Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

Minna came out of the house, meek, testing Claire’s temper. She hummed a tune to herself and picked leaves off the wooden steps. “He’s gone?”

“Satisfied?”

She walked over and knelt at Claire’s feet, hugging her so tightly that the bones of her knees pressed against each other, causing pain. “No one ever loved me more than something else.”

Claire’s heart gave in just the slightest, although her words still came out harshly. “Because I fired a man unjustly?”

“You took my side. Like family. You didn’t listen to his lies.”

“I tried to take the right side. Which was yours?” Why did Claire persist now the act was done? A sinking feeling that could only be remorse. Lies all around her, and she had grabbed the most convenient one and called it truth. She kept seeing Octavio driving away, sure that could not be the just solution. “What’ll I do now? We’re going into high season with tons of work and no foreman.”

“I’ll fix it, my doudou .”

“How? How could you possibly fix that? Like the pool? Like the house?”

“Trust me.”

“Never mind, I’ll call Forster.” Claire stood up, eager to escape. She had coveted Minna’s gratitude, but now that she had it, it made her uneasy. If Minna was the victim of lies, why was Claire the one to feel manipulated? Had she wronged a good man?

Minna sat, arms wrapped around her knees as if a chill were in the air instead of a heat wave. Claire waited, suspended, for the slightest signs of guilt, of acquiescence. Minna only drew her knees closer.

A common misperception is that life on a farm is a lonely, isolated one, but rather it is to the contrary. In all the years Claire had lived there, she didn’t ever remember longing for company but rather the opposite — dreaming of peace and privacy and a solitude that never came. Till now.

Usually upward of a dozen people were working in the fields and outbuildings at any time of day, with an endless stream of salesmen for irrigation equipment and soil amendment, and commercial buyers for the harvests. Farmers from the neighboring properties came over to borrow equipment or discuss a particular problem due to weather or blight. When they were still married, Forster had been involved in local politics, and neighbors often dropped by and stayed on for supper. Then the children invited friends, so that a gaggle of kids were always somewhere, up to some kind of mischief on the property.

With Octavio’s defection and the workers’ firing, Claire got to know the land in a new way, taking in its deep silences, its secret spaces. She learned the way light slanted throughout the day against the house, along the gravel drive, through the trees in the orchards. She had never before noticed how it hung in the branches at dusk, how it left pools of luminescence in the meadows. As well, she came to know the purpling shadows of night until they no longer had power to frighten her.

* * *

Minna disliked the constant strident voices of the television, so Claire agreed to unplug it. They carried it to the barn like a worn-out relic. Likewise, they disconnected the stereo and the radio, although Claire sometimes longed for music and regretted agreeing to that termination. The newspaper, too, was discontinued because most days it went unread, shunted away still in its plastic wrapper. The farm grew quieter and quieter, but, paradoxically, more alive.

Claire had called Forster to tell him about losing Octavio and the prospects for hiring a new foreman, and they got into a terrible shouting match.

“It’s still my farm, too.”

“You left it to me to run. I made a decision.”

“Octavio was family.”

“It was his decision.” As she said it, she realized how much it had been a coerced one. “I’ll start looking tomorrow.”

“Who is going to supervise the workers?”

“I will.” The omission that there was nobody left to supervise came easier than she would have thought.

* * *

But she found herself putting the burden of interviews off. When Forster wanted to come and check on things, she pleaded off for a week. Then another.

“Let me rest. I’m so tired from the treatments. Next week.” That part wasn’t a lie because the radiation drained her, and Minna had promised that she knew someone perfect for the job. This prospect was unlikely, but Claire agreed to wait.

Twice a week, she and Minna turned on the irrigation for a deep soaking. As long as the trees were fed, a few weeks of neglected chores did no harm.

* * *

Lucy called on Tuesday, promising to come stay with them, but one thing after another came up. She had returned from Tampa, lost her new job, broke up and reunited with Javier. Claire sat in the kitchen with Minna, talking on the phone. “You know I only have radiation left. Hurry home.”

Minna hummed and chopped mint. Handed Claire the fourth elixir of the day.

“I worry about her,” Claire said, after hanging up.

“Lucy? Lucy is the shining light. She glows.”

“Think so?”

“If I ever saw someone destined for happiness, it’s that girl.”

“I hope so.”

Gwen called on Wednesday. “Dad said you fired Octavio.”

“It’s a long story.”

“How are you going to run the place?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Lucy called on Thursday. “Don’t you think it’s time to get out from under this thing?”

“The cancer? Yes.”

* * *

August had been the hottest month on record, and September burned with no letup, as if even the gentle shift of California seasons were broken. At first Claire turned on the air conditioner, but Minna quickly put an end to that, saying that the chemicals were harmful, the artificial chill unnatural. The temperature topped a hundred by noon, the scorching sun matching the scorching of the radiation machine against Claire’s skin. She dreamed of ice and snow and the moon.

* * *

Each morning they drove to the clinic, and she put on their treacly pink cotton gown and sat with the metal beasts. A crescent moon was tattooed along the missing breast, and Claire sat in the machine’s sights while a technician hid behind a concrete wall and pulled a trigger. Claire pictured a sun burning her from the inside out.

The skin of her chest grew into a tight, hard, red pustule. It ached, swollen. At home, Minna cut fingers off an aloe plant and dabbed the viscous fluid on with a cotton swab, the heat from her hand, her finger, too rough now. A tragedy to become too rarefied for human touch.

After the treatments, Claire came home late in the morning, exhausted, and lay in bed in her underwear, half her chest a red-hot, smoldering ember. She begged for the air conditioner. Minna plied her instead with glass after glass of iced tea or water, setting up three electric fans around the bed so that the pillowcase fluttered in Claire’s face from the stiff breeze. Minna wiped her legs, arms, and stomach down with cold, wet washcloths. Fed her wedges of ice-cold watermelon and cantaloupe, then lay on the bed beside her. They gossiped over nothing because their only interaction with the outside world was at the hospital, which they pointedly wanted to forget.

Minna would begin, “See that hawk?”

“The one down by the corral?”

“He’s returned.”

“I wonder why he’s down here this time of year.”

“Visiting.”

“A handsome one.”

“Smart. Eyeing those rabbits heading to the garden to eat our lettuce.”

“I hate to think…”

“He’s gotta eat, too.”

* * *

Sometimes Claire grew petulant. “I’m lonely. No one comes here anymore.”

“People are overrated.”

* * *