Jack straightened and looked toward the forest and the ridge above the house. The trees stood there breathing out oxygen, oblivious to the danger they were in. Or, if not oblivious, silent. A hawk wheeled above Jack, turning sharply to reach a pasture nearby, looking for succulent mice and gophers, maybe even a snake or two.
"I don't know," he said.
He leaned one hand against the old house as Todd continued to pile wood into the barrow, then wheeled it off. The paint under his hand was gray and flaking. They intended to paint the house in the fall, but he and Molly couldn't agree on a color. It had always been gray. Molly seemed superstitious about it, as though it would be wrong to paint the house her mother had built a different color than it had always been. As though it would fold in on itself or something.
He whistled softly. His Molly. Todd looked up from stacking the last pieces of wood. Jack had been deep in thought and hadn't noticed that they'd finished with the firewood.
"What?" Todd asked.
"Just thinking about your mom."
"Oh."
Todd had grown to match Jack in height. In fact, he looked a lot like Jack when Jack was in college, with an added piece of his mother's intensity in his face. He was, without a doubt, one of the kindest kids Jack had ever met. Responsible too. He reached over and clasped Todd's shoulder.
"We did okay with that," he said.
"We smoked it." They stood and looked at the clear space on the side of the house. "Now for the roses."
"First, a rest," Jack said.
"Fine with me," Todd said, wiping his face again, streaking mud on his cheeks as the dust on his hands mixed with his sweat. They ambled toward the back door of the house, stepping through the small herb garden just outside the kitchen window.
"Do you really think she's okay?" Todd asked, almost whispering.
Jack glanced up at the open window. He heard voices echoing from the other side of the house. Safe to say they were still packing over there.
"She's under a lot of strain, no doubt about it," Jack said, his shoulders rounding forward in admission. "One thing that makes this hard for her is…well, she almost believes that the trees are sentient—"
"What?"
"Well, if she thought about it logically she wouldn't say that. But she puts so much meaning into things."
"So burning trees are more than just a forest fire to her."
"Yep. We need to watch her, but try not to worry about it too much, we have a laundry list of things to worry about." Right. As if he could get the constant refrain out of his head. Where is Molly? What is she doing? Is she all right?
"And what she says is true," he said. "She's been stable for a long time. This year has been one of the best we've ever had."
"So far."
"So far," Jack agreed. They left the garden and trudged up the slope with the smell of warm rosemary and basil in their noses. Time for a beer and then some chainsaw action. Todd reached out to pull the door open and they both heard Molly yelling.
"Every single one, Mom, every single one!" she was shouting. Her hair was coming out of the scarf that she'd tied around her head and she stood with her hand on her hip, gesturing at the stack of photo albums that were piled on the floor.
"I'm only suggesting you think it through," Catherine said, her face weary. She was leaning on a cane, something Jack had never seen before. Her deep eyes were steady on Molly.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"She's saying that we should only bring a few photos," Molly said.
"What I said was she should sit and think through what's worth saving."
"It's all worth saving! Everything in this house is worth saving! We're already leaving so much behind." Molly's sweeping motion took in the old, soft sofas, the afghans, the carved birds on the mantel. "We're talking about our memories, which you're fine with obliterating. I'm not."
"Stop being melodramatic. Take the darn things if you want them."
"Thanks for your permission," Molly said.
Catherine looked at Jack. "What do you do with her when she's like this?"
"Oh, that's perfect," Molly said, straightening from where she had been stacking the photo albums in a box.
"Molly I didn't say you had to do it, I asked if you wanted to take all of them. It doesn't justify a hissy fit."
"You don't need to leave anything behind that you don't want to," Jack said. Molly glared at him.
"Honey," he said, his voice low. "Try being easier to work with."
Todd winced and eased himself out of the room. Jack could see Amber in the office, stolidly stacking files in a cardboard box. Molly took a huge heaving breath and Jack could see the panic in her eyes that meant she felt trapped.
