The Eve Tree: A Novel

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  Her life on the ranch had been a collection of days and weeks and years that had been sustenance and a reason for being, but also had pulled strength out of her like a long coiled rope. Her mother and father before her had been weakened in the same way as one cold winter after another made fissures in them that allowed their will and dreams to seep slowly away. Her father's life had been cut off early, but Catherine had witnessed her own mother's coming apart, the wandering mind and vacant eyes. Of course, it could have been the logging did that.

  She shook her head and stood up. No use dwelling on it. Her suitcase was open on the other side of the bed. This room had been hers until she left and Molly and Jack moved in. There were clean towels folded over the rack in the corner. A gilt edged mirror that had belonged to her mother sat propped on top of an old doily on the bureau. Antiques, they would be now. Three of her mother's Pomo baskets were propped on top of the tall bureau. They were woven so intricately. Catherine felt her eyes filling with tears as she moved them over the familiar shapes. After all these years, she still missed her so much. She blinked the tears back.

  She'd been too tired yesterday to unpack, so the suitcase was still full to the brim. She started to sort it, setting the package on top to one side. She'd think about it after she finished with her clothes. Molly had said she would empty a couple of the dresser drawers for her. Catherine pulled one of them open. Full of Molly's things. She pulled another open. Full as well. She sighed, opening a third. Empty! Now, then.

  She smoothed her clothing into the drawer, hung her skirts and blouses in what room was left in the closet, and set her knitting and her bible carefully on the night table.

  She had been unprepared for this, for Molly in trouble this way. It wasn't as though there hadn't been trouble over the years—Jack called almost every week in the beginning, questions up to his eyeballs—but it was all minor, something simple to counsel, easy to smooth over. For years now, Molly had been safer in the things of the mind. It hadn't been a concern.

  Jack was eaten up over her now, Catherine knew. The places in Molly that had shown to be threadbare in the past were bearing a hard weight with the threat of this fire. His distressed phone call wasn't something she could ignore. But now what? Molly showed the same resistance to Catherine's help that she always had, ready to strike if her mother got close.

  Catherine covered her face with her hands. All at once she was tired, shaking with age and hunger and weariness. It was possible she was too old for rescue, she thought, standing there in her nightgown. She dressed slowly, throwing glances at the package wrapped in paper that still sat on one side of the bed.

  She put her sturdiest shoes on and picked the package up. She unwrapped it carefully. Inside were two art canvases, small, unassuming, blank. Heaven knew when she thought she'd be painting. This new hobby wasn't something she talked about often. Even now she flinched away from the word "hobby." It meant so much more than that. Possibly to others that was all it amounted to; an old woman's hobby.

  The passion had started quietly, two or three years after she left the ranch. In her retirement community there was a sign in the recreation area that advertised art classes and she'd gone on a whim, standing stolidly in the doorway with her purse firmly clenched in one hand when she arrived.

  At the time she was drifting, that's the only way she could describe it. She was a piece of cotton on the wind, without the ranch. Painting tethered her to the earth again. She felt she'd been in danger of floating away entirely.

  No, hobby didn't describe the way she felt when she was painting, every part of her vibrating, the feverish need to get the color right, the tubes of paint she emptied. When she first began, she'd painted Bill for weeks; portrait after portrait of her late husband. She dreamed of him at night and woke with tears in her eyes, only to paint him again. With the smell of oil and turpentine, a sleeping part of herself had woken up.

  She no longer pined for her life at the ranch. Her apartment was sterile, her garden ridiculously small, her neighbor, Milly, so damn annoying, but painting had given her a way to be with herself that tending the land never had.

  Her life in Sacramento had taken on a beautiful rhythm. She ate breakfast and read a Psalm and then the paper, went for a long walk through the neighborhood, maybe to that exercise class for old people. Afternoons were for art. If she was too tired to paint, she sketched. If her hands hurt too much to sketch, she looked through an art book from the library. If she was feeling really adventurous, she boarded a bus and went to look at art at the Crocker Museum. And one brave day, she took a train to the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and walked through rooms filled with paintings, overwhelmed by what she saw. Surely she'd begun too late. She was too frail for this violent work of painting. But ceasing to paint was no longer an option for her.

