Beneath the Night Tree Read online

“I was distracted,” I muttered, trying to defend myself. “Daniel put worms in the bathtub again.”

  “Remind me why the bathtub is prime earthworm real estate?”

  “Who knows? Daniel’s mind is a mystery.”

  Grandma laughed. “Right you are. Why don’t you head upstairs and find some dry clothes? By the time you come down, I’ll have coffee on the table.”

  “Sounds great.” I did a quick scan of the kitchen counter and realized that she hadn’t started breakfast yet. “But I’m in charge of grub this morning. You, sit. Put your feet up. I’ll make French toast.”

  “French toast?” Simon enthused, stifling a yawn. He had materialized in the archway that led to our small living room, and I was stunned by how he seemed to fill the space.

  “Yup,” I told him, swallowing the feeling that I was looking at a young man instead of a boy. “Good morning, by the way.”

  He removed his glasses, rubbed his still-sleepy eyes, and replaced the plastic frames on his nose with a yawn. Finally taking the time to focus on me, he gasped. “Get some clothes on, Jules!”

  “It’s not like I’m naked.”

  “You’re wearing a towel!”

  Grandma and I exchanged amused looks as he hurried back to his room.

  “I think you may have scarred him for life,” she laughed when we heard his door slam.

  “Only if I’m lucky.” I was trying to be funny, but suddenly Grandma’s eyes glazed over. It was a quick change, a transformation that I was starting to get used to. She misted over easily these days. “Hey,” I whispered, tightening my towel with one hand and squeezing her arm with the other. “I was only teasing.”

  “I know.” Grandma sniffed and patted my fingers where they rested on the terry-cloth arm of her robe. She was staring at the place where Simon had stood as if she could see the faint glow of the aura he left behind. “But I worry about him.”

  “Me too.”

  “You don’t think we’re . . . ?”

  “Scarring him?”

  “Yes,” she breathed, the word so faint it was barely voiced.

  “No,” I assured her. “No, we’re not.”

  “But our house is so small.”

  “You mean cozy.”

  “We’re practically on top of each other, Julia.”

  “It draws us together.”

  “Simon is surrounded by women.”

  I laughed. “There’re only two of us. And two of them, I’ll remind you. The boys are hardly outnumbered.”

  “A little privacy would be nice. . . .”

  “Tell me about it,” I groaned, drawing her attention to my towel toga with a gentle hip-to-hip bop.

  Grandma shook her head and covered her eyes with one hand, but I could tell that the mood had passed. “We’re not exactly your typical family unit.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, bestowing a kiss on the lined knuckles that hid her expression. “We’re doing the best we can.”

  “Is it enough?”

  It was the question I asked myself every single day. But I didn’t tell her that. Instead I parroted the words I had heard her say a hundred times. A thousand. “It has to be.”

  I made my way upstairs, leaving Daniel to his morning routine, Simon to his preteen disgust, and Grandma to her thoughts. It felt selfish, almost indulgent, that I stole away when everyone was, for one reason or another, preoccupied with their own concerns. As I gathered a new outfit from the drawers of my old-fashioned bureau, I wished for a moment that I could crawl back between the sheets of my double bed. I’d yank the duvet over my head and pretend that Daniel was obedient, Simon well-adjusted, and Grandma a decade younger. Maybe more. I could use another adult in this house with energy to match my own.

  Twenty-four, I thought, yanking on a pair of khaki cargo shorts. I’m almost a quarter of a century old. Sometimes I felt double my age.

  And maybe I was. My life seemed divided in two. There was the mundane, the everyday, the work. The frustration and wondering and worry. The times when I felt like no matter what I did, it was the wrong thing to do. And then there were the moments that transcended it all. The laughter, the warmth, the awed understanding that in spite of everything, we were so blessed.

  Sometimes I woke up and believed, really believed, that God sang over us.

  Had I felt that way only an hour ago?

  “What do you want from me?” I asked the reflection in the mirror on my wall. The woman in question just stared back. I wasn’t even sure who I was talking to. Myself? The three people who depended on me downstairs? God? I might be failing all of them, but heaven help me, I was trying. It had to be enough.

