Beneath the Night Tree

by Nicole Baart

  “So you wrap these garlands all around the tree and hang the pinecones just like you’re decorating a Christmas tree.”

  “But it’s for the animals?” Simon asked.

  “And the birds. It’s a winter offering. A gift to everything that lives in your grove.”

  “And what are we supposed to do?” Daniel wondered as he put a sunflower seed at the very tip of a large pinecone.

  “Watch,” Parker said with an air of mystery. “Sit and watch and wait. Listen. There is nothing quite so beautiful as when a bird sings her winter song. And in the morning you can take stock and see what’s missing.”

  “You said it’s called a night tree,” Simon said.

  “That’s because it’s most beautiful at night. When it’s dark, you can enjoy a still world. You can talk or just look at the stars. Or pray.”

  “Pray?” The word slipped out before I could stop it. “I didn’t realize you were religious.”

  “I’m not,” Parker confessed. “I’ve never been a big fan of religion.”

  “But you said pray,” Simon reminded him. “Who do you pray to?”

  Parker’s lips curled in a secret smile. “The same God you do, Si.”

  “So you’re a Christian?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve never been a big fan of labels, either.”

  I just stared at him. He had spent the last several months trying to convince me in word and deed that he was a different man, but I had no idea that this was part of his transformation. I thought back to our fledgling relationship all those years ago and realized that religion was something we had never really discussed. He knew that I went to church, but his own faith—or lack thereof—had never come up.

  Parker caught my eye and seemed on the verge of saying more. Then he clamped his mouth shut and handed Daniel a new pinecone. “Let’s just say I’m asking a lot of questions these days. Embracing the faith of my youth. Trying to figure some things out.” He bumped Simon with his elbow. “Life’s hard, kid. Even grown-ups don’t have it all together.”

  Simon looked confused for a moment, but something in Parker’s words must have made sense to him because he began to nod slowly. “Yeah,” he affirmed as if Parker were the arbiter of true wisdom.

  Though Parker’s allegedly nonreligious beliefs plagued me like a nagging itch, I didn’t have the energy or inclination to engage him in front of the boys. So instead of trying to learn more, I set his enigmatic confessions aside and focused on the project in front of us.

  There was something undeniably appealing about Parker’s vision of a night tree. I loved the thought of standing beneath one of the saplings in our grove and watching the night sky fade from blue-black to onyx as the galaxies spun above me. It sounded peaceful. Like a place where I could indeed pray. Or cry. Or shout.

  When the kitchen table was teeming with our homemade swags, Parker began to gather everything and place it in his empty laundry basket.

  “You going with us?” he asked when I didn’t move to stand with the rest of them.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder in the direction of Grandma’s room. “I’ll walk you to the porch.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Parker said gently. “Let her sleep.”

  “But . . .”

  “We’ll be back in fifteen minutes. She’d be furious if she knew you stayed back.”

  Unconvinced, I bit my bottom lip and tried to come up with a better reason to stick close to my grandmother. But as I watched, Simon lifted a finger and quietly, secretly summoned me to him. How could I not go?

  There was a wordless excitement in the air as we all stepped into our boots and searched for our mittens in the box of winter gear. The sun was already setting, but I knew the perfect tree, a young fir that had sprung up amid a ring of tall-standing oaks. Years ago, I had believed that it would not survive, but now the lovely little tree arched a couple of feet above my head and spread out thick branches of beryl-colored needles that seemed extended in welcome.

  Grandma will love it, I thought. And then I remembered the way she shook, the tiny steps she took, and I knew that there was no way she would be tromping through the snow this winter. The realization almost made me sick.

  But as the four of us stepped single file off the porch, I saw Parker in the lead with the basket cradled in his arms. He turned his head a little to say something to the boys, and in that instant I could see her nestled in his embrace. I knew that she wouldn’t have to walk alone. Parker would carry her there.

  “Thank you,” I whispered as my feet traced the path his boots had made in the snow. He couldn’t hear me, but I hoped he knew.

