent had been set up yesterday, a broad canopy of yellow-and-white-striped canvas with a scalloped trim that rippled in the morning breeze. In its shade stood circular tables and white folding chairs.

  Later that morning, the caterers would arrive. They would take over the kitchen, fill the oven with sheets of canapés that required heating, and empty the freezer of ice. They would make sure all the chairs were open and arranged around the tables, which they would cover with linen cloths and trim with floral centerpieces.

  Later yet, the guests would arrive, dozens of them, hundreds. All there to celebrate the wonder of Danny, the utterly magnificent older son of Anne and Peter Gottlieb.

  “It’s mind-boggling how badly you screwed up,” Danny continued. “I mean, it’s like a feat for the Guinness Book of World Records. You didn’t just kill a girl. You managed to kill her the week after my graduation. The most significant achievement of my life, and you decided to honor the occasion by slaughtering a high school girl right here in town, less than five miles from our front door. I didn’t know you were capable of such a grand gesture, such impeccable timing.”

  Mark mentally followed Danny’s voice around the room. He could tell without looking that Danny was over by the fridge, that he was at the cabinet pulling down a mug, that he was at the counter where the coffee maker sat, its decanter full and aromatic. Mark didn’t have to look to know where Danny was. Mark always knew: Danny was high above him, on a lofty perch, a pedestal, a sun-glazed, snow-capped peak, or maybe seated on a nice, comfy cushion right next to God. Danny was up there, looking down.

  The fact that Mark was two inches taller than his older brother didn’t make him smile. Nothing could make him smile today. Danny had graduated magna cum laude from Yale, and Mark was Mr. Fuck-Up. Two essential truths.

  He listened to the glugging sound of orange juice being poured into a glass. He lifted his own mug of coffee and felt a wisp of steam dampen his chin. The border of flowers his mother had planted around the deck off the kitchen had blossomed, tulips the color of rotting tomatoes, daffodils like melting butter. The lawn was as groomed as a golf course. Everything was perfect for Danny’s graduation party.

  Everything except Mark.

  “So, you killed a girl,” Danny said to Mark’s back. “How did it feel? Did it give you a thrill? Make your heart beat a little faster, maybe? Did you get off on it?”

  “Leave him alone, Danny.” Tracy’s voice drifted into the kitchen from the doorway. Mark hated her because she was Danny’s girlfriend, but other than that he considered her pretty nice. She loved Danny, but she was kind to Mark. He’d be willing to bet that Danny was going to announce their engagement that afternoon at the graduation party.

  Tracy had spent the night in the guest room—Danny was too noble to sleep with his girlfriend under his parents’ roof. Mark hadn’t seen her more than to say hello yesterday. He’d chosen not to have dinner with the family, insisting he wasn’t hungry and then foraging for a sandwich an hour after they’d finished eating. Danny was on a tear, outraged that a shadow had dared to float across the sky when he wanted only to be bathed in pure light. When he got that way, Mark preferred to keep his distance as much as possible, even if it meant skipping meals.

  He turned to acknowledge Tracy, a courtesy he’d denied his brother. She stood in the doorway, clad in a silk bathrobe, her straight posture emphasizing her petite frame. Her hair was tousled, but her eyes were clear as she shifted her gaze from Mark to Danny and back again.

  “It wasn’t his fault,” she reminded Danny. “Your parents said so.”

  “My parents have made excuses for him all his life.”

  “The police didn’t charge him. If it was his fault, they would have taken his license away, at the very least.”

  Right. As if Mark had any intention of using that license, any desire to drive again. As if he ever wanted to hold that kind of power in his hands, to feel it beneath his feet. The police didn’t have to prevent him from driving. He was fully prepared to prevent himself.

  “The cops in this town are wimps,” Danny said. “Maybe they didn’t charge him because they figured the situation was bad enough as it was. The only thing
that could make it worse would be if Mark wound up in jail. Think about it: one brother on his way to Columbia Law School and the other behind bars. Enough irony to choke an elephant.”

  Poor Danny, Mark thought bitterly. How hard it must be to have a brother who was only a B student, who was going to Boston University instead of Yale, who didn’t win every goddamn prize, every academic award and citizenship commendation, who failed to live up to the glory of the Gottlieb name. Poor Danny, who’d had to go through life with an inferior younger brother wrapped around his neck like an albatross.

  And now this: a younger brother who’d been driving along Baker’s Hill Road the moment a girl chose to race across the asphalt into the path of his car.

  “You don’t know him the way I do,” Danny was telling Tracy. “This is just the piece de resistance. The culmination of a lifetime of fuck-ups.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she said. “You’ll ruin your big day.”

  “My big day is already ruined,” Danny retorted. “He ruined it.”

  “Accidents happen, Danny. Let it go, okay?”

  Mark wanted to thank Tracy, even though she deliberately signaled her alliance with Danny by crossing the kitchen to him and touching his arm with her hand. Mark wondered how much of what she was saying she really meant and how much was just her way of defusing Danny’s anger. Either way, Mark was grateful. He appreciated anyone who would speak in his defense, even though no one had yet managed to convince him he deserved defending. At bottom, he agreed with Danny. Mark was a fuck-up. He had killed a girl. Remember everything.

  His parents told him they knew he hadn’t been at fault, but he didn’t believe them. They were his parents, after all. You could never trust what your parents told you.