The Memory Trees

by Kali Wallace

  She had told her father about the favors once when he was walking with her in the orchard. His visits had been brief and rare; he would drive a rental car up the driveway for a few days of stilted conversation and sleeping on the sofa, and he would leave again with a promise to return. That summer day in the orchard, listening to Sorrow chatter about buttons and bottles and Indian Head pennies, he had smiled an uncertain smile and told her she had a good eye. That night Sorrow had overhead her parents having a quiet conversation in the kitchen, Dad’s unintelligible murmurs followed by Verity’s sharp answer: “There is nothing wrong with our daughters, Michael.”

  After Dad went home that time, Verity told Sorrow not to tell anybody else about the favors.

  “It’s none of their business,” she had said. Her voice was tired, not angry, but her disappointment was sharper for its weariness. “It’s easier not to give them an excuse to ask questions. Let’s keep our own secrets, okay?”

  Sorrow had always known there was a line between their family and everybody else, a wire fence separating us and them, but she had never been entirely sure what side of the fence her father belonged on. Verity’s answer was clear: Dad was them, an outsider. Sorrow had promised she would never tell anybody again, and the memory made her squirm now: how easily she had promised, how little she had questioned the boundaries her mother placed around their world.

  The favors had been such little things, cherished but inconsequential, not worthy of secrets or fights. Sorrow was the only one who found them, because she was the only one who ever looked, making a game of it on the days when she was feeling most lonely and Patience refused to play with her. The top of the dresser was empty now, dusted and polished to a shine. They were all gone. She hadn’t taken any of them with her when she left.

  She checked the drawers of the dresser, then the nightstand. Looked under the bed. She found nothing.

  It wasn’t a big deal. They were only things. It would have been pointless for Verity and Grandma to leave so much clutter gathering dust for eight years. She looked in the top drawer again, fingers skittering expectantly into the corners. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t worth getting upset over.

  But—she hated to admit this to herself, hated how childish it was—she was upset. The collection had been hers. As a child she had believed, fanciful as it was, that the orchard revealed the favors to her on purpose. When a gray spring day needed to be brightened by a flash of color, when a tiresome summer afternoon needed to be livened with a doll or figurine or handful of buttons, she could trudge into the acres of apple trees and search until she found something curious and new. She was never alone when she had the favors. She could always imagine girls from long ago sharing their treasures as they played together.

  If she had been given a choice, she wouldn’t have left them behind. But nobody had asked her. She didn’t remember who had packed her things. Grandma, probably. Maybe Dad. Verity had been hospitalized by then.

  Sorrow pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes to chase away the sudden sting of tears. They were only things. Trinkets and toys. She hadn’t even remembered them until just now.

  The light through the window had changed: the sun was rising in a burst of yellow over the mountains. Sorrow looked around the room one more time, at the empty dresser and narrow bed, the suitcase spilling clothes across the floor. She grabbed her shoes and her Phillies cap and headed downstairs.

  The kitchen smelled of baking bread, and Grandma was standing at the sink, rinsing out a bowl. She gave Sorrow a smile and gestured to a teapot in the shape of a pumpkin. Sorrow had to check two cabinets before she found the mugs; everything had been rearranged, spices now residing where dishes had been, cups filling the space once occupied by canned goods.

  “Hey, do you know . . .” Sorrow paused, sipped her tea. “Do you know what happened to my little favors?”

  Grandma tilted her head slightly. Sorrow couldn’t tell if it was a question or not.

  “All those little things I used to collect from the orchard? I was just wondering if they got packed away somewhere.”

  Grandma’s mouth curved in a thoughtful frown; she didn’t reach for her pen and paper. It had been easy, once, to read Grandma’s expressions and gestures, to carry on a conversation with only the quirks of her lips as replies—or so Sorrow had thought, when she was little. Looking at her grandmother now, not knowing what she was thinking, she realized that maybe those exchanges had never been conversations in the first place. She had chattered a lot, and Grandma had smiled and nodded in response, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.