  Winter Solstice

  December passed with all the indirection of a blown leaf. I felt tossed by the wind, whisked this way and that as if I had no moorings, no constant whatsoever to cling to. And I didn’t. Michael was gone, Grandma was healing, and the boys were left looking to me for direction. The problem was, I felt lost.

  “I want Grandma to play checkers with me,” Daniel said one night.

  It was his first day of Christmas vacation and I could already tell that the two-week break was going to be long and tiresome.

  “I think she’s napping,” I told him. “I’ll play with you when I’m done paying these bills.”

  “But you were going to make caramel corn.”

  I sighed. “Okay. Why don’t we make caramel corn together? I can play checkers with you when we’re done.”

  “I don’t feel like making caramel corn.”

  “Neither do I,” I muttered.

  Daniel puffed an angry breath through his nose and slouched into the living room, where Simon was supposed to be finishing up a social studies project. Grandma’s hospitalization must have affected the boys in ways I still didn’t fully understand because the report Simon was working on was one that had been due before the Christmas break. His teacher had graced me with a courtesy call and a grouchy warning: if Simon didn’t turn in his report the first day back from break, he would be in danger of failing social studies for the semester.

  I had yelled; he had sulked. It was depressing to see Simon’s interest continue to deteriorate even as my own mothering skills seemed to revert to the Dark Ages. I felt like a failure. But he was doing his project: a state report on Iowa. It was a homemade book that was to be filled with pictures and information about state flowers and birds, industry, and natural resources. How hard could it be?

  Unfortunately Daniel wasn’t in the living room for more than a couple minutes when the yelling started. It had been months since the boys engaged in the sort of name-calling, fist-throwing fights that marked Daniel’s younger years, and I tried not to roll my eyes as I pushed back from the table to break up their noisy scuffle.

  “What in the world is going on in here?” I demanded, hands on hips like a proper, no-nonsense mother.

  Simon was working on the floor, pages spread out around him in a mosaic of colorful construction paper. But one of his sheets was clutched in Daniel’s hand, and Simon had his fingers wrapped in a death grip around his nephew’s small wrist.

  “I told him to let go!” Simon seethed, squeezing tighter.

  “Ow!” Daniel howled. “I just want to look at it!”

  “Let go,” I warned him. “Simon is working on a project.”

  “But I just want to see the picture of the bird!”

  “It’s a goldfinch,” Simon spat out. “You see those every day in the summer.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” I interrupted, my voice steel. “Let go of the paper, Daniel.”

  He looked at me with big, hurt eyes and let the blue piece of construction paper fall to the floor. Simon snatched it up in his other hand and thrust Daniel away, knocking the younger boy off-balance so that he sprawled on the floor.

  My irritation with Daniel evaporated in an instant. “Honey,” I said, sinking to my knees. “It’s okay. Simon’s just very busy right now.” I put out my arms, suddenly anxious for the feel
ing of his small body against my chest, his head on my shoulder.

  But instead of running into my arms, my son brushed past me and pounded up the stairs to his room. Just before he disappeared around the corner, I saw the silent tears that rolled down his cheeks.

  I exhaled a long, low breath and cradled my head in my hands. “Simon,” I whispered, drawing out his name into a petition, a plea, “couldn’t you have just let him look at the paper?”

  “I thought you wanted me to finish this project.”

  “I do. But I don’t see why it would be such a big deal to let Daniel look at the stupid bird.”

  “Don’t let Daniel hear you use that word.”

  I slapped my hands on my thighs and gave Simon a stony look. “What is with you these days? We are all trying so hard to keep it together, and I would appreciate it if you’d drop the attitude.”

  “You’re the one who said stupid.”

  It took great effort not to crawl across the floor and grab my brother by the shoulders so I could shake some sense into him. He was so antagonizing these days, so angry and yet seemingly indifferent to our pain. I didn’t understand how in less than half a year the sweet boy I had known could morph into such an exasperating young man. He’s hurting too, I tried to remind myself. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like he was giving in to selfishness and apathy.