  Straightening my Asian print T-shirt, I gave the hazel-eyed girl in the mirror a nod of encouragement. “You’re doing just fine,” I told her.

  I almost believed myself.

  Everything

  “You’re going to eat us out of house and home,” I told Simon, depositing the last two pieces of cinnamon French toast on his syrupy plate. I regretted the words the instant they were out of my mouth, but for once Simon seemed unaffected. His carb high must have elevated his blood sugar to near-lethal levels, I decided, laying a motherly hand on his forehead before I sat down.

  “I’m hungry,” Simon explained with a shrug, “not sick.” He drizzled yet more syrup over the remains of his breakfast and dug in.

  “He’s a growing boy,” Grandma affirmed, watching him eat with a fondness that I wished I could capture on film. Maybe Simon would understand if he could only see the way that she looked at him—that we all looked at him. You can’t fake love like that. I know. I’ve seen more than my share of people trying to conjure up love for me.

  My camera was on top of the refrigerator, poking out of the bulky, padded bag where I kept my zoom lens and extra rolls of discount film I picked up at Wal-Mart. I tried to be unobtrusive as I went for it, but Daniel seemed programmed to my moods. He squealed the moment I angled toward my most treasured possession.

  “Ooh! Take a picture of me! Do you like seafood?” He opened his mouth before I could assure him that I wasn’t a fan of seafood or his well-worn joke. “See, food!” he giggled around a mouthful. “That’s funny. Take a picture.”

  “No.” I narrowed my eyes in disapproval. “That’s gross. Besides, how did you know I was getting my camera?”

  “You had that look in your eye,” Simon told me while Daniel swallowed his food.

  “I have a look?”

  “Only when it comes to your camera.” Grandma smiled. “It’s a happy-thoughtful-wistful look.”

  “Wistful?”

  “Something like that.”

  I perched on the end of my chair and flicked the Canon on with my thumbnail. It had been one of my dad’s only extravagant purchases, a gift to himself when Janice was pregnant with me. It was still a beautiful piece of equipment, even if it was decades old. Holding the 1980s relic reminded me of the days when I was on the other side of the lens. Somehow the angles, the weight, the worn-smooth dials and knobs made me feel the heft of my dad’s hand in my own. I put the viewfinder to my eye so no one would notice when I blinked away the memory. Suddenly I knew exactly why Grandma used the word wistful.

  “Smile,” I said, centering Grandma in the viewfinder and adjusting the aperture until her eyes shimmered. But I clicked before she had time to arrange her face, and I was sure that the only point of interest in the artless portrait would be the reflection of me and my camera in her clear gaze.

  “I’m not sure the breakfast table is the best place for a photo session,” Grandma remarked as she got up to clear the dishes.

  “I was just . . .” I trailed off, not sure how to explain my need to immortalize my family, to capture them in still life where they would never change or age. Grandma might read too much into it. I didn’t dare risk her tears. “I just like taking photos.”

  “Uh, yeah, we know.” Simon exhaled in his low, muted laugh. “It’s pretty obvious, Jules.”

 
As if I needed evidence, Daniel was already off his chair and reaching for one of my prettier landscapes with a syrup-sticky hand. But Grandma was faster, and she whipped my framed rendering of a spindly spring tree off the buffet before Daniel could grab it. He moaned in protest.

  “Uh-uh,” Grandma cautioned, though she sounded anything but stern. “You know you’re not supposed to touch those.”

  “I wanted to show Mom,” Daniel complained.

  “I don’t need to see it. I took it.” I waved my son over, enticing him with the outstretched camera. “Want to take one? I’ll hold it for you.”

  The camera was too heavy for Daniel to manipulate, but at the prospect of pushing the weighted button, at the thought of producing that deliciously smooth and satisfying click, he catapulted himself around the table. He scrambled under my arms and onto my lap with a happy grunt. “Simon,” Daniel announced. “I want to take a picture of Simon.”

  “No way. Get yourself a willing subject,” Simon warned.

