The Wishing Trees

by John Shors

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Well, she still lucky. If you find beautiful thing and give it to her, then I think she lucky. Same, same for girls.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Okay, you go back inside, so they no wonder where you are, so they no think I am your new girlfriend. See you tomorrow.”

  “Good night. Thank you for the food.”

  “Good night, Mr. Sea Glass Man.”

  Ian watched the Vietnamese woman depart, wondering if all the locals assumed that he and Georgia were married. “Sorry, my luv,” he whispered, looking into the night sky, which shimmered with starlight.

  Back inside the dress shop, Binh had finished measuring Georgia and was talking with Mattie about silk blankets. Ian entered the room, leaned against a wall, and listened to his daughter and Holly haggle with Binh over the cost of blankets. Mattie wasn’t a good negotiator, and Holly seemed frustrated when Mattie prematurely agreed on a price. But Mattie was happy, which prompted Ian’s smile to return.

  He handed Binh some bills and lifted a skewered squid from a plate. “Thank you,” he said. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning. Before we buzz off for Dalat. Reckon you can get the dresses done?”

  Binh rubbed the bills for good luck. “We work on dresses all night, and we sleep tomorrow. This perfect for us. Especially for Kim. Now she can talk all night.”

  “Well, have a good chat.”

  “You too.”

  Farewells were exchanged, and Ian led Georgia and the girls out onto the street. He took a bite of the squid, which was warm and sweet. “Might I show you something?” he asked.

  Everyone nodded, and he walked over to a pair of bicycle taxis. After telling the drivers his intentions, Ian and Mattie got into one seat, while Georgia and Holly occupied the other. The drivers pedaled hard, and the contraptions gathered speed, easing into the empty road. Two-hundred-year-old storefronts passed. Streetlamps flickered. Mattie and Holly reached out to each other and clasped hands. One driver smoked a cigarette while his companion spoke to him in Vietnamese.

  The bicycle taxis turned down a dirt road, rumbling ahead like a pair of racing tortoises. As the lights of Hoi An faded behind them, the stars strengthened. Coconut trees bordered the road, rising high, their fronds whispering in the wind. Soon the surf could be heard. A beach appeared, gray and massive.

  Ian paid the drivers and asked them to wait. Taking Mattie’s hand, he led her forward, toward the sea. Georgia and Holly followed, talking about the beauty of the night, which seemed to increase with each passing step. Layers of stars, as countless as the grains of sand beneath their feet, sparkled in a sky that was filled with too much light to be considered black. A few hundred paces to their right, a group of Vietnamese had gathered around a bonfire and were singing. The bonfire partly illuminated the nearby sea. The singing mingled with the crashing of waves.

  “Here’s a beaut of a spot,” Ian said, lying down on the sand twenty feet from the water and seemingly a handbreadth from the sky. “This is what we’d do in the bush,” he added. “When my mates and I were young. Sometimes we’d light a campfire. We called it a bush telly. But it was better to watch the stars in the dark.”

  Mattie, Holly, and Georgia also moved to the sand, staring up. At first, no one spoke. The sky twinkled. Occasionally, shooting stars flashed past forgotten constellations, disappearing above the sea. Several satellites—no more than specks of light—drifted, their steel hulls reflecting sunlight from the other side of the world. No moon was present. Nor were any clouds. The sky was alone with its worlds and histories and monuments.

  Georgia realized that her ex-husband, despite his role as a museum director, as someone who loved beauty, had never encouraged her to do anything like gaze at stars. “What do you see?” she asked, listening to the waves, watching a satellite.

  Holly gathered sand in her hand and let it fall through her fingers. “I think the shooting stars are the best. It’s like . . . an invisible giant is waving a bunch of candles above us. And they’re going out, splash, splash, splash, when they fall into the ocean.”

  “How about you, Mattie?” Georgia wondered. “What do you see up there?”