  I almost threw my arms up. I almost said, I give up on you. But as my lips formed the words, God placed His hand over my mouth in an act of profound grace. I swallowed. Grasped what my rejection would have meant to Simon and shuddered.

  “Just get it done,” I murmured.

  In the kitchen I shoved the bills aside and pulled out another postcard. This one featured a startling prairie sunset, a peaceful farm outlined in charcoal against a red-orange sky that shimmered with warm, autumn tones. Even though the silhouette of the farm featured a giant corncrib and the comical shapes of at least thirty fat cows, it was idyllic. Nothing at all like our farm.

  Grandma had a heart attack, I scribbled. Come back.

  After that, the point of my pen stuck to the paper and I watched as a pool of black ink collected beneath the silver tip. I wanted to write more. To say, Your son needs you. But that wasn’t true. The truth was much harder to write.

  Impossible to accept.

  We need you.

  * * *

  When the boys were in bed and the house was dark, I spent many cold evenings shivering beneath our night tree. I had walked the route so many times that there was a path worn down in the snow, a narrow trail that marked my nightly passage so well, I no longer needed to bring a flashlight to illuminate the way. Habit told me how to weave between the trees, and when I finally stepped to the base of our decorated fir, I felt like I was entering a sanctuary. Like I was coming home.

  Birds and animals had indeed found our meager offering, and the boys enjoyed racing around the tree to see how many apple rings were missing and which pinecones had been knocked to the ground and stripped of seeds. They straightened things out, replenished garlands, and kicked the spent pinecones beneath the sweeping boughs. But for me, the night tree wasn’t nearly so complicated an enterprise. It was nothing more than a place to be still. A place where the air was crisp and sweet, like the first bite of an apple or a sip of cold peppermint tea. A place where my shoulders could fall back and shrug off the extra weight of everyone who depended on me. At least for a while.

  The night tree was a haven.

  Sometimes I prayed. But only sometimes. Mostly I just stood there and watched the sky spill moon silver on dark, graceful limbs as if the stars saw fit to anoint our little tree with light. It was a holy experience, wordless and beyond explanation, but I felt as if God was indeed there with me. Making the tree sparkle. Interceding for me when my heart couldn’t speak. And every once in a while, I felt like He whispered to me.

  The night after I penned my third postcard to Janice, I huddled beneath the tree and felt God touch me not once, but twice. The first invitation was nothing more than a breath of wind, a sigh so slight that it barely ruffled the popcorn swags. But though it seemed innocent, the hushed entreaty hit me with the blast of a full-force gale.

  At first my heart rebelled at the suggestion. It was too shocking, too fraught with potential disaster. But as I struggled to reject what had been so easily placed in my mind, a small part of me had to admit that it made sense. For the first time in a long time, I was given a reason to hope for Simon—for all of us. A reason to believe that everything could work out better than I had dared to imagine.

  But it was risky. Filled with vague implications that could put our family through even more heartache than we had already experienced.

  I banished the thought from my mind.

  It was old habit to close myself off after that. I wrapped my arms around my middle and made my mind as blank as the snowy ground at my feet. I thought if I was distant and unreceptive, He would ignore me. But when I finally turned to go, God decided to give me one last instruction. It was as clear and bold as if He had bent down and whispered it in my ear: Tell Michael.

  I froze. Tell him what? But of course, I knew. Tell him about Parker. About Simon and our struggles. About Grandma and my fears. Since his proposal more than two months before, my conversations with Michael had been reduced to hollow shopping lists, little more than the passing of pertinent but rather meaningless information back and forth. My fiancé knew the particulars of my life, but he didn’t know how I felt.

