The Eve Tree: A Novel

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  "What should people get working on?"

  She shrugged. "I don't care. I'm tied up for the afternoon making cheese anyways."

  Jack gave a small shake of his head, almost imperceptible, but Catherine was less subtle.

  "Not the time for making cheese, Molly," she said, heaving a sigh and grasping her glass of water with a shaking hand.

  Molly stiffened. Beside her, Todd put a hand on her arm. She took a deep breath.

  "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she said, and looked down at her hands. She shaped them into a perfect 'W' on her jeans, lining them up with the seams. Once again, her family had her backed into a corner. Everyone wanted her to be sweet and tender with the old woman sitting across from her at the table, but Molly knew what her mother really was. No weak woman, despite shaky hands and white hair.

  Giantess, protector of all living things. All through Molly's childhood, all through her life, except maybe during the last ten years, Catherine had towered over her, treading her land with a strong, light step. She conquered drought and heavy rain, she kept cougars and skunks and raccoons at bay. She was champion of the animals she raised. Her children were there as help, she probably thought of them as ranch hands, and if they were sick they might receive a soft hand from her, a soothing voice, much as a hurt kid goat would. Otherwise, they seemed to trail along at a very distant second. Her face was brown and seamed over with wrinkles from a life lived in the sun. She looked exactly like the hill women she was, the lineage of her Pomo Indian mother and Scottish father giving her height, tenacity and long grey hair that was always braided and swinging behind her, even today, though now she was stooped and the line of her jaw had softened.

  It was no wonder that Molly felt puny beside her mother, no wonder that she wavered now, torn between acquiescence and the need to stand up for herself. She needed to get out of the house, get back to the goats. She pushed her chair back and walked into the kitchen with her plate in her hand.

  "I think Catherine has a point," Jack called behind her.

  "I'm sure you do," Molly said.

  "Molly! Be reasonable!"

  Molly faced them. "Listen. This fire was not my idea and at least for today I'm sticking to schedule, okay? I have milk to send out and one batch of cheese to make. You all came to help, so help! Let me get my work done."

  There was silence. Amber sat and looked at her plate and Catherine closed her eyes. Molly turned away and scraped the rest of her food into the compost bucket.

  "Of course," she heard Catherine say. "I'm sorry for speaking out of turn". Molly was surprised. She nodded, laid her plate in the sink and looked at it for a minute, then walked out the door. Let them decide how to order their time. She had other things to do.

  When had her mother ever apologized before?

  She struggled to get into the shade of the cookhouse. The dull, oppressive sun behind the smoke seemed like it was trying to keep her in the yard, that its heat would have her shuffling through the gravel forever, but slowly her feet were moving forward, until she hurled herself inside with a sigh that was almost a sob.

  A few hours later, she had finished with the ricotta and was washing the last gigantic pot. Molly had made chevre and ricotta today, double whammy, and they were ready to do the milk deliveries.

  "Gerard!" she called. He popped his head through the door.

  "Uh huh?"

  "Did you get all the pasteurized boxes?"

  "Yep."

  "Okay, I have the raw bottles labeled in this box. Deb is away on vacation, so you don't need to go up there today." Gerard stooped to pick up the box that was filled with glass bottles of milk that had yellow labels on the sides. Yellow was for raw milk.

  "Did you write it down on the sheet?" he asked.

  "Of course I did," she said, irritated. She felt hot and prickly, on the very sharpest edge of not keeping it together, about to fall off. "I just didn't want you to have to drive all the way up her crazy road and then find out that she's not getting any milk." Deborah was one of the customers who had a road that launched you from potholes to craters and back again.

  "Okey-doke. See you tomorrow then, Moll." Gerard said. His voice was as quiet and restrained as ever. He was impossible to offend, which was good because of this heat that made her want to throw a pot at his head.