  Now she had a brief pang of homesickness for her house in Sacramento, the bedroom window overlooking the kitchen window of her neighbor, Sunita, who was from India and who would be washing the breakfast dishes right about now.

  She picked up her roll of brushes and pulled one out, rubbing her fingers over the soft bristles. Something was teasing at her mind, something she shouldn't forget but had forgotten. All at once she remembered. It was a photograph she'd seen in one of the albums when she was packing Molly's boxes yesterday. She put down the paintbrush and left the bedroom to find it.

  In the kitchen, a woman was talking to Rain, her granddaughter. The two of them were bent over the counter, gazing seriously at the espresso machine. Catherine struggled to remember this woman's name. She was tall, much taller than Molly, taller even than Catherine, blond and large-boned. Greta. That's right. A friend of Molly's, not exactly a local, since she'd only lived in Humboldt for eight years. Her boyfriend was a big-time marijuana grower. Husband? One or the other.

  "I think you need to let the water heat up more before you try to use the steamer," the woman said, glancing up. "Oh, good morning Catherine."

  "Good morning, Greta. How are you keeping yourself?"

  "We're just fine, you?"

  "I've been better, but I'm making out,"

  She opened the cupboard and pulled out the white teapot. Rain was still struggling with the complicated machine.

  "There," she said, swiveling a knob or something or other. "Do you want a latté Grandma?"

  "If God wanted us to have lattés he'd have caused us to be born in Italy."

  Rain looked at the teapot in Catherine's hand.

  "Tea comes from China."

  "Well," Catherine said, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.

  "I'm scrambling up some eggs," Greta said. "You want some?"

  "That sounds nice."

  "You, Rain?"

  "No, I think I'll just have some toast."

  "Why are you cooking eggs here anyway?" Catherine asked. It was nosy, but it needed to be asked.

  "Oh, I drove over to see if anyone needed my help, and caught Molly and Jack and Todd just off to see the heliport. Moll asked if I could whip some breakfast up."

  "For who? Me?" Greta shrugged and nodded, cracking eggs into a large bowl.

  Catherine sniffed.

  "Well, just something quick," she said. "I need to get going."

  Get going on what, she wasn't sure. But leave it to Molly to have a practical stranger cook her breakfast on her first morning back.

  She left the unbearable sound of the steamer on that latté machine and walked into the living room. The family photo albums were in an open box on the floor beside the sofa, and Catherine grunted as she bent to look inside. She sat gingerly on the couch and paged through three of them before she found the photo she was looking for. It had been placed in the front pocket of the album, slightly curled at the yellowing edges.

  It was of Molly and her father sitting on a picnic blanket. Bill was laughing down at Molly, who was making a funny face back at him. Molly must have been around four or five. Bill would have come down sick not long after that. He died whe
n Molly was barely six.

  She ran her hand over the surface of the photo, and slowly traced her fingernail over Bill's face, an idea taking shape in her mind. There might be time. She wasn't useful for much else around here. They had her putting albums in boxes, for Pete's sake.

  Greta walked into the room with heavy footsteps and handed her a plate with eggs and toast on it. Catherine took it, while Greta peered at the photo from over her shoulder.

  "That's Molly's dad?"

  "Yes."

  "It's too bad, him dying when she was so young."

  Greta didn't know the half of it.

  "It was."

  She didn't say anything else, and eventually Greta walked back to the kitchen. Catherine could hear her and Rain laughing together like hyenas.

  There was an old easel around somewhere. She would have to find it.

  The women in the kitchen let out a peal of laughter again and Catherine shook her head. Too many people coming and going. She wasn't sure it would work. She heaved herself off of the sofa and went to search for a quiet space.