  “You don’t know?” she asked, to be sure she was interpreting the frown correctly.

  Grandma shook her head.

  “Okay. But you do remember—”

  Sorrow set the too-strong tea on the table. She didn’t know where Verity was. She couldn’t remember if her mother’s bedroom door had been open or closed—and how strange it was, to not have noticed what had once been her first warning of how a day might go.

  “You do remember them, don’t you? My collection?”

  Grandma nodded slowly.

  Sorrow looked away, uncomfortable under her grandmother’s gaze, and embarrassed by her relief. “Okay. It’s not a big deal. I can look for them later.” She glanced around the kitchen, spotted the bowl of pancake batter, the pack of thawing bacon. “Is there anything I can do to help? Since I’m awake at this obscene hour, you might as well put me to work.”

  Grandma nodded and waved for Sorrow to follow her out to the back porch. She picked up a covered bucket, handed it to Sorrow, and pointed across the lawn at the chicken coop. A soft mist rose as the morning sun burned off the night’s dew.

  “Feed the chickens?” Sorrow guessed.

  Grandma mimed reaching out and grabbing something.

  “Collect the eggs too?”

  Grandma patted her arm.

  “Okay.” Sorrow peeked under the towel; the bucket was half-filled with vegetables and grain. “I think I remember how.”

  The skin around Grandma’s eyes crinkled with silent laughter. Sorrow decided to take that as a vote of confidence. The dewy grass dampened her sneakers and tickled her ankles as she crossed the lawn. Unlike the house, the chicken coop looked exactly as old and shabby as she remembered: the once-white paint gray and chipped away, the entire structure sinking into the ground at one corner.

  The chickens clucked and jostled, and the rooster eyed her suspiciously as she unlatched the gate. “Shoo. Back up or you don’t get anything.”

  She hadn’t tended chickens since she was eight—at home all of their food came wrapped in plastic, thank you very much—and it had been her least favorite chore as a child. She had always wheedled and bartered to convince Patience to do it. But she remembered how to jam the vegetables into the wire and scatter the grain on the ground. The chickens set upon their breakfast with enthusiasm.

  The sound of a car on the driveway caught her attention. Sorrow turned and watched a mud-splattered Jeep pull up and park beside Verity’s Subaru. The driver was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt that were more grass stain than fabric: he had clearly come to work.

  The way Verity had described her feud-breaking Abrams employee as so helpful, the most helpful person she knew, had made Sorrow picture somebody obnoxiously peppy and interfering, the kind of polo-shirt-and-combed-hair rich kid who enjoyed taking pity on women who couldn’t handle their own farm. But he just looked like a guy. About her age, maybe a year or two older, with sandy blond hair beneath a battered Red Sox hat. He was yawning and heading toward the porch when he spotted her.

  “Hi,” Sorrow said, waving. “Good morning.”

  He hesitated a moment, then walked across the lawn to the coop. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” Sorrow said again, but she was distracted when one of the chickens began pecking at her shoe; she had dropped the feed on her own feet. “Go away, go away, go away, creature.”

  When she looked up again he
was smiling bemusedly, like he couldn’t quite decide if it would be rude to laugh.

  Sorrow said, “You can’t turn your back on these ferocious beasts. They’re shifty.”

  “You’re a lot bigger than them, you know,” he said.

  “I know,” Sorrow said. “But there are more of them than there are of me, and I’ve seen Jurassic Park. I know they’re pack hunters. I don’t trust their beady little dinosaur eyes.” She nudged another hungry chicken away with her foot. “I’m Sorrow. Verity’s daughter.”

  “I, uh, yeah,” the guy said. “I thought so. I’m Ethan. I help your mom and grandma around the farm.”

  “She told me. She made it very clear that you’re the reason the lawn actually looks like a lawn these days and not some kind of tropical jungle.”

  “Yeah, well, I try. Did you just get here?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And Miss P’s already got you doing the chores she hates.”

  “I knew it!” Sorrow said. The chickens clucked angrily and swarmed away from her. “I knew she was being sneaky, but she looked so innocent when she asked.”

