Cristin Bishara: Relativity

There’s something about this ancient oak tree that’s startling in that same otherworldly way. I find myself stopping at any window that allows even a glimpse of it. It’s got this presence, a vibe. It almost seems like it’s watching me back. For a long time—maybe longer than I realize—I’m glued to Kandy’s window. Mesmerized.

I shudder, shake off the feeling.

Get a grip, Ruby. It’s just a tree. Go finish unpacking.

I head across the hallway back into my room just as Kandy reaches the top of the stairs. I smile. She glowers.

“How was the manicure?” I ask, trying to sound light and casual. My heart is pounding. If she’d come upstairs thirty seconds sooner, she’d have caught me. …

“Were you in my room?”

“Um, yeah?” I say. She narrows her eyes, so I hurry to explain. “I found some of your makeup, and I put it on your bed.”

She looks startled. “You found makeup?”

“It was mixed up in some laundry—”

“Whatever.” She points to the sign on her door. “You can read, right?”

“Sorry,” I say, taking a step back. She’s a little too close; I can smell her mint gum.

She puts her hands on her hips and sizes me up. “You should’ve kept the bag for yourself. You need, like, a total makeover,” she says with a look of sheer repulsion. “That shade of denim? It is so bad. And those shoes.”

I look down at my frayed jeans and olive sneakers. “Thanks for the tip.” I sidestep around her and head downstairs.

Yep, we’ll be best friends in no time.

Dad’s laptop is still on the coffee table, but he’s nowhere around. I find Willow in her studio, perched on a stool, paintbrush in hand. She’s working on a painting of bare winter trees. Gray branches set against a gray sky with a gray barn in the background. Super-cheerful.

“Have you seen my dad?”

“He ran to the grocery store to get some frozen pizzas and a rotisserie chicken for dinner.” She turns to look at me, black paint in her curly blond hair. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I say.

“Really?”

I half nod. Hardly convincing. At least she cares enough to ask.

“Is there something you need or can’t find?” She puts her paintbrush down, ready to help. So far Willow seems like a decent human being. Then again, I have to wonder what she’s really like, underneath, because there has to be a reason Kandy’s the way she is. Genetics. Her upbringing.

Willow searches my face. “If you give me a list of your favorite food, I’ll make sure I stock up the next time I shop. Doritos? Cheetos?”

I sigh. “I’m not much of a junk-food person.”

Her eyes ask, Then what’s wrong?

I can’t exactly say that her dilapidated house is depressing, that Ennis will never compare to Walnut Creek, that I miss George, that her daughter is sharpening her freshly painted talons so I’m afraid to go back upstairs. I can’t tell her that since she’s become my stepmother, I’ve suddenly been missing my real mom. That I’m wondering how different my life would be at this very moment if Mom had survived that car crash eleven years ago, when I was four. She got hit hard, but her dependable Volvo weathered the impact. She had her seat belt on. It wasn’t an airbag malfunction or anything else that might make sense. No. It was an airborne windshield wiper—propelled with arrow accuracy and speed—that skewered her esophagus.

If it hadn’t been for that windshield wiper, I wouldn’t have a stepmother or stepsister. We wouldn’t have moved to Ohio. I wouldn’t be standing in this room right now. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. One event triggers another, one path stems to another, and eventually you end up standing in the middle of Somewhere Unrecognizable without a compass or map. You get there one increment at a time, with movements so subtle that you don’t even notice until it’s too late to find your way back.

“That bookstore in the shopping strip,” I say, trying to distract myself before I get emotional in front of Willow. “Could I borrow someone’s bike and go? I saw a magazine there yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, Ruby.” Willow sighs, sincere in her disappointment. “We only have one bike, and it’s in bad shape. I’ll drive you tomorrow, okay?”

I nod. “I’ll just go for a walk, then.” I turn to leave the studio but notice a canvas propped against the wall. A chill runs through me. “That’s the oak tree that’s off in the cornfields.”

Willow follows my gaze. She looks at the painting with a weary smile. “You’ve noticed it too?”

“It’s hard not to.”

“I know what you mean. After we first moved into this house, I couldn’t stop painting it. The second Kandy left for school, I’d go upstairs and sit at her window and work. I must have twenty oils and watercolors, and a notebook full of sketches.”

“There’s something about it. Definitely.” True to Willow’s style, the painting is dark. The oak tree looms, its branches reaching out with sinister, clawlike leaves. “You made it look pretty menacing.”

“Well, that’s because of the legend.” She leans forward to tell me. “Apparently someone tried to hack it down with an ax sometime in the late 1800s, and he was said to have burst into flames.”

“He caught fire?”

“So the story goes.”

I cock my head and consider the lightning-lit clouds that Willow painted behind the oak. “You know, human bodies contain electrical fields, as well as flammable gases. Put the two together, and you’ve got flames.”

“You’re talking about spontaneous combustion?”

“Yeah, but there’s never been any scientific proof it actually happens.” I wave my hand to dismiss the idea. “Usually it’s just a dropped cigarette.”

“There’s more to the story,” Willow says. “About fifty years ago, a couple of professional loggers tried to cut it down with industrial chain saws. They were both electrocuted.”

“Dead?”

Willow shrugs. “Who knows. But after I found that out, I stopped using it as a subject. I felt like I was painting a serial killer. I like my palette dark these days, but not that dark.”

“Did you ever look it all up?” I ask. “They sound like campfire stories someone made up to scare kids.”

“No, I never did any research to find out if it was fact or fiction,” Willow admits. “I walked all the way to it one day, and there was nothing out of the ordinary. For all I know, the tree just marks a property line, and it probably provided good shade for cattle at one time. But just the idea of those crazy stories was enough to turn me off.” She points her brush at the canvas in front of her. “I found other trees to paint.”

“Innocent trees without blood on their branches.”

“Do me a favor and don’t tell Kandy.” Willow winks at me. “About me painting in her room? She’s doesn’t like me setting foot in there. She calls it ‘trespassing,’ and that if I’m not careful, I’ll be ‘cited and fined.’”

She laughs, but I’m not so sure it’s funny. What would a “fine” from Kandy consist of? If she actually caught me in her room, would she expect me to do her math homework for a month? Clean her hairbrushes? Organize her purses by color? Of course not. It would be by brand, then color.

“Gotcha,” I say, pretending to lock my lips with a key. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Enjoy your walk. We’ll eat around six,” Willow says, dipping her brush in water.

“Sounds good.”

I grab a soda from the fridge and venture into the backyard. A few hundred feet from the house, the grass ends and the cornfields begin. The stalks are dense, in tight rows, but there’s one wider alley at the corner of the yard, like they skipped half a row. A mistake when they planted.