  Her wanderings took her outside. She reached for her cane, which was leaning against the house, and began to heave herself up the hill toward the goat barn. She hadn't been to see the goats in over a year.

  She let herself into the pen, around the back. There they all were, with their light colored goat eyes and long, soft ears swaying. How she had loved the goats. These were different ones, of course, but she felt like she had entered the past, as she walked through the gate and over to a bench in the shade. The goats followed her, nipping at her long skirt. She shooed them with her hand, scolded them.

  "Don't you misbehave, now. Just you let me sit and look at you."

  One dark brown doe stood with her head close to Catherine's lap, watching her. As Catherine scratched around the nubby horns above her ears, the doe closed her eyes. Catherine snorted a tiny laugh through her nose. Smarter than dogs, they were. Most people didn't know that. She leaned over and picked up a kid who had boldly come near. He was heavier than she had thought, and she grunted. He let out a bleat almost halfheartedly, it seemed to Catherine. She held him close and he calmed down.

  "That's right." They stood watching her, tails wagging, some still chewing, investigating her skirt with their long noses. They had saved her, after her mother got too weak to be much company. After her husband had gone. And they had worked her, day and night, for years.

  She heard footsteps. Gerard appeared from around the corner.

  "Catherine! Thought I heard someone talking over here." He smiled at her.

  "Well, hello there, Gerard. Haven't seen you in a long while."

  "No, too long, too long."

  A doe let out a stream of pebbly shit a little too close to Catherine's foot.

  "Whoops," Gerard said, reaching out to grab the doe and pulling her farther away.

  "You know I'm used to it," Catherine said.

  "Of course you are," he replied. "Don't want to get those city clean shoes dirty, though."

  Catherine looked down at her gray sneakers. They were awfully clean. She sighed. It was a different life she led now.

  "I should say, I'm really sorry about what's happening, with the fire," Gerard said.

  "That's nice of you to say." For the first time Catherine looked up at the ridge. No difference there besides some smoke. She'd seen smoke at the ranch in the past, of course. Sometimes even a forest fire thirty miles away would have them in smoke for weeks. But nothing had ever come this close.

  "Tell me, do Molly and Jack have anyone staying at the guest cabin right now?" she asked.

  "Well now, don't think so. I'm going back and forth from my mom's. She needs more help these days."

  "It's empty."

  "As far as I know, it is."

  That was a possibility Catherine would look into, then. She was about to hand Gerard the kid when he peed in her lap. Ah, goats. Some things she missed, some she didn't. She held him out and Gerard took him. Then she stood and shook her wet skirt out. She picked up her cane, ready to walk down to the guest cabin and have a look.

  SEVEN

  The landscape was so soft in the smoke. Everything took on a dreamy face, and the morning sun lit the trees as though there were jewels in the branches. Molly let her mind wander as Jack steered his truck down the curved roads. Todd and Amber were talking in the back of the cab and the sound of their voices washed gently over Molly. For miles there were the mighty sentinels, the trees on either side of the highway, then a clear space would swing itself open so quickly it was like a cold breeze in the face and they could see hills in the distance, sky beyond their sky. Gazing out the window she almost drifted off to sleep—it felt like she hadn't slept in years—but just as she was nodding off, they arrived at the State Park parking lot.

  Jack looked at her with worried eyes.

  "When are you going to get some rest?"

  "Later," she said.

  He hadn't wanted to bring her along. She had finally fallen asleep on the couch sometime after four in the morning, after she finished canning the last jar of tomato sauce, and she'd been woken before seven when she heard him and Amber and Todd in the kitchen, getting ready to take a trip to the State Park to see how the fire was doing. She was exhausted, but she wouldn't be left behind.

  One bird sang out briefly and then was quiet as they left the air-conditioned truck cab and slammed their doors. The air in the forest was already hot, though it was still early and they were in the shade. These trees were strangers, this wasn't their land. Molly felt smaller here, less relevant. As they walked they drifted toward one another. Molly and Jack held hands as they trudged across the ground of the old growth forest, covered with the fallen needles of many years.