  Oh, the ridiculous heat. She would probably die of it. The cookhouse was terrible; walls sweating, floor shimmering at her. The ricotta she'd made was in a pan on the counter and she set to work, scooping it into small plastic containers for one of the natural food stores that stocked her products. She put lids on the containers and put stickers on one after the other. Her hand slipped and she picked at the edge of a crooked sticker, trying to pull it off. She couldn't quite get it, her fingernails were too short. Her throat was tight with tears. She wondered where Jack was, where the kids were. She felt inexplicably alone and anxious.

  She still didn't love the animals and the land as much as Catherine had. The thought spiked through her, flowering and expanding and pressing her down. She was chastised by it even as she tried to be faithful to her animals.

  She hadn't responded very well when Jack committed to taking over the ranch ten years ago. She wanted to stuff the words back in his mouth as soon as he said them. But they were spilled on the ground beneath her, beneath that hot sun, at Catherine's feet, and she couldn't undo them, couldn't scoop them back into oblivion. He was confident because he didn't understand about land. He'd grown up in San Diego, playing on the sidewalk with a piece of chalk in his hand, then skateboarding along wide streets. He didn't understand about skunks and chickens and nightmares.

  The air in the cookhouse was moist, and when she walked aimlessly to the barnyard, the air outside felt as stiff and dry as cardboard. The sky was smoky and yellow, pressing down on her like a feverish hand. She tried to ignore the smoke, but she could smell it even when she was pretending it was fog. It surrounded her. It was inside of her. She made a small sound of panic and reached her hands to the sky, wanting out. She walked to the trough. The goats followed her as she walked and when she looked down at them she saw that was still wearing her apron.

  She reached down and turned the spigot on to fill the trough. The flow of water started off brown, working its way clear. The dusty goats shoved one another to get to it. The flow wasn't very strong. They were drinking the water before it had a chance to collect.

  "Shhhhhhhh," Molly said. "Slow down." One doe, Ruby, turned to look at her with a reproachful face.

  "It'll be easier if you just wait a minute," Molly said.

  They had a strange partnership, Molly and the animals. She was responsible for them, and they returned the favor of her care by producing milk for Molly. They were remarkably strong, agile, intelligent, but in a way they were dependent on two people who might fall down the stairs and then neglect to show up to feed them. She looked down into the valley and imagined them finding their way, if something bad happened and she and Jack never turned up again. Goats spilling down the hillside, filling the crevices. Little ones not getting enough food. Mountain lions picking them off. Only the strongest would survive.

  Molly tried to lean into the shade of one of the old apple trees. These huge old ones had the best apples on the ranch, but they were so tall that you climbed forever to get to the sweetest apples, like a fable or a fairytale about an endless climb up a gnarled tree. The new, shorter trees were easier to pick from, but every autumn Molly obstinately climbed far into the branches of the old apple and pear trees, picking as many as she could before her arms and legs got that shaky feeling that let her know it was time to come down.

  Yes, it was a cyclical life, take the seasons; the apples every fall, planting the garden in the spring. There were smaller circles and bigger circles, iron rings that you couldn't break out of, couldn't jump free of.

  Molly shivered, blinking. She turned off the spigot. One doe stepped on her foot. "Ouch," she said. The water trickled to a stop, a
nd a few goats stared at her.

  "Oh, ladies," she said, sighing. "It'll have to be enough." If only the rains would come early, they could all lift their faces and just drink. She patted Ruby on the head and scuffed back to the barn, a small trail of goats following hopefully behind, always thinking about treats.

  She took off her apron and hung it over its nail, swiping at the dust marks she'd made across the front of it. The humid air smelled like the rosemary that she'd stirred into the chevre. Oh, shit. She'd forgotten to send the cheese with Gerard. She slapped her forehead with her hand, stared at the dozen pints of goat cheese sitting on the countertop. She pulled her phone from her pocket and called Jack.

  "Jack?"

  "Hey babe."

  "Hey. Is anyone going to town?"

  "Is anyone… no, Todd and I are clearing firewood away from the house. Catherine's packing the photo albums."

  "She's what? Never mind. I need to get this cheese into town."