  Mattie saw her mother in the stars, saw the beauty and grace and strength of someone who had made her feel free. But she wasn’t sure if she should say as much. She didn’t want to make her father sad. On the other hand, she didn’t want to lie to Georgia either. “I . . . I see my mother,” she finally replied, tears gathering in the hollows below her eyes. She felt guilty that she hadn’t thought about her mother all day. And now, looking at the sky, she feared that she would forget her mother’s voice, her face. Feeling panic rise within her, she reached for her father’s hand. He took her fingers in his, squeezed her flesh, and she knew that his thoughts followed in the footsteps of hers.

  “Your mum was beautiful,” he responded, unsure what to say in front of Georgia and Holly. “And you’re right. She was just like this sky. She wasn’t a single star, but a heap of them.”

  Mattie blinked, her tears stinging. “All of them.”

  “You know what else is beautiful, luv?”

  “What?”

  “The four of us, lying here next to the South China Sea, looking at this lovely sky. We’re four friends. Four mates, really. And I reckon that’s a beautiful thing too.”

  Mattie nodded, squeezing his fingers. “We’re . . . kind of like a family.”

  He stiffened, turning toward her. “A family of friends.”

  Georgia, who lay on the other side of Mattie, wished that she could see Ian’s face, that he would build a campfire with Holly’s help, and that the girls could throw sticks into it while she rested her head on his chest. Yet she would never encourage him to touch her, no matter that the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to feel him. “I don’t like the circumstances that brought us together,” she said, her heartbeat quickening. “But I’m glad we’re together. There’s no place I’d rather be right now, no people I’d rather be with.”

  “Me too,” Holly said, rising to her knees and moving closer to Mattie.

  As Holly reached out for Mattie, Georgia asked herself if she had said too much. Can he sense what I want? Is it awful for me to think about him when Mattie’s so close to tears?

  When Ian made no reply, she wondered where his thoughts were wandering. She mused over what he’d said, and the silence that now lingered. Unable to bear such silence, she sat up. “Do you want a fire, Mattie?” she asked. “Like those people down there? Let’s build a fire and tell stories.”

  Mattie stood up. Ian moved more slowly, but his eyes found Georgia’s in the darkness, and she thought his gaze might have lingered. Why it lingered, she wasn’t certain, but she didn’t turn from him, and for a moment she felt exposed, as if she were lying naked in a bathtub before him. Something seemed to briefly connect them, to draw them together. Then he turned toward the girls and that something was gone.

  THE FOLLOWING DAY, THE FOUR TRAVELERS SAT in the rear of the van, watching the Vietnamese mountains pass. As they neared Dalat, the mountains grew—full of towering evergreens, rivers, waterfalls, and wildlife. The air smelled like pine and sap. The road was empty, the forest unblemished. Georgia, who had explored the mountains outside Seattle, felt as if she was in the Pacific Northwest. She had never seen this side of Vietnam and was glad that they’d decided to travel to Dalat, which had long been a summer destination for wealthy Vietnamese.

  They’d stopped twice on the way, and Khan had left crutches with someone he trusted on each occasion. Everyone was saddened by the thought of children needing the crutches. They had met two such children—young boys injured by the same bomb. In a way, the boys were lucky. The bomb had taken only a foot from each. With crutches they would be mobile. They could live their lives. As Khan had explained to them how to use the crutches, Mattie had led Holly into a nearby store, where they pooled their money and bought two fishing poles. The boys could har
dly have acted more surprised to receive the gifts.

  Now, as Khan headed up the mountains, only three sets of crutches remained in the back of his van. Mattie found it hard to believe that bombs existed in the beautiful forest around them. She had asked Khan where the bombs were, and from time to time he squinted and pointed out craters in the landscape. Some of these were old and overrun with foliage. On her own, Mattie would never have noticed the dimples in the earth, most of which were filled with water and looked like small round ponds. But other craters were obviously of a more recent origin. Khan told her that long ago the area around Dalat had been cleared of such ordnance, but that in the wilderness, countless bombs remained.

