The Wishing Trees

by John Shors

  He waited for her eyes to swing back to his. “I wasn’t myself. I’m still not. But I’m sorry. That was bloody rude of me.”

  She nodded, sniffing. “How’s Mattie?”

  He apologized again, then watched his little girl climb to the top of a boulder and extend her hand to Holly. “I don’t know. This trip—it’s been good, I reckon. A real change of speed. But I wish she’d laugh more. I wish she didn’t feel so different from her peers, so much older.”

  Georgia’s cell phone rang, but she silenced it. “Different isn’t always bad, Ian. Kate was different. You think a lot of girls graduated from college and just hopped on a plane and flew to Japan? She didn’t have a job, couldn’t speak Japanese. And yet she went. And she met you there.”

  “Kate’s mum hadn’t died.”

  “But Mattie has you. And that’s a lot. You think it didn’t hurt Holly that her father was more concerned about raising money for his precious museum than spending time with her? That he and I split up? Of course it hurt her. It really hurt her. But children are resilient. More so than adults. And though Holly still sometimes cries about her father, I’m the one who never dates, who won’t ever trust another man, who’s afraid. Holly moved on a long time ago. Just like Mattie will move on. She’ll learn to be happy again.”

  “She shouldn’t have to learn how to be happy.”

  “No, she shouldn’t. But she will.”

  “But—”

  “The days will turn into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. And Mattie’s pain . . . most of it . . . will go away. Whatever’s left won’t slow her down in life. It won’t define her. Believe me, Ian. I’ve seen enough of Mattie to know that she’ll laugh again.”

  Ian wanted to believe her. He wanted to ask her to repeat each and every word, to write her thoughts down so that he might read them every morning. He thanked her, shifting slightly on the bench to watch his little girl, who was hanging upside down at the top of a slide, preparing to descend toward where Holly waited below.

  SEVERAL HOURS LATER, IAN, MATTIE, GEORGIA, AND Holly walked toward downtown. Holly was their leader, holding Mattie’s hand as they descended a pedestrian pathway running parallel to a series of escalators that carried businesspeople from downtown to their homes in the hills. The escalators didn’t have steps but were flat and steep. Glass and steel canopies protected the moving walkways from the elements, though the sides were open.

  The tiled steps next to the escalators were broad and spaced far apart. Her feet following a long-ago established rhythm, Holly took four paces and then stepped down, repeating the process over and over. “Each day, Mattie, the escalators run down the mountain from six to ten in the morning,” Holly said, her voice as quick as her feet. “And they carry all the workers to their offices. Then the escalators switch directions, and from ten in the morning to midnight, they go up, carrying people home. My mom and I ride the escalators to school and work every day. We hardly ever have to take the stairs like we are now. But since we’re going downtown when most people are leaving, we’re going in the wrong direction and so we have to walk, walk, walk.”

  Mattie smiled, watching shoppers and businesspeople on the rising escalator. Many riders read magazines or newspapers. Others chatted on cell phones, sent text messages, or spoke with one another. “I want to take them up,” Mattie said. “All the way from the bottom to the top.”

  “And you can. After dinner, you can go all the way up to your hotel.” Holly stepped off the pathway, crossed a street, and then moved on to another set of stairs. She waved to a Chinese girl who was on the adjacent escalator, saying hello in Mandarin. “That’s Lian,” Holly said. “We go to school together. She’s got seven brothers and sisters. Imagine that. I bet they go through a lot of toilet paper.”

  “You . . . you can speak Chinese?”

  “I speak Mandarin. One of the Chinese languages. The most popular one. It’s really not so hard when you get used to it. Kind of like talking underwater.”

  Mattie’s gaze swept over Holly’s perfectly arranged hair, her white tights, and her plaid skirt. Mattie wished that she could speak Mandarin, that she got to ride an escalator every day to school. She glanced back at her father, who was talking with Georgia. “Do you like living here?” Mattie asked, watching a yellow double-decker bus pass on a nearby street.

  Holly nodded, smiling. “Remember when we went to Disney World? Hong Kong’s kind of like Disney World. Except there’s no Mickey Mouse.”