  She reached for the latch on the gate, then remembered that she was supposed to collect the eggs too. The henhouse had been stuffy and small even when she was little.

  “I don’t think I’m going to fit in there quite as well as I did when I was eight.” She pulled open the henhouse door. “Wish me luck.”

  “Don’t let them see the fear in your eyes,” Ethan said.

  Sorrow flipped him off before she ducked inside, which earned her a laugh.

  When she emerged again, fresh eggs laid carefully in the bottom of the bucket, Ethan opened the gate for her. As they walked up to the porch, he pointed to her hat. “Phillies, huh? Not Marlins or Rays?”

  “Oh, come on, now,” Sorrow said. “There’s no reason to be mean, not when we’ve just met.”

  “I thought you were from Florida? Morning, Miss P.”

  Grandma smiled at Ethan and patted his arm.

  “I am, but it’s Phillies all the way in my family. My stepmom’s family,” she said, stumbling over the clarification. “Her uncle used to play for them back in the seventies. He came over from Cuba to play.”

  “Wow, really? That’s cool,” Ethan said. He took plates from the shelves and set them out on the table; it was obviously habit for him. “Anybody I’ve heard of?”

  “I doubt it. He was only a second-string outfielder for a few years—’76 to ’79.”

  “Still cool,” Ethan said. “So he wasn’t with them when they won the series in 1980? Won against the Royals—”

  “In six games,” Sorrow finished. “I know that, trivia guy, but only because it’s family legend for me. What’s your excuse? Spend a lot of time on Wikipedia?”

  “Sort of,” Ethan admitted. “My grandfather really loved it. He and I used to make a game of memorizing all the series and championships. He liked to spring random quizzes on me every time I visited. I got candy for a prize, so I was pretty motivated.”

  Sorrow stopped in the middle of setting out forks and stared at Ethan. “Your grandfather? Eli Abrams?”

  “Oh, god, no, not him,” Ethan said, shaking his head. “This was my grandfather on my mom’s side. Grandpa Eli wouldn’t—I can’t even imagine him going to a ball game. Or voluntarily talking to a kid.”

  “I remember him a little,” Sorrow said. “We used to see him around town.”

  What she remembered of Eli Abrams was the click of his silver-tipped cane on the pavement, the stale scent of cigar smoke wafting after him, and the way he would scowl and spit when Grandma passed. She remembered, too, watching Patience twist up clusters of dried grass to mimic the hair he had growing from his ears, and laughing so hard her stomach hurt.

  Eli Abrams had died when Sorrow was about seven. That night Verity had opened a bottle of cider to raise a toast of good-bye and good riddance.

  “So what happened? To your Phillies guy?” Ethan asked.

  “It’s kinda sad, actually,” Sorrow said. “He died during spring training. Got in a fight.”

  Sonia’s parents had a little shrine in their living room: photographs of a handsome young man with a wide boyish smile, a bat and a jersey and a hat, all kept meticulously dusted in a quiet corner. Sorrow knew all the stories about how his father had died in one of Castro’s prisons, and that was when he decided to leave Cuba forever, how the family would still be there if he hadn’t taken that boat and that chance, all the uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters left behind, and how after he died in a knife fight—drugs, women, baseball, politics; the story of that fight changed with whoever was telling it—the entire family left Philadelphia for Miami and never looked back.

  Seeing that shrine, hearing those stories, that was the first time Sorrow had realized somebody else’s family could have a history as strong as the one she had left behind—and she had no part in it. It was bad enough that there were so many people to keep track of, that their food didn’t taste like her food, that the cousins had games and jokes she couldn’t follow, that she couldn’t understand half of what anybody was saying because every conversation slid effortlessly between English and Spanish. That shrine for a lost young man, those photographs and memories, they carried stories she would never fit into, a history she would never share.