  The straight edges of the heliport were startling under the canopy, and in the distance, like a mirage dancing at the edges of their eyes, they could see the telltale orange glow of a small, obedient fire.

  "You're right," Todd said, when they reached it. "It doesn't look all that big."

  Molly kicked at the dirt under her scuffed trail shoes, so tired. Earth was everywhere, she thought, feeling exhausted and panicky. What was it about earth? It could fall on you. It could cover you.

  She remembered the clods of earth hitting her father's coffin. Small pebbles broke out and scattered across the wood with a sound like hail against the kitchen window, a sound they all dreaded because something was always ruined when it hailed. It tore up the daffodils.

  He had been sick for eight months. Longer, if you counted all the time that the cancer cells had been multiplying inside of him without them ever knowing, he making the long drive day after day, to his office in town and back. Molly had just turned six. She had known he was sick for four months, but she had known he would die for only two weeks.

  It wasn't enough time. She brought him flowers every day at the end. She wished she had been able to bring him every flower that ever bloomed on the ranch. He should have had months of flowers.

  He died in the spring, full of pain. Molly's mother was grim, with lips that were always pinched, even when she sat on the bed next to Molly's dad, holding his hand against her heart, in the warmest, softest place. Her long black hair was always tied up in a hard knot. She hired men to help with the goats and only if there was an emergency—"Who are these idiots? Can't they figure anything out for themselves?"— would she leave Molly's dad's side.

  Molly took care of Molly, finding food where she could, trying to brush her tangled hair. She swallowed the huge lumps that would form in her throat. She brought her father flowers. She hid in a small space behind the sofa when tears had to come, streaming silently down her cheeks. Sometimes she saw her mother frowning at the small daisies and daffodils that lined the edges of her father's pillow, browning at the edges, but her mother looked at her with that thin-lipped face and didn't say anything.

  One day her brother Joseph jeered at her about the flowers. It wasn't until a couple of decades
later that she was able to forgive him, when she realized that he had been hurting too. At the time it cut her open like a blade.

  "Dad doesn't want your stupid flowers, Molly," he said, his face ugly. "Stupid piles of weeds all the way around his head like that."

  His timing and choice of location were bad, under the open window that led into their parents's bedroom. In a minute or two their mother was marching toward them, angrier than Molly had ever seen her. She gripped Joe by the elbow and hauled him toward the house, him yelling all the way.

  Later, as Molly hid with a wet face in her spot behind the sofa, she saw half of her mother come into view and stop. The one knee bent until Molly could see her mother's face, red-eyed and softer than usual.

  "Your dad wants to talk to you."

  He was in a lot of pain, so she was careful as she curled up beside him and listened to his quiet voice.

  "Molly, beloved. Please don't stop bringing me flowers," he said, pausing for his terribly slow, sad breaths. "I need the outdoors around me. Smelling beautiful. You always know where to find beautiful things. Bring them to me."

  The next morning her mother had silently handed Molly the scissors and she went out to the rose bushes and cut him an armful of roses. The day after that she gathered pennyroyal, heaping the small fragrant purple flowers on the bed, the dresser, the windowsill, in the bowl on the side table. Her mother smiled a small smile at her as she tiptoed out of the room.

  Catherine couldn't sleep in the bed with Bill anymore because it hurt him too much. She slept on some blankets on the floor beside the bed. Molly remembered tiptoeing to the door early in the morning, seeing the room with the smallest breeze rippling the white curtains, her thin father covered in a quilt, her mother on the floor beside him, one hand on her face, her unbraided black hair on the pillow all around her. Molly hurt so much for herself that it didn't seem like there should be room to hurt for anyone else, but just then it felt like her heart would break if she couldn't make space in the bed for her mother, where she belonged.