  “Or Aurora.”

  “Or Ariel or Jasmine or Belle or Snow White.”

  Mattie laughed. “Maybe we should dress up like we used to.”

  “We could have a dance party. At our apartment. You could borrow one of my Chinese dresses.”

  “Really?”

  Holly called out to a group of girls who had tied a long rope to the middle of a chain-link fence that bordered a parking lot. One girl held the other end of the rope and was swinging it around and around. Two girls jumped over the rope near the middle, while two other girls waited nearby. “Those are my friends,” Holly said. “Want to meet them?”

  “Okay.”

  Holly asked her mother if they could play for a minute. Still holding Mattie’s hand, Holly led her from the pathway, past a series of open-air restaurants, and to the parking lot. Once in the nearly empty lot, she greeted her schoolmates in Mandarin and then added in English, “This is my friend Mattie. From New York City.”

  The girls—who wore school uniforms featuring gray sleeveless dresses with blue shirts and maroon ties—stopped jumping and said hello to Mattie in English. Mattie was surprised by how nice everyone looked, with carefully parted hair, white socks, and black shoes. She felt silly in her old jeans, T-shirt, and lopsided braids. Wishing her mother had dressed her that morning, Mattie greeted the girls and moved to the back of the line. Her father, she saw, was watching her intently.

  Soon the rope was circling through the air. Holly’s friends laughed, jumping on two feet or one, twisting around and around, repeating a phrase in English that made Mattie giggle. When it was her turn to jump, she stepped next to the rope and watched it spin above and behind her. She timed her leap perfectly, and Holly and then the other girls began to chant: “Fire, fire, false alarm. Mattie fell into Bobby’s arms. How many kisses did she receive? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ei—”

  Mattie’s feet got caught in the rope and the girls immediately ceased their counting. Holly giggled, touching Mattie’s cheeks, which had turned red. “My friends are silly,” she said. “We’re always doing this at school, always making up new songs. Song after song after song.”

  “You jump,” Mattie said, eager to join in on the chanting.

  Holly took her turn, laughing as her friends’ voices rose, as the rope spun faster. She jumped until she fell, and the girls began again to take turns. Ten feet away, Ian watched the game, smiling, glad that he’d decided to contact Georgia.

  The friends continued to laugh and chat until a woman called from somewhere above. Two of the girls replied, and after saying good-bye and gathering up their rope, they headed toward an escalator. Holly and Mattie bid farewell to the remaining girls and then followed Georgia and Ian back to the pathway. They walked another five minutes down the mountain before the escalators ended. The land had become flat, and skyscrapers were abundant.

  Georgia led them to a steel-and-glass building. They took an elevator to a restaurant on the top floor, which provided a partial view of the harbor. Hundreds of well-dressed diners were gathered around lacquered tables, which held soups, whole fish, dumplings, steaming vegetables, deep-fried prawns, and about anything else the mind could imagine.

  A hostess took them to a table near the far window. Ian helped Mattie into her seat, wondering if he should have pulled Georgia’s chair back for her as well. Seeing the extravagant piles of food around them, he thought of Rupee, wondering how he was faring. Earlier in the day, before they’d met Georgia and H
olly, Ian and Mattie had sent Rupee another package. This one contained books for him and his orphanage—books about learning English, about science and math and art. The books were Mattie’s idea. She’d included another sketch for Rupee in the package—an image of Hong Kong at night.

  The waitress handed them menus, and the girls started giggling about something. “What are you two little ankle biters laughing about?” Ian asked, pretending to scowl.

  Mattie bit her lower lip, still grinning. “I told Holly how you ate chicken feet.”

  He rubbed his stomach. “You did? Well, they were quite lovely. A real treat to the old tummy. In fact, I reckon I’ll order another batch.”

  “Daddy!”

  Ian put a napkin on his lap. “You see, Holly, our little Roo here is afraid of such delicacies. Why don’t you order her something fun to try?”

  Holly nodded, grinning. “How about snake soup? Or a thousand-year-old egg?”