  "Gerard can't do it?"

  "He left."

  "Oh."

  Molly waited, lifting one foot to scratch the inside of her knee with her toes.

  "We can't spare anyone right now," Jack said. "Can you put them in the fridge and we can get them there later?"

  "I guess so," she said, aware that she sounded sulky.

  "Molly?"

  "Yeah, I'm here."

  "We really need to move the goats."

  She slumped over the counter and put her head in her hand. "Really?"

  "Yeah, I'm sorry, I know it's a hassle, but we can't take any chances. The fire advanced more today, and they're no closer to putting it out."

  "Where are we going to put them?"

  "In the old cattle barn. It's not anywhere close to the fire zone. I patched the hole in the fence last week, to get it ready."

  "Dang it, I'm going to have to take the ATV up there to milk them… can't we do it in the morning?"

  There was a pause.

  "Jack?"

  "Yeah, okay, but right after milking. No cheese tomorrow, okay Molly?"

  "Fine."

  "Molly?"

  "Yeah."

  "I didn't make this fire."

  "I know you didn't."

  "Well, you could be more understanding. We're fighting it together."

  She doodled on one of the cheese labels. "I need to go, Jack. I should get these in the fridge."

  She drew circles and loops all over the label after they hung up.

  How strange it had been, to pull on the sleeves of a new life together. For Molly life on the ranch was something that had been hanging unwanted at the back of the closet. For Jack— a brand new suit.

  No, she wasn't a good wife. You didn't want to be close to someone with as pocked and damaged a mind as hers. Jack in his first years as a rancher, clumsy and earnest, was wide open for Molly, both barrels blasting as she slipped easily back into her birthright. She held her resentment lovingly to her chest, using it to cushion herself from any real guilt she might be vulnerable to, any effects to her own actions. She hadn't wanted to come back, he had. That was the crux. It had been so neatly taken out of her hands.

  For so long she wouldn't admit that she was slowly being knit back into the land, the place of her birth. Into the wild rainstorms, the pines, the firs, the wildflowers—oh the wildflowers. There was nothing in creation she was more tempted to bow before than one of the slopes when it was filled with poppies and lupine. Something in her soul bowed down, even as she carefully held her body erect, watching the flowers dip and bend in the wind.

  With blame, she'd been relentless.

  She was paying for it now.

  Like being plunged into water, she was thrust into reality too late. Retribution approached them in the shape of an inferno. She had been ungrateful. The living nightmare, this great flash of fear, illuminated love in her. She loved the land, she loved every tree, every hawk, every grouse. She lived in a bubble of fear now, of yearning for something that might be taken from her.

  They could lose everything. The buildings yes. Their home, yes. But the trees of ages, the animals who had nothing to do with resentment or State Parks or laws, they were in danger. The trees. They would die.

  What then, would be left?

  Gerard came through the door, humming, and stopped short. She realized she was crying and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. He looked down, shifting from foot to foot.

  "Didn't get very far. I remembered you most likely needed me to deliver the cheese."

  "Oh— Gerard. Thanks," she said, her voice breaking. She covered her face and sobbed for a moment. Gerard stood and watched her, then walked over and awkwardly patted her on the arm. She took a loud gulp of air.

  "Do you ever get that feeling, like in a dream, that something terrible is going to happen but you can't stop it?"

  He looked down at her, his eyes very serious.

  "I think so."

  "You would do anything in the world to make the thing go away, you push at it with your insides, you just push. But you can't do anything."

  You push at it with gritted teeth, with trying to keep the house perfectly clean, with trying to make it up to Jack.

  I'm sorry, I was only kidding. I really want it after all. I miss it.

  "We can't know what will happen," said Gerard.

  I'm homesick for it, and it's right here.

  She walked to the window that overlooked the barnyard. Gerard followed. The goats were in the yard.

  "Look at them all out there, under that tree," he said, laughing softly.