"Hey," he said, walking to her and taking her arm. "I thought you were making cheese."
"I'm finished! I thought I'd come to the house to see if they needed any help, and I find my mother ready to throw my photos away."
Catherine left the room, cane in hand, shaking her head. She looked disgusted.
"Sounds like she was only asking a question, babe."
"But her questions seem to come with only one right answer. They're not multiple choice. Or if they are, they only have one circle to color in." She banged her head against his chest.
Jack did know what Molly was talking about. Catherine's questions were often hard-edged with judgment.
He pulled her away from him and kissed her nose. He could see all her freckles, the small wrinkles that were at the edges of her eyes.
"You need to be less intense. Get your mind on something else. Do you want to chop down the rosebush with me?"
She pulled away from him. Mistake.
"Chop down—what?"
"Red Alert!" called Todd from the kitchen.
"That rose bush is older than me!" Molly said.
"Honey, we need to clear a hundred feet of space. How can we do that massive thing there?"
"I didn't know they meant we needed to kill our plants. Our garden." Jack sighed and walked toward the kitchen for his badly needed beer.
"Nothing but the roses. Catherine cleared this place well when she built the house, so there aren't any trees to chop down. You know we don't need to hurt anything else."
He pulled the cap off the bottle and tipped his head back for a drink. It was cold. Cold, cold. He rubbed it on his forehead. Molly was silent. Then she glanced over at Todd, slouched in one of the chairs that sat by the small breakfast table against the wall.
"Have you seen your face?" Molly asked, the corners of her mouth turning up.
"No, is it funny?" Todd asked.
"You look like a chimney sweep."
Todd shrugged. "It's dirty work." Molly watched him for a minute.
"Alright," she said, looking at Jack again. "Maybe it does sound good for me right now." Jack went to her and kissed the top of her head.
"Great," he said. "Let's get a chainsaw in this girl's hands."
She gave him a tight-lipped smile and pulled away.
The three of them spent the afternoon taking turns with the chainsaw. They sliced through the thorny, snaking branches of the rose bush, heaving them into the wheelbarrow and taking them off to a pile they formed.
"Sorry," Todd kept telling the plant as his chopped it up. "It was just one scratch too many."
"It was too pretty here against the house anyways," Molly said, hacking at the stems with a knife. "All those flowers. Who needs brilliant red roses when they can have an empty space?" She gave the stem another savage chop.
"Hopefully it'll grow back," Todd said.
"Oh, but it will grow back, eventually." Jack said. "There's no stopping it."
"You mean we're going to have to do this again next time there's a forest fire?" Todd asked, setting Molly off into a fit of laughter. She lay on the ground, shaking, with her hands on her face, Jack and Todd laughing along with her. She laughed long after they stopped. Sam lumbered off the porch and licked her nose and her forehea
d, worried, his back end going wild as he wagged his tail anxiously. It made her laugh harder, wriggling to keep him from licking her eyes.
"Poor Sam," she said finally, sitting up with one last sigh. "He thinks I've gone crazy. She smiled at Jack. He could barely believe how beautiful she was, sitting on the ground with her arms around her knees, scarf askew, face muddy.
They got back up and kept hacking away. By the end of the afternoon, their arms were raked with scratches from the thorns and the north side of the house was clear.
"All that's left to do are these odds and ends," Jack said. He indicated the strange things that had collected against the west side of the house, where nobody ever went. A wooden barrel. An old bathtub. Two pairs of rubber boots. He raised his eyebrows at Molly. She shrugged.
"This was probably here since before Mama left," she said. "We should get her to clean it up."
"Oh, sure," Todd said. "Grandma, will you bring that bathtub to the shed for us?" They laughed again, more weakly than before. Jack slipped an arm around Molly but she flinched and eluded him again, sliding through his fingers like water.