  Michael didn’t know that I loved my child psych class but that I often had to stay up into the early morning hours to finish my homework. He didn’t know that my job at Value Foods was tying me up in knots. Or that things with Simon had only gotten worse. He never guessed that Grandma’s heart attack had shaken me to the core—that everything I thought to be true became suspect the moment I found her slumped in her knitting chair. He didn’t know that I was exhausted and sad and frightened.

  Somewhere along the way we had lost each other. And though I didn’t like to admit it, I knew that the soft nudge I felt at the foot of the night tree was wholly justified. It was time to tell Michael everything.

  Thankfully, he came home the very next night.

  “I’ll be back for winter solstice,” he had told me the week before. “That’s fitting, don’t you think? The days will only get longer from there. . . .”

  It was a buoyant thought. Like the rest of our lives could begin to unfold from just one day. If only we could leave everything else behind and walk into that spring unencumbered. But I knew that although the nights might get shorter, there was a lot of winter left to live.

  Michael didn’t pull into Mason until eight that night. He called me from his cell as I was helping Daniel get into his pajamas.

  “Go ahead and put him to bed,” Michael told me. “I’ll be home for ten days—we’ll have plenty of time to hang out.”

  I buttoned the last button on Daniel’s pajama top and pulled back the covers of his bed for him. Do you want to stay up? I mouthed. Normally, he’d hop at the chance to postpone his bedtime, but rather than jumping up and down, Daniel crawled into bed. He shook his head no and reached for the book I had placed on his nightstand.

  “Okay,” I told Michael, angling the phone under my chin again. “He’s sleepy. You can see him tomorrow.”

  “Perfect. I’m looking forward to spending some time alone with you tonight.”

  “Me too. I have something I want to show you.”

  “Sounds mysterious.”

  “Not so much. But I think you’ll like it.”

  Michael promised to come by soon, and I hung up after my customary “Love you.”

  “Are we going to Michael’s house for Christmas?” Daniel asked when he heard the phone click off.

  “Not this year. Grandma would like to stay close to home, so we’re going to have Christmas here.”

  Daniel grinned.

  “I thought you liked going to the Vermeers’.”<
br />
  “It’s okay. Home is better.”

  It was the perfect thing to say. Honest and unexpected. It comforted me to know that even in the midst of our uncertainty, we could make our home a place that Daniel loved to be. I covered his face in kisses until he giggled and pushed me away.

  By the time Michael arrived an hour later, our house was a picture of serenity. Daniel was asleep, Simon had retreated to his room, and Grandma was curled up in bed listening to the Bible on the iPod I bought her for an early Christmas present. She wasn’t much of a TV watcher, and while she was perfectly capable of knitting and doing small things around the house, I didn’t want her to get bored and overexert herself in the first few months after her bypass. The iPod seemed like the perfect solution. She was already halfway through the Old Testament, and I was wondering what to download after she finished the seventy-seven-hour production.

  Michael slipped into the house without knocking, but I met him at the door. He was in a navy tweed peacoat with a cable-knit scarf wound twice around his neck. The creamy softness of the pale yarn contrasted sharply with the midnight of his hair, making him look exotic and strange, startlingly handsome.

  I exhaled a little, but the rest of my breath caught on my raw joy at seeing him. It flattened me that he could still elicit that sort of reaction, that I was still just an infatuated girl in his presence. Maybe I should have worried about my worn jeans and my dad’s ugly, old Mack jacket that I had thoughtlessly layered over a lined fleece. Maybe it should have hit me that Michael was too good for me—too beautiful, too brilliant, too perfect in every way—but it didn’t. I dashed across the space between us and threw myself into his arms.

  He seemed equally excited to see me. Instead of backing out of my fervent embrace or even pausing to say hello, Michael took my face in his hands and touched his lips to mine. It was as if we hadn’t seen each other in months. And in many ways, we hadn’t. For those moments in the mudroom, I kissed him with the pent-up passion of all the things we had left unsaid. With all the unexpressed delight of the adoration I still harbored for him. I wound my fingers through the long hair at the nape of his neck, the place where his dark ringlets just began to curl, and moaned.