  There were footsteps on the porch and a few thumps as Verity stomped dirt from her shoes. Grandma waved them all to the table to eat when she came in, and over breakfast baseball talk gave way to small talk. Sorrow learned that Ethan had been doing work for Verity and Grandma for a few months; he also had a job at a restaurant in town, so he made it out to the farm only two or three times a week. He was trying to save up for college, he said, because his father would only help if Ethan went to the right kind of school.

  “Define ‘the right kind of school,’” Sorrow said.

  “Harvard, obviously,” Ethan said, “because as my dad loves to remind me, Abrams men have gone to Harvard for five generations, and I’m not going to be the one to screw that up. But if I can’t quite swing that, he’d settle for any of the Ivies.”

  “You’re better off making your own way,” Verity said. “You don’t need their help.”

  Sorrow glanced at her, eyebrows raised. That was easy to say if you weren’t the one trading a legacy spot at Harvard for a lifetime of student loan debt, but she didn’t know Ethan, didn’t know his relationship with his father and the Abrams side of his family. It sounded like a conversation they’d had many times before.

  Ethan shrugged, didn’t agree or disagree, and changed the subject. Conversation turned to the work that needed to be done around the farm, the projects they had planned for the summer, Verity and Ethan deciding what to trim, what to paint, when and how, and Grandma filling a page of her notebook with her own suggestions in elegant, spidery handwriting.

  Verity had never asked Sorrow about her own college plans.

  Sorrow could not recall a single time when they had ever talked about what she would do after high school. She talked about school during their phone calls, mostly because she never knew what else to talk about it, but always carefully, choosing her words so that she wasn’t complaining too much, but she wasn’t too excited either. Verity had never gone to college—Sorrow wasn’t even sure she had ever graduated from high school, and not knowing made her uneasy. Over the phone, from the safety of her bedroom in Florida with the air conditioner humming and palm trees swaying outside, Sorrow had always been wary of saying anything that would make her life in Florida sound so much better than the one Verity could have given her. It was easier to edit and elide than to risk saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

  Sorrow grew quieter and quieter as the meal went on. She barely even followed what they were talking about, much less had any idea how to help. She didn’t know how to be a farm girl anymore. She hadn’t even been able to feed the chickens without dropping half of their food on her shoes. She had forgotten so much in he
r years away, transformed into a girl who didn’t fit the puzzle gap she had left behind, and she didn’t know how to find her way back.

  9

  AFTER BREAKFAST VERITY asked, “What do you want to do this morning?”

  They were alone in the kitchen. Grandma was in the garden, Ethan digging tools out of the barn.

  Sorrow twisted a dish towel in her hands and took a breath. “I was thinking about bringing flowers to the cemetery.”

  Verity looked at her in surprise.

  “I thought we could both go?” Sorrow said.

  There was a long silence, and Sorrow’s hope crumpled. Verity was going to refuse. She was going to say no. But it was fine. It wasn’t the same as when Sorrow had been a child pleading for her mother to get dressed, to leave her bedroom, to eat lunch and walk through the orchard and lift her face to the sun. It wasn’t the same thing at all, this small overture, however much Sorrow felt she was flickering between then and now, the dark old kitchen and the light new one, memories clouding around the sunny morning with sickly uncertainty.

  “We can do that,” Verity said after a long silence.

  Sorrow’s smile was shaky and relieved. She turned away quickly.

  They gathered a bouquet from the beds around the house: Siberian iris, lily of the valley, peony. The last of the spring poppies were bursts of orange and yellow, now fading in the summer heat. She had known all of them once, the names of the flowers and trees, the shrubs and clover and grass. It hadn’t been terribly useful when she moved away and teachers expected her to know things like state capitals and presidents, but growing up in the orchard it had been the only knowledge that mattered.

  They walked down the hill and along the edge of the fallow field. The grass was high, and fat bees bounced lazily between flowers. The rusty iron skeleton of an ancient pickup truck was slowly being claimed by the earth; soil in its bed bloomed with wild daisies, and a whip-thin maple sapling was growing hopefully through the gap where the windshield had once been. There was a small bird’s nest tucked between the doorframe and the side mirror.