  Molly didn't see anything funny about it. The goats were clustered like sleeping puppies into any patch of shade they could find. They were lovely and pathetic, too vulnerable, something you had to turn away from, like a man tripping over his shoelace in plain view. Where did all this love come from? When things were tiny and fragile it was like the love was endless.

  Her family was trying to protect her from what happened sixteen years ago, not seeing that she was the one who should be out there, wrists and throat exposed, ready for divine returns. Please oh please. She needed to handle this, to transfer the whole ocean to the forest, be the vessel that put the fire out.

  The thing they were all afraid of was a tough skirmish in the battlefield of her mind that had happened in a different time, a different place. She had broken in half. She had gone crazy. Jack put her in a hospital.

  The two long months in the psychiatric hospital in San Diego had been the lowest of her life. In a way she died there, her baby at home being weaned far from her, all the kids forgetting her. She mourned there, and healed too, eating apple sauce and veal cutlets, trying to express milk so her breasts would stop aching.

  It was like new life, walking into the waiting room after it all and finding her precious family waiting for her with hope in their eyes. But there was residue. The way she could never eat Jell-O again, because it tasted like crazy. The way Jack tried to shelter her from any stress, ever. The way that Todd, six years old, was so shaken and anxious to please for so long. Making his bed and smoothing his bedcovers long after any wrinkles were gone, trying to make things perfect for her. Giving his toys to his sister, to her, to Jack. Presents that would ensure that they all stayed safe, that it wouldn't happen again.

  She had damaged them all. This was the wrong life for her, all these people around, she couldn't help hurting them, couldn't help what she spilled out when she was shaken.

  FIVE

  Jack punched the off button on his cell phone and shoved it into his pocket, wondering about Molly's mind. What paths did she choose to explore, which did she avoid? Which did she never set foot on? How many times had he told her that at some point they'd need to move the goats, and here she was, still pushing for more time?

  He stood beside his son and surveyed the land around their house. The dog stood beside them for a minute or two, before settling onto the porch with a huff.

  The space was almost completely clear, ex
cept for some cords of firewood and a beautiful, gigantic rosebush. Dive right in, he told himself.

  "We're going to need the chainsaw," he said to Todd. Todd nodded, like he was deep in thought. When Jack didn't speak again he looked up.

  "Oh!" he said. "You want me to get it?"

  "Yes, I do," Jack said. Todd loped up the hill to the tool shed.

  Jack grasped the wheelbarrow by the handles and pushed it to the south side of the house. He began throwing firewood into it. Molly wasn't going to be happy about the rosebush. Maybe he could take care of it without her knowing.

  Todd returned and set the chainsaw against the house, taking his place beside Jack and joining him, throwing firewood into the wheelbarrow. They filled it quickly.

  "Where do you want this?" Todd asked, picking up the handles and tilting the barrow.

  "There's a spot beside the garden shed. It's far enough away from the house." As Todd wheeled the wood away, Jack pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped it across his forehead. Sweat was literally pouring off of him. He reached for his bottle of water and poured some into his mouth, feeling it flow over his tongue and down his throat, cooling him for the briefest of moments. When Todd returned, they continued to work, bending and throwing together, taking turns wheeling the wood to the new stacking area. Above them the sky was heavy, ponderous with smoke.

  "Do you think Mom's okay?" Todd asked without warning. His voice was casual, as though he was just tossing off a question, as though she wasn't the reason he was here to begin with.

  "She seems to be doing pretty well," Jack said, choosing his words carefully. "I don't really want her overworking herself right now. But you know your mom. She doesn't know when to stop."

  "Yeah," Todd said.

  Jack watched his son's muscles move under the skin on his long arms. Under his cap, which was backwards, damp black hair clung to his forehead. He wiped his forehead with the back of his forearm, where a tattoo of Japanese cherry blossoms was beside a tattoo of a sofa with a leopard sitting on it.

  "Yeah, she seems okay," Todd said again. He reached for another piece of wood and tossed it into the wheelbarrow. "What do you think about the fire?" he asked. "I mean really. Do you think it'll make it up this far?"