  I pointed the camera at my half brother anyway. Any ten-year-old who talked like that needed to be reduced to a giggling child. He was in there; I knew it.

  “Come on, Si. Give the camera a little love.” I held the camera as steady as I could and let Daniel position his finger over the shutter release.

  Click.

  “Work it. Work it . . . ,” Daniel said, mimicking me when I was in one of my sillier moods. “The camera loves you, baby.”

  Click.

  Simon stuck his tongue out.

  Click.

  It was the photo I had been waiting for: Simon, looking like the child he was instead of the young man he often seemed to be.

  “We’re done,” I assured him, trying not to smirk. “The torture is over.”

  “Not until you give me that film.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. That last one should make a nice poster.”

  Simon knew I was teasing, but he lunged at me anyway, springing out of his chair as if he had been coiled like a helix in his seat.

  I shrieked and launched off my own chair, clutching my camera in one hand and pressing Daniel to my chest like a human shield with the other. His legs dangled against my knees; his laughter bubbled beneath my hand.

  “Take the kid!” I shouted, backing around the table with Daniel between me and my flinty-eyed brother. “He snapped the shutter! It’s him you want!”

  Daniel struggled, squirming to loosen my grip. But his indignant grunts were shot through with a glee that he couldn’t contain or hide. The truth was, my son lived for this. For the thrill, the pursuit, the fall-down game of please don’t chase me anymore that really meant please do.

  I didn’t grow up with brothers. I wasn’t schooled in the ways of men. If I was honest with myself, what I knew about boys could be summed up on a Post-It note. But this came naturally, and as I dropped Daniel—making sure he landed lightly on his feet—I caught a glimpse of the grin that Grandma tried to conceal behind a cotton napkin. It was good, it was healing, to hear the laughter of children.

  “Can’t catch me!” I goaded them, fully aware that they could and they would. But I spun on my heel and ran all the same.

  The laminate floor was cool on my bare feet, but I didn’t even pause to kick on my flip-flops before I flung open the front door and sprinted across the porch. It was still early, and the warm mist of an August morning was just rising off the fields in a fog of damp that shimmered in the low-flung sunlight. I skipped the last three steps of the wide porch and landed on the dew-soaked grass, hair flying.

  “Gotcha!” Simon exulted when he caught a fistful of my T-shirt.

  I hadn’t realized he was so close. But I didn’t lose my balance. Yanking away from him, I lifted the camera over my head and kept running. “You’ve got nothing, kid!” I hooted when I felt his hands slip away.

  It was a lie. Simon had everything. Simon and Daniel and Grandma—they had my whole life in their hands. I loved them all as dear as my own heartbeat, my breath, my thoughts and emotions that circled untouched into the space around us like ripples without end.

  The next time I felt his hand brush my back, I slowed. It was a small thing, imperceptible, and Simon didn’t notice. He caught me around the waist. I felt him go limp—the easiest way to take me down—and I fell with him, a slow-motion tumble to the lawn, where I gave the dew my back and waited in expectation for Daniel to catch up.

  I still had the camera suspended over my head, away from the sparkling grass, and though I knew the position left me utterly defenseless, I didn’t care. I groaned when Daniel jumped on me, but I was laughing too hard for him to register the small sound of pain. Instead of backing off, he tickled me mercilessly until I was panting, begging for him to stop.

  “That’ll teach you,” Daniel said when he slid off my chest. He crouched on the ground beside Simon, looking down at me with all the amused contempt of a reigning conqueror.

  “Teach me what?” I moaned. My ribs ached and my T-shirt was damp, but I raised myself onto my elbows and regarded my boys with a thin smirk.

  Daniel looked to Simon for help. He had forgotten what had instigated the chase.

  Simon rolled his eyes. “I don’t like having my picture taken,” he reminded us both. Then, remembering that Daniel had been in on it too, he put his nephew in a headlock and mussed his already-unruly hair. “That means you, too, Danny.”

  “Daniel.”

  “Danny.”

  “Daniel.”

  “Stop it, you two.” I wiggled between them and turned on my camera. Holding my arms out as far as they would go, I rotated the Canon and pointed it at the three of us. “No more fighting,” I said. “We’re one big, happy family. Smile.”