  “Snake soup?” Mattie asked, pushing a plate away from her on the table. “No way.”

  Ian chuckled. “Just order it in Mandarin, Holly. Roo will never know.”

  As the girls continued to banter, Georgia ordered a glass of wine. Ian asked for a local beer. She smiled at him and he wasn’t sure what to think. He felt guilty about sharing a smile with an attractive woman in the wake of Kate’s death. Georgia’s grin flickered the way a candle might in the wind, and he wondered if she had experienced a similar thought. When her wine came, she lifted her glass to his and took a long sip.

  Ian felt compelled to say something to Georgia, to thank her, perhaps. But he was torn. A part of him didn’t want to enjoy her company, didn’t want any sort of temptation to arise. Another side of him was grateful that they’d experienced a pleasant afternoon together, and he needed to let her know of his appreciation. Tapping his foot under the table, he drank again from his beer, thinking about Kate, wishing that she, rather than her friend, was sitting beside him, asking himself why she’d sent him in this direction.

  The waitress returned, and Holly spoke in Mandarin, laughing between words, pushing her bangs from her face. The woman smiled and left. “What did you order, Princess Holly?” Georgia asked, aware that Ian was uncomfortable and trying to lighten the mood.

  “It’s a secret.”

  “It’s not fair that only you can speak Mandarin,” Georgia replied. “Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean that my brain shouldn’t be as quick to pick up a new language.”

  Holly shrugged. “Well, you could study with me more. I’ll quiz you tonight.”

  “Did you order the snake soup?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  Mattie scooted her chair away from Holly’s. “I don’t want to see any snakes.”

  Rolling her eyes, Holly moved her chair closer to Mattie’s. “It’s not like that, silly. The meat is all cut up. Like pieces of chicken.”

  “But it’s not chicken. It’s snake.”

  “And it tastes like chicken. Cluck, cluck, cluck.”

  “Yuck.”

  Georgia turned from the girls to Ian, who held a menu but was looking at Holly’s painted fingernails. “Do you know what you want?”

  “No, not yet. My mind’s as stuck as a cat in a tree.”

  She opened her own menu, thinking about the time their two families had spent together in Disney World. Ian had been wonderful—entertaining the girls, going on all the rides with them. She had been so happy for Kate, because Kate had found a man like Ian. Georgia didn’t believe that many such men existed. Half the fathers she knew would rather spend a Saturday afternoon on a golf course than be with their families. Ian, Kate had always told her, was the opposite. Though running his company often consumed him, once his work was done, his family became the center of his universe.

  And yet now he seemed different. Of course, that was to be expected after Kate’s death. But he also appeared uncomfortable, as if a part of him regretted being here. Georgia continued to look over the list of entrees as the girls laughed about snakes. For a reason unknown to her, she remembered asking her husband to make love to her when she was five months pregnant. They’d been eating dinner, and her suggestion had caught him off guard. He had avoided her eyes and spoken of unfinished work. At first Georgia had thought that her pregnancy made her less desirable in his eyes. But as the weeks had passed, he’d grown increasingly distant. He came home from work sad and returned to work happy. Nothing had made sense—at least until Georgia met his intern at an exhibition’s opening and saw how they looked at each other.

  In many ways, Ian now acted the same way Frank had. Ian seemed distracted and distant, glancing toward the skyline, perhaps wanting to be somewhere else. His body leaned away from hers, as if the proximity of their legs was something to carefully heed. He appeared more ill at ease than he had at the park, and she wondered what had changed. She didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, and without crossing any lines, she hoped to put him at ease.

  “It’s okay, Ian,” she said quietly, leaning closer to him. “All of this is okay.”

  Looking up from his menu, he glanced at the girls, and then at Georgia. He didn’t know if she was right, but he understood that for Mattie’s sake, he needed to brighten up. “I’m sorry,” he replied, nodding. “I was just . . . trying to decide whether to order the sea slugs or the bird’s-nest soup.”

  Georgia smiled. “I wouldn’t try the slugs. They taste like slimy rubber.”

