Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

As with all things forbidden yet tried, the trip was not without repercussions. At the next chemo session, Claire’s white cell count still hung stubbornly low. The doctor, still smarting over what he considered the betrayal of her trip to the clinic, decided to stop treatment for the time being. An undercurrent of blame was palpable as he filled out her file, as if her rebellion would be the cause of her demise rather than a reaction to it. Claire was to stay at home and receive daily injections of a drug to build back up her blood.

Chastened, Claire played the part of obedient patient and tried to self-inject, but she could not stand to watch the needle plunge under her skin. The nurse sighed at this squeamishness and instructed Minna on how to give the injections. Already in the hot seat for her part in the “runaway” trip, as it was referred to by the girls, as in, “Mom ran away from home,” Minna was grim about the job, her usual playfulness gone. She practiced shooting water into oranges for hours and hours, until she felt comfortable with the procedure, until she reached the point at which Claire could not feel the bite of the needle when Minna fed it under her skin, performing the procedure as a kind of sleight of hand.

The other effect of the rogue trip was that Gwen decided they should have a family gathering over the Fourth of July. They hadn’t all been together for a holiday since their teenaged years, and it was long past time.

* * *

Claire couldn’t deny a certain excitement in watching Paz scour the house clean, the feeling that things could be returned to normal at least for the long weekend. The house had fallen under a kind of a luxuriant torpor during the last months, Claire so distracted by her illness and Minna’s dramatics that she had failed to notice that Paz had indeed become lax as Minna complained, that dust was in the corners and cobwebs in the windows. Bald-headed and frail, Claire readied the bedrooms, set up cots and sleeping bags in the sunroom for the grandchildren, while Paz washed floors and windows, scrubbed toilets and showers. When Claire commented about the state of the house, Paz said, “There is only so much I can do one day a week. Minna tells me, ‘Leave this, leave that.’”

Claire brushed it off, not willing to let anything get to her. She felt a new determination to overcome her illness, felt maybe it was time to make amends.

During all of this, Minna was more morose than usual. “Everything okay?” Claire asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. She had grown familiar with what she called Minna’s blue periods, times when she was so silent and sullen that Claire learned to stay away. Minna had requested a full month’s pay that morning.

“What do you need all this money for?”

Minna looked displeased with the question. “A cousin needs an operation.”

“You’re going to have to start saying no. You can’t give what you don’t have.”

“Why aren’t you resting?”

“You and Paz are doing all the heavy work,” Claire said, although in reality Minna had done little.

“Not true. I saw you cleaning. I saw you baking. You’re going to get sick, and I’ll be blamed again.”

“Minna!” Claire was annoyed. “It’s good for me to have distractions.”

“So that’s no to the advance?”

“I’m not comfortable with it.”

* * *

Some milestones let one know where one is, are able to promptly sink one to the bottom of life like an anchor. One occurred the moment Gwen walked through the front door, her children straggling behind her. The first thing she did on seeing Claire, standing there proudly bald, was instinctively reach an arm back to shield the children, wanting to warn and admonish at the same time. It was then that Claire felt truly sick, scared, deluded by her earlier confidence. She stayed on her feet through sheer will, betrayed by Minna’s assurances, Looking better. Better and better. The best each day. Claire excused herself and hurried to the closet, wrapping Minna’s magenta scarf over her head, hoping that would bring some relief to her appearance.

“How’re my babies?” she said on returning. Smiled and smiled, because smiling through the death mask was all she could manage.

But the children had caught a glimpse of her naked disease. Her granddaughter, Alice, four, looked at her, and her lip started to tremble. “Where did your hair go?”

Sensing panic, Minna took over: carried bags, gave candies to the children. Shock neatly covered over, disguised. With a marked coolness on both sides, Gwen took Minna’s hand. Unable to take her anger out on her mother, she blamed Minna for Mexico, allowing if not instigating it. Don was negligent, but he was also a stranger and a movie star; Mrs. Girbaldi, eccentric, was equally out of reach. Only Minna was within arm’s reach of retribution.

“This must be little Alice,” Minna said. “Pretty as her mama.”

Tim, stolid as his father, hid behind Gwen’s leg. He had obviously inherited an opinion of Minna from his parents.

* * *

When Gwen and Claire were alone on the porch, balancing ice teas in their laps, Gwen burst into sobs, such a disturbing sight from her self-contained daughter that Claire took her in her arms, reassuring her that after all she looked worse than she felt.

“I had no idea you lost so much weight,” Gwen said.

“It’s the ultimate diet.”

“I can’t believe that in your state…” Gwen wagged her finger as if it was obvious to both of them just how bad that state was. “I can’t believe under the circumstances you pulled this Mexico stunt.”

“I don’t know I’d call it a stunt .”

“What else?”

“Most people on chemo continue working, or raising a family. They have to. I went on a day trip. I had to.”

“Minna was irresponsible.”

“My idea. I forced her. I had to — for here.” Claire put her hand over her heart.

“Your health comes first. What’s the point otherwise?”

What’s the point if the heart isn’t involved? Claire wanted to say.

* * *

At the noise of a car, Gwen hurried to the door. Lucy’s rental car came down the driveway, and Gwen ran out to intercept her. It didn’t matter. The minute Lucy walked through the door and saw her mother, her face dropped. She was the one unable to hide her emotions. It was stupid for Claire to pretend any longer that she wasn’t really so sick, but now she was preoccupied with hiding the signs of the illness: keeping her head covered with scarves or caps; applying eyebrow pencil and rouge to try to add life to her face. She felt ghoulish but didn’t know what else to do. All her excitement over the visit had dissolved and was replaced by a wish to return to solitude.

* * *

Although the house was full to bursting, Claire received less attention now, a fact she gratefully accepted, returning to the normal state of family, and no longer the invalid centerpiece. It could have been fifteen years before except for the addition of Minna. She and Lucy reunited like long-lost friends and spent hours on the back lawn, smoking cigarettes and gossiping. Lucy looked better, stronger, than in years, and Claire felt some vindication in leaving her in Santa Fe. All the bedrooms were occupied, a constant coming and going from room to room, slamming of doors, except Minna’s, which remained resolutely shut. At odd, stolen moments, Claire looked at her, helpless, feeling unfaithful to the house’s former silence and dreaminess.

After a few days passed, Minna asked if she could take the weekend off to visit friends. Claire did not believe she knew anyone in the vicinity and felt hurt that she referred to being with them as a job, something to be shirked.