"I'm so tired," she said. "I'm going to rinse off and fix a quick dinner." Turning the corner and disappearing behind the house, she didn't stop to look back. He felt desperate, watching her go. How could he make her understand how much he needed her? And if she understood, would she care?
The day was stretching into evening. Todd jogged off to take a swim in the river and Jack stood under the beige sky, thinking about what an evening in August should look like. The sun would spin the shadows of the trees into black putty, they'd ooze across the hillside until they became one deep pool of shade and the sun gave a last yelp and slid behind the hilltop. The earth would cool down, releasing the warmth and fragrance of the day until they were reeling with the scent of it. Dirt smells and redwood needles, fir and jasmine, mixing in the air. He and Molly would sit on the couch in the garden and watch the purpling of the sky, she with her feet on his lap. He would rub one of her feet until she was overcome and clambered onto him, kissing his neck and face and earlobes.
He took a large shaking breath and looked around him. He stood under an oily leaden sky with no sun to be seen. He couldn't smell anything but smoke and he feared his wife was breaking, that soon she'd fall away from him entirely, fall into that old abyss. He ran one hand over his face and turned to go into the house.
Later, he watched Molly stir the soup she was making, beads of sweat forming on her temples. She smelled fruity, like her shampoo. Jack leaned against the countertop, needing to be near her. Amber strode into the kitchen.
"Do you know where our birth certificates are?" she asked.
"It'll have to wait until tomorrow," Molly said, dusting salt off her hand and into the soup. She spooned some out and blew on it. "Taste," she said, holding the spoon out to Jack. He moved it around in his mouth.
"Needs more salt."
Molly picked the saltshaker up again.
"Why does it have to wait?" Amber asked.
"We're through for the day, that's why. Fire or no fire, there comes a time when ranchers need to say they're done, because the work is never really finished."
Amber rolled her eyes, which Molly didn't see because she was shaking more salt into the soup.
"All right, but I'm just going to have to ask you tomorrow," she said.
"That's fine," said Molly.
"Isn't it too hot for soup?"
"It's never too hot for soup," Molly said, wiping sweat off her forehead with her t-shirt. Outside, the sky was changing from brown to charcoal. The crickets were starting up in earnest. Amber started to say something else, then stopped.
"Well, call me when its done, because I'm starving," she said, leaving the kitchen.
"Need any help?" Jack asked. Molly smiled at him. It was like light coming into a dark house through a crack in the blinds.
"Glad someone noticed," she said. "Will you slice this bread?" She pushed a crusty loaf on the cutting board to him and handed him a knife. He began sawing through the thick crust on the bread.
"Vincent Conners called," he said, as she pulled bowls out of the cupboards.
"Who's that again?"
"CalFire battalion chief."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. What did he want?"
"The crews will be here tomorrow," he said.
"What does that mean?"
"We'll have to get someone directing traffic. Vincent will focus on making a line above the upper road. There'll be more than a few trucks, I'm sure. A convict crew."
She considered this, watching him with dark brown eyes, then pulled glasses from the cupboard and poured wine for both of them. Jack saw for the first time that the scratches on her arms were raised, angry and red. He moved closer to her and put his hands gently around her arm.
"Honey. Your poor arms." She held a glass of wine out for him, and he let go and took it. She shrugged.
"You know how I am when plants scratch me," she said. "It goes away fast." They lifted their glasses and clinked them softly. Jack swirled his wine before sipping it. The evening felt almost normal and he was grateful for the respite.
The screen door squeaked as it opened. Gerard walked into the kitchen.
"Hey there," he said.
"Hey, G. Want some wine?" Molly asked.
He nodded and walked to the counter. He poured himself a glass, sat heavily at the table and stretched his legs out.
"Everything go okay?" Molly asked.
"Yeah, everything's where it should be. They sold out, at the health food store. Ordered more chevre for next week."
"That's good," Molly said, her voice excited.
Jack and Gerard exchanged glances. It wasn't likely that they would be making cheese next week. Molly caught the glance and her face turned from excitement to despair. She set her wineglass on the counter, hard.