  “Did you hear that, Roo?” he asked. “Georgia recommends the sea slugs.”

  “Far from it,” Georgia replied, lifting her wineglass.

  Mattie shook her head, her braids rising and falling. “I don’t trust anything he says.”

  Georgia set down her drink. “You’re a smart girl.”

  The waitress came and took their orders. Mattie removed a red pencil from her bag and began to draw a bowl containing live snakes on the paper place mat in front of Holly. The girls continued to laugh, and Ian was pleased to see Mattie acting her age, being silly and immature and a little too loud. This was how she had acted every day before Kate had gotten sick. This was his little girl.

  “I reckon you’re going to spoil Holly’s appetite, Roo,” he said. “Should you draw something else?”

  “No way, Captain,” Mattie replied, handing Holly a blue pencil.

  “I’ll do the sea slugs,” Holly answered. “They can have a party with your snakes.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  Ian smiled, inwardly thanking Georgia for reminding him of what was so obvious—that Mattie was enjoying herself. “You’re right,” he said, lifting his glass in Georgia’s direction. “This is good.”

  She sipped her wine. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” she said softly. “And there’s no reason why we can’t continue to be friends. That’s all I want. So don’t worry.”

  “I’ve got a thick Australian skull. Sometimes, I reckon, things need to be spelled out for me.”

  “Kate was good at that.”

  “She was a bloody genius at that.”

  “And do you know what else?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a wonderful father. To bring Mattie here, halfway around the world. To do what you’re doing.”

  He didn’t turn from her stare. “You did the same thing.”

  “I ran away.”

  “No. That’s not what you did at all. What you did took a heap of guts. And look at you now . . . all polished and refined. An international banker. A lovely little girl by your side. Whatever you did . . . it worked out quite well. And I reckon that wasn’t by chance.”

  Georgia smiled as Mattie drew a bird’s nest. “She’s good. Really good.”

  “You’re as right as rain, though I have no idea where that skill came from. Neither Kate nor I could draw a proper stick figure.”

  “Daddy has two left hands,” Mattie said, giggling.

  “Watch it, you little bugger.”

  The waitress returned with steaming app
etizers and soon a tray of oversized entrees. The food was set down and split among everyone. Mattie ate the sea bass, the glass shrimp, the sweet and sour bok choy—everything but the snake soup. Like the dozens of families around them, Ian, Mattie, Georgia, and Holly smiled and shared stories, dining on ancient recipes as the sky darkened.

  When dinner finally ended, they stepped outside the building, and Mattie and Holly begged to reunite the next day. Since that would be Saturday, Georgia welcomed the idea. Ian went along with it as well, helping to plan their rendezvous. Farewells were exchanged, Mattie and Holly hugging like a pair of best friends. While Georgia and Holly hailed a taxi, intending to swing by a bookstore, Mattie and Ian walked toward the escalators, which were all going up.

  Mattie took her father’s hand, leading him across a street, stepping onto an escalator. “That was fun,” she said, rocking forward and backward on her feet, reminding him of the ants-in-her-pants little girl she’d once been.

  “Holly is sweet, isn’t she?”

  “She makes me laugh.”

  “I reckon you make each other laugh.”

  Mattie nodded. “Daddy?”

  “What, luv?”

  “I think . . . I think Mommy’s happy that we’re here.”

  “You do? What makes you say that?”

  Mattie pursed her lips as the escalator continued to roll uphill. “Because we’ve been telling her. We’ve been leaving our messages in the wishing trees. And I’m sure she’s glad to see them.”

  Ian heard the innocence, the beauty, and the faith within Mattie’s words. He wanted to share the same thought, to believe what she believed. He felt the softness of her hand against his, her small palm fitting so easily within his own. She was a part of him and a part of Kate, and the best link to what remained of them. Thinking about this link, he wondered if Mattie understood things that he didn’t, if her connection to Kate at that moment was stronger than his.

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ve seen some good wishing trees here, up in the mountains.”

  “Me too.”

  Bending down, he kissed her forehead. “Want a lift, luv?”