  Mattie knew that the Vietnamese believed in ghosts, and as she looked into the forest, she wondered if the dead might still inhabit the woods. She wasn’t sure what to think. The mountains were so beautiful and lush. She had never seen so much green, and surely the fields and valleys, streams and waterfalls were places where life flourished. Yet these same places had seen a war, and though Mattie didn’t know much about war, she was certain that dying so suddenly and painfully might trap someone between worlds. Her mother, she knew, had time to plan for her death, to understand it. And her mother hadn’t been afraid. She had told Mattie as much many times, and Mattie had believed her. But dying in a forest with explosions and pain and sadness must have been even harder than what her mother had faced.

  Taking out her sketch pad, Mattie outlined mountains and pine trees in black pencil and then filled them in with green. She didn’t draw any ghosts but added footprints to the bottom of her image, as if someone had walked through the woods. Though she was unsure why she had included the footprints, it felt right to put them in her drawing. The forest hadn’t always been so empty. And to make it appear empty felt wrong—both in terms of the people who had died within it and because she believed that her mother wasn’t gone.

  Dalat materialized through her window as they reached a summit. The van dipped and the city vanished, reappearing a few minutes later. A river ran beside the road, churning over boulders, falling straight down a cliff face in a massive exhibition of strength and sound. Mattie had never seen such a waterfall, not even in the Himalayas. The air felt cooler in its presence, and she breathed deeply, drawing moisture into her lungs.

  In its lush mountain setting, Dalat looked far different from the other Vietnamese cities Mattie had visited. Though the architecture was similar—with a variety of white three-story buildings comprising the city center—the nearby forest seemed to dominate the concrete structures. Ponds, streams, and pines were also an integral part of Dalat, creating multiple havens of green.

  They drove to a hotel where Ian had made arrangements. The four travelers removed their luggage from the van, thanked Khan, and checked in. Since it was midafternoon and everyone was tired from the long drive, they retired to their two rooms, located across the hall from each other. While Ian and Mattie worked on fractions, Holly practiced her Mandarin and Georgia took a bath. Outside their hotel, scooters beeped, red flags flapped, and uniformed children walked home from school.

  Ian showered, shaved, and put on a white dress shirt and his new olive green cashmere suit. He slipped the three sea-glass necklaces into his pocket. While Mattie changed, he looked out the window, thinking of Kate, of how he regretted having taken her for granted. He hoped that wherever she was, she forgave him.

  Soon Mattie stepped from the bathroom, wearing her new dress, and looking to Ian like a reincarnation of everything beautiful in the world. He told her as much and they embraced. Taking a comb, he carefully drew it through her hair, moving as he’d seen Kate move, remembering his loved ones together. Only when Mattie’s hair was perfect did he set down the comb. She looked lovely and precious and somehow too old. He kissed her brow, holding her with both of his hands, as if she would otherwise take flight.

  They met Georgia and Holly in the lobby. Though no one would ever be as beautiful to Ian as his little girl, Georgia was striking in a violet sleeveless dress, and Holly’s smile seemed to brighten the room. Ian held out his hands, which Mattie and Holly took. He led them outside, to a waiting taxi. After helping Georgia into her seat, he moved to the front and told the driver where to take them.

  As Georgia and the girls talked about their dresses, Ian watched the city pass. He twisted around, wanting to see their faces behind him. Georgia asked Mattie if she needed any makeup, and seeing that Holly wore lip gloss, Mattie said yes. Rather than handing Mattie the gloss, Georgia dipped an applicator into the opaque liquid and made smooth and steady strokes on Mattie’s lips.

  The driver turned down a freshly paved road. The city seemed distant, and the road was lined on both sides by pine trees. After a few minutes, they came to a wooden two-story restaurant on a hill overlooking a lake. The shoreline was surrounded by flowering trees and grass. In the distance, green mountains reached for the sky, which had turned a deep blue as dusk approached. The lake was the shape of a turtle. Drifting on its surface were paddleboats designed to resemble swans, most of them filled with parents and children, though several contained couples who sought distant stretches of water.

  Ian led Mattie, Holly, and Georgia into the restaurant. A hostess greeted them, offering a table on the upstairs veranda. Most of the outdoor tables were already occupied by well-dressed Vietnamese, who faced the lake and sipped various drinks. Ian helped Georgia, then Holly and Mattie into their chairs. He sat opposite Georgia and was the only one who didn’t have a view of the lake.