"Oh, God. I wish the forest could just protect itself somehow."
Jack watched her. She looked away from him, the last light from the window illuminating the continuous line that curved from her ear to her jaw, then down her neck.
"Funny that you say that," Gerard said. "I was just thinking today about an old story from around here, about one time that the trees stuck up for themselves."
Molly's face gained a hopeful cast. She slid into a chair, sloshing drops of wine over the side of her glass.
"Tell us!"
Gerard glanced at Jack, then shrugged.
"People reckon the trees must've walked," he said. "Me, I don't know about that, seeing as how trees don't have legs. But somehow they moved. This logger, real big shot, had been making threats, giddy with the smell of money. He was boasting that he'd have the whole forest down, make himself a millionaire. So one night, they glided. Or walked, depends what you want to believe. Surrounded his cabin tight. He woke up in the morning and he could hear the birds as though they were coming from far off, no light coming through the windows. Couldn't get out of the door. Story goes, he started to panic. Grabbed an axe and tried to chop his own cabin to pieces to get out. Panic!"
Gerard paused to sip at his wine. Molly was leaning on the table, her cheek on one hand, rapt. Jack shifted his weight against the counter as Gerard continued.
"Course you would. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that anyone would, if there was a two hundred foot tree in front of your door that hadn't been there the day before. He managed to get out through the roof, his house in splinters around him. Then he left the hills for flat clear spaces, and he didn't come back."
Jack smiled at the story, but then he glanced over at Molly and saw her eyes, large and brown and round, absorbing Gerard's story, believing it. She looked at him briefly, then her eyes moved up and away from his, over at the forest, visible through the kitchen window. Gerard became quiet again, musing over the last swirl of wine before standing to set his glass in the sink. It might have been the longest stretch of talking that Molly and Jack had ever heard out of him.<
br />
Molly tapped her fingers on the table softly. She looked at Jack. "I love that. Love it."
"It's a story," he said. Molly stood and stretched. Jack eyed her brown legs under her shorts. Gerard swirled a sponge in his wine glass and rinsed it with a thin stream of water. They were all being so conscientious about water these days.
"But it's a beautiful one. If they could really protect themselves? I want to believe it, even if it's only a story."
"You believe things just because you want to?"
Her face fell, the glowing, vibrant look sliding from it. "No," she said. "Okay, fine, Jack, they're helpless."
"They are," he said, feeling like he'd turned into the villain though he hadn't done anything at all. Her eyes were so intense on him, he had to look away.
"I believe things because I believe them," Gerard said, out of the silence. He turned from the sink to face them.
"Do you believe that story?" Molly asked.
"Not really, no. But it's interesting to think about why you believe things. Is it just something that has stuck to you, like a burr? Have you thought about it? Did someone tell you?"
"What are you saying?" Jack's voice was slightly hard edged. He didn't want Gerard getting his wife worked up about belief right now. Things were too unsteady.
"Nothing, really. I guess it would be good to look hard at all the ways we do things, find out if there's something at the base of them that comes from belief, find out if that thing is true. But we don't all do that. I don't."
Jack and Molly watched him until he laughed.
"I guess I'm lazy," he said.
A car pulled into the driveway outside, driving fast, tires spinning in the gravel before they stopped. Molly met Jack's eyes and stood up.
"That's got to be Rain," she said.
It was. Their daughter started yelling before she even got into the house. "Dad! Mom!" she shouted. When she burst into the kitchen she stopped up short.
"Dad. Mom," she said, in a quieter voice. "I'm here!"
"We can see that, Rain," Jack said, moving to give her a hug. He lifted her off the ground like he always did, ever since she was a little girl and she used to run at people and jump on them to hug them. He remembered the way the mothers of the other children in playgrounds would frown at him, afraid of this aggressive little girl. But she had so much love tucked into her. She couldn't help herself.
The Eve Tree: A Novel Page 7