  They did.

  I had no idea if our faces were even in the borders of the frame, but I hoped for the best. “Come on. We should go help Grandma finish cleaning up the kitchen.”

  Simon stood and offered me his hand. He pulled me to my feet and then hooked his arms under Daniel’s and lifted him from the ground too. I slung the heavy camera over my shoulder and stretched my own hands to both of the boys, optimistic for a single moment that they might reach out and let me hold their fingers as we walked back to the house. No such luck. Simon ignored me, and Daniel batted my arm away with a puppy growl that I assumed was supposed to be tough.

  “Won’t anybody hold my hand?” I lamented. “I don’t have cooties; I promise.”

  “Michael can hold your hand.”

  I pouted. “Michael’s not here.”

  “Yes, he is.” Daniel pointed toward the road, and when I spun around, I saw Michael’s car turn in to our long driveway.

  “What’s he doing here?” I was startled at how my voice suddenly seemed breathless, light as air.

  “He probably came to say good-bye,” Simon guessed. He didn’t turn toward Michael or stop to watch the car’s slow progress on our gravel drive like Daniel and I did.

  “He already said good-bye. Last night. Remember? You were there.”

  Simon shrugged and kept going. By the time he reached the steps of the porch, Michael was pulling up at the cement pad in front of our derelict garage.

  I didn’t mean to grin like an idiot whenever he was around, but it was hard for me to contain myself in the presence of Michael Vermeer. I was well aware that my hero worship of my longtime boyfriend bordered on pathetic, but I didn’t care. He was handsome, kind, funny, and studying to be a doctor of internal medicine. I loved telling people that particular detail, even as I loathed that it meant our relationship was conducted long-distance. Mason was a good six-hour drive from Iowa City—more on icy roads—and though Michael came home to see me, to see us, as often as possible, it was never quite enough.

  “Hey,” I called as he stepped out of the car. “What are you doing here?”

  “That’s a nice greeting.” Michael feigned a hurt expression, but even as his mouth turned down, he lifted his hand to my face and traced my jawline with his thumb. Layin
g a light kiss on my mouth, he murmured, “Good morning.”

  “Ewww!” Daniel groaned from his position at my side. “Kiss alert! If you guys are going to smooch, I’m going inside.”

  “Hi, buddy.” Michael grinned and raised his fist to my son.

  Daniel bumped knuckles, grinned back. “Wanna play football? I’ve got my new ball in the chest by the door.”

  “I’d love to, but I’m in a bit of a hurry. And I need to talk to your mom alone for a few minutes.”

  I watched Daniel’s face fall, but when Michael extracted a roll of Smarties from his pocket, my five-year-old was temporarily placated.

  “Next time,” Michael promised.

  As we watched Daniel race back to the house, I stepped closer to Michael and wound my arm though his. “Did you just bribe my son?” I whispered against his ear.

  “I most certainly did.” Michael was unabashed. “I was hoping we could talk alone.”

  I shivered when he pulled me into a tight embrace, but just as quickly as he drew me to him, Michael pushed me away. “You’re wet!”

  “We were wrestling in the grass.”

  “Apparently.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “You should be.” My eyebrows shot up, but before I could defend myself, Michael continued. “How dare you play with your kids? You are, without a doubt, the World’s Worst Mom.”

  It was our private joke, a rib that meant Michael thought I was the exact opposite of what he so loved to call me. If I punished Daniel and he cried, Michael called me World’s Worst. If I threw a birthday party for Simon and he was embarrassed, I was WWM . . . “and you know what that means.”

  I punched Michael in the arm for the backhanded compliment, but I let him hold my hand when he laced his fingers through mine.

  As I had sprinted across the grass only minutes before, I had thought, Everything. This is—they are—my everything. But with Michael beside me, I knew I hadn’t been quite honest with myself. He was a part of it too. A bigger part than I dared to admit.

  “Walk with me.”

  “Grandma’s in the house cleaning up breakfast all by herself,” I said, feeling guilty that I had left her to tend to the kitchen on her own.