  After a waitress came and took their drink orders, Ian reached into his pocket. “I’ve got something for each of you. Something I found on the beach yesterday. A keepsake of our walkabout together.” He handed Mattie, Holly, and Georgia each a necklace, being careful to give the right item to the right person. Whoever had made the jewelry had wrapped the top and bottom of each piece of sea glass with a strand of silver wire. As Ian had suggested, a thin strap of black leather allowed the sea glass to hang around the wearer’s neck.

  Mattie was the first to put on her necklace, and she lifted the sea glass, inspecting it carefully. “I love it, Daddy,” she said, stroking the glass. “You found it? Really?”

  “Yeah, luv. When you ladies were frolicking in the water.”

  Georgia draped her present around her neck. “They’re wonderful, Ian. Just wonderful. Thank you so much.”

  “It’s my pleasure. A real honor.”

  Holly, who had never been given a piece of jewelry by anyone other than her mother, continued to hold her necklace. “You . . . you got this . . . for me?” she asked, her fingers still, her gaze on Ian.

  “Of course. You’re Mattie’s mate. And mine too.”

  She focused on the sea glass, unaware that her eyes glistened. “But it’s so . . . beautiful.”

  “As are you, Holly. As are you.”

  Georgia smiled, helping Holly put on the necklace. “It goes perfectly with your dress. With both your dresses.”

  Holly’s fingers remained on the necklace. She felt its contours, using her feet to shift her chair closer to Ian’s. “Thank you,” she said, her voice softer and slower than usual. “It’s perfect. You found a perfect necklace for me.”

  “Sea glass won’t be around much longer,” Ian replied. “Everything’s plastic these days. And plastic thrown into the sea never turns into anything beautiful. Unlike what I found on that little beach.”

  Mattie turned toward her father. “But we didn’t find anything for you.”

  “That’s all right, Roo. You’ve already given me enough.”

  Their waitress returned with their drinks and a small mesh cage that resembled a lantern.

  “What’s this?” Mattie asked.

  The woman gestured toward the lake. The sun was setting and the lights of fireflies pulsated above the water and nearby shore. “See the children?” she replied. “See them catch the fire bugs? You can catch them down there too, then bring them back up to your table.
”

  Mattie saw that groups of children were chasing the fireflies and putting them into similar cages. She stood up. “Can we go, Daddy? Please?”

  “Let’s all go. It looks like a heap of fun.”

  Ian took off his suit jacket, hung it over his chair, and followed the girls and Georgia to the stairs. Holly turned around, smiling at him, still touching her necklace. He winked at her, carrying the mesh lantern, glad that the hotel manager had told him about the restaurant. It seemed perfect, and his spirits soared as he watched Mattie and Holly hurry toward the lake in their new dresses. The land had been carefully manicured—the grass cut thick and short, clumps of flowering bushes planted next to smooth boulders. Fireflies were everywhere, lighting for a second or two, then becoming almost invisible in the growing darkness. Children chased the insects, while parents helped collect them, putting the fireflies into glass jars or lanterns from the restaurant.

  Mattie and Holly began to pursue a pair of fireflies that hovered near the base of a flowering tree. They laughed as the insects evaded them, disappearing and then reappearing in a flash of light a few feet away. Ian chuckled, thinking that neither Mattie nor Holly had chased many fireflies. Growing up in Manhattan and Hong Kong didn’t provide an abundance of such opportunities.

  Holly was the first to snare a firefly and she ran to Ian, giggling. He opened a miniature door on the bottom of the lantern and she shook her hand until the firefly flew into the cage. Mattie hurried over, repeating the process, trying to move quickly while Holly ran toward a group of fireflies that a Vietnamese toddler was chasing without success.

  As the girls stalked more fireflies, Georgia shifted closer to Ian, lifting her camera. She took several pictures of Holly and Mattie, then turned to him. “Let me get one of you,” she said. “In your fancy new outfit.”

  He grinned and reached for a firefly, jumping as it rose above his outstretched hand. “Look at her go,” he said, stepping to his right, staying beneath the firefly. “What a little beaut.”