M. Wren - A Gift Upon the Shore

That tunnel speaks of the beginnings of this giant among giants that seems immutable, something that has no end and no beginning.

It had a beginning. It was born on the mossy corpse of a nurse log. Its roots year by year grew down and around its source of sustenance until they sank into the earth. And in time the nurse log rotted away, leaving this tunnel, a negative space to witness its existence.

And this tree will have an end. It will fall, and what a sundering of sky and earth that will be, and it will in turn become a nurse log to nurture other giants.

Jerry has made a simple slab bench and placed it a few yards from the base of the tree. It replaced the one the Forest Service installed here, which has long ago rotted into duff. I ease down on the bench, smiling at Stephen, who sits down beside me, but doesn’t speak, waiting for me to break the silence.

And finally, I do. “Rachel first brought me here the morning after I saw my aunt’s house.”

He nods. “It’s a place of healing, I think. Bernadette says some places are like that. They heal the mind, so it can heal the body.”

I’m surprised at that. Bernadette, our herbalist, healer, and nurse, seldom reveals her capacity for profound understanding.

“Yes, Stephen, it’s a place of healing, but for me, Rachel was the healer.” I pause, considering what to tell him. There is so much he must understand about Rachel, yet there is one aspect of her I know he isn’t capable of understanding. I doubt he can imagine a philosophy so inimical to the religious traditions he grew up with. The day will come when he must come to terms with that, but he’s not ready now.

For now, I’ll tell him only what he must know.

I look up into the sun-gloried crown of the tree, then down through all its green stories, down the stone gray trunk to the heart of emptiness at its base, and I remember; the images are haloed with my tears.

If this tree were capable of sound, it would resonate in harmonies of a minor key in the deep ranges beyond the edges of my perception.

Perhaps it does sing: centuries-slow songs that I will never hear.

She could taste the green air. Mary Hope stared up at the tree, her mind stretching to encompass its dimensions, its stunning presence. She turned finally, found Rachel sitting on the bench, watching her with a shadow smile that manifested itself primarily in her dark eyes. She had been waiting, Mary realized. Waiting for her reaction. She seemed satisfied.

Mary walked to the bench, leaning into the cane to keep her balance among the sinews of roots, and sat down next to Rachel. Neither of them spoke. Mary could find no words to express what she felt, and Rachel didn’t seem to need or expect any.

This was the second gift Rachel had offered her today.

Mary had wakened this morning to be ambushed by memories of the ruins of Aunt Jan’s house, the ruins of her dream. But no new tears came with the memories. It was as if the night and sleep had dropped the curtain on that act of her life. She wasn’t yet capable of raising the curtain on the next act, or even imagining it. She lay in the narrow bed listening to the murmur of the sea. I am here… I am always here …. She thought about dreams. Dreams were hope specified. Fragile fallacies.

But at length she left the bed, dressed herself, took up the cane, and opened the door to music. The third movement of Beethoven’s ninth. The Adagio. Shadow came trotting out of the south studio to greet her, and that made her smile. Sweet Shadow, so loving and fey. Highstrung was the old-fashioned word Rachel used to describe her. Topaz was the steady one, reserved and dependable.

Mary found Rachel in the kitchen stoking the fire in the old, iron cookstove. She shut the firebox door and looked around at Mary. “How are you?”

“I’m all right.”

Rachel studied her a moment. “Would you like some coffee?” Then at Mary’s nod: “I’ll bring it into the living room.”

Mary went into the living room, with its fireplace built of beach cobbles backed to the kitchen wall, a bamboo-framed couch facing the hearth. Two armchairs, their ochre upholstery frayed at the seams, flanked the couch. On the south wall a door opened into the greenhouse. The west wall was almost entirely glass, with a sliding door opening onto the deck. Bookshelves took up every remaining space on the walls except for a small section on the north wall left for paintings. On the small table in the northwest corner, two places were set for breakfast. Topaz lay on the Persian rug; she rose and came to Mary, waited for her to lean down and pet her. Then Mary walked to the glass doors and looked out at slow, white breakers under a clear sky. At length she turned. That’s when she saw it centered on the mantel: Aunt Jan’s Seth Thomas.

Her breath caught, and she made her way to the mantel, mouth open in silent amazement. This couldn’t be the grime-rimed clock she’d found in that ruined house. The wood gleamed like satin, the glass over its face was shining. And it was ticking steadfastly, the scrolled hands pointing the time as it was now, not a leftover hour marking the last pulse of its spent mainspring long ago. She touched the glowing wood, then looked at Rachel. She was standing by the fireplace, a mug of coffee in each hand.

“Oh, Rachel, how did you do it? How did you bring it back to life?”

“Well, it wasn’t dead, Mary.” She handed her one of the mugs. “I just gave it a little wax and oil. It’s a beautiful thing, and like they say, ‘hell for stout.’”

Laughing because she was so close to crying, Mary embraced her. “Thank you, Rachel. Thank you .”

Rachel returned her embrace, but with a certain awkwardness, as if she weren’t used to such physical displays. She cleared her throat and said, “Let’s have breakfast, and after that I’d like to take you for a walk.”

And now Mary watched Topaz and Shadow sniffing out pathways of scent through the tunnel at the base of the tree, and her gaze moved up the scaly, granitic bole. She heard the impatient chirking of squirrels as she stared into the rose-window pattern of green and sky blue in the black fretwork of branches. “It’s like a cathedral here.”

Rachel was looking up into the crown, too, and she seemed to find there both wonder and comfort. “Maybe cathedrals are like here ,” she said. Then she turned to Mary. “This is a very special place to me.”

Mary nodded. “I’m grateful that you’d share it with me.”

“It’s my pleasure. I don’t have many friends—none left in Shiloh except Jim and Connie—so I enjoy having someone to share this with. Strangely enough, it’s Jim who loves this tree almost as much as I do.”

“Why strangely?”

“Oh… because he’s so thoroughly pragmatic. He’s our resident survivalist, you know.”

“Survivalist? Jim?”

“Yes. He’s a paradox, really. A liberal survivalist. He has a radiation shelter behind his house fully stocked for the end of the world.”

Mary felt a chill in the shadowed air. “I don’t think that’s something you can stock up for.”

“Maybe not.” For a while Rachel was silent. She seemed to be mulling over something, and Mary waited patiently.

Finally Rachel said, “There’s something I want you to understand.”

That had a nearly ominous cast to it. “What, Rachel?”

“Well, just that you have a home at Amarna for as long as you need or want it. What I want you to understand is that you shouldn’t feel any obligation to me. That’s probably impossible, I know. I’m just saying that if you want to stay here, you can. At least, it’s an option.”