Beneath the Night Tree Read online

  I left the house as quietly as I could, squeezing out a one-foot crack in the screen door because I knew it would squeak if I opened it any farther. Once on the porch, I breathed a little easier. At this one moment in time, I had no obligations, no responsibilities. Nobody was expecting me to do something or go somewhere. Nobody needed me. I popped the top on my Coke and drank half of it in one long swallow. I’d be up for the better part of the night since caffeine always did a number on me after supper, but I didn’t care.

  The sun had set while I was putting Daniel to bed, but the remnants of a late summer twilight still smoldered against the far horizon. As I watched, the fields that had been flush with crimson faded into a fierce, living obsidian. All was quiet, but the world seemed strangely animate. The fireflies that had decorated our midsummer nights were long gone, and the cicadas that had screamed their unearthly tune were silent. Yet the air around me lived. I breathed it in and took off down the steps.

  I wished I were the running type—or at least the sort of girl who had a goal in mind. Sometimes I felt if I could only decide on a destination, the journey would come easily. But I wasn’t nearly so farsighted. More myopic, focused on the now, the day-to-day. So instead of lacing up a pair of tennis shoes and sweating out my frustrations on a long, punishing jog, I slapped across the lawn in my worn flip-flops and took off down our gravel driveway at a snail’s pace. I wandered.

  The thought that Grandma was wrong about me made me sad, but it didn’t stop me from ambling down deserted gravel roads with aimless abandon.

  There was a farm about a mile from our property where the land cut away as if God had taken a scythe to the soil. It was the high point before the little river valley of the Big Sioux, a muddy, winding waterway that separated Iowa from South Dakota in my forgotten corner of our often-overlooked state. I felt like I could see forever from the ridge at the edge of Mr. Vonk’s property, and if the curve in the distance was merely the rolling of the prairie landscape, I never failed to pretend that it was the bend of the earth as it bowed away from me.

  Iowa City was at my back, the place where Michael lived and waited. My future home, if I wanted it to be. And yet, as I stared off into the shadows that still waltzed along the farthest reach of my cloudy vision, I had no desire to turn around and search the darkness for hints of my future. Maybe I was just stuck in the middle. Michael behind me; Grandma before me. And I was suspended in between. Alone.

  Wasn’t that exactly what I had always feared? When Janice left, when Dad died, when the father of my baby proved himself to be a coward and a deserter, the same track played over and over in my mind, a scratched CD repeating the tired refrain: You are alone; you will always be alone. . . .

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said out loud, startling myself. But it felt good to talk, and there was no one around to hear me raving like a lunatic. “You have a son who loves you, a brother who was returned to you, a grandma who sacrificed everything for you, a boyfriend who . . . wants you to move away with him . . .” I trailed off. The way I felt, Michael might as well have asked me to move to the moon.

  I looked up as if to find him there and realized that the only light left in the sky came from a waning moon that had been full only days ago. It was disappointing to see that pale sphere like a ruined fruit, its perfect symmetry destroyed by the slice of a razor’s edge. But it reminded me all the same that I should get home. That Daniel might have a nightmare or Simon might get up for a drink and want to talk. I needed to be there for them.

  As I turned to retrace my steps through the darkness, it hit me. I wasn’t alone. I never would be. It was a long, hard road, but I would walk it because of them. We’d make it. It was dim comfort, but I cupped it in my hands and protected it, hoped that if I breathed it into life, it would continue to glow, to grow. I had learned to cling to fragile hopes long ago.

  “You are not alone,” I whispered to myself. “And you are not a wanderer.” My nose crinkled in disbelief at my own words, but I determined to make them true no matter what I felt. I would make a plan. I would stick to it. What other option did I have? I had to focus on what was best for Daniel and Simon, on the path that would offer them the sort of life they deserved.

  When I got home, the house was still. The light beneath Simon’s door had been extinguished, and as far as I could tell, everyone slept in peace. All was as it should be. For a moment I was tempted to call Michael, to tell him that as much as I loved him, I couldn’t move away with him. Not now. Maybe someday, but for now my place was here. He would understand. Or he wouldn’t. And I’d lose him.

  Just the possibility of his good-bye was enough to steer me far clear of the telephone. I might be accepting my situation, but I wasn’t ready to lose the man I hoped to marry.

  The caffeine had made me restless, just as I’d known it would, but for once I didn’t mind. I had taken a week off from Value Foods so that I could enjoy the last dog days of summer with my boys, and it wouldn’t kill me to oversleep in the morning. Not that Daniel would let me. But if I promised Belgian waffles and strawberry syrup, there was a slight possibility that he’d allow me to cuddle him in bed for an extra minute or two.

  I wasn’t much in the mood for TV, so I turned on our ancient laptop, a donated relic that the local high school had outgrown. It wasn’t good for much besides writing papers and checking e-mail, but that was all we really needed it for anyway. Someday, if I got a digital camera like Francesca openly wished I would, I’d like a new computer to go with it. A Mac, maybe, with all the cool photo software that everyone seemed so excited about. I could edit my own pictures, crop and zoom and play with color. I used black-and-white film in my camera from time to time, but there was something enticing about the thought of switching from sepia to natural light to color saturation at the click of a button.

  As the computer whirred to life, I set aside my technology daydreams and tried to be content with what I had. The word processor worked great when I was writing papers on the social development of toddlers, and the truth was that once bad weather hit, my photography dabbling would be cut short. I didn’t have an indoor studio, and no one seemed too eager to pose outside in below-zero weather.

  I had an e-mail account at the local tech school, an assigned address that delivered messages from my professors and student services. There were two items in my in-box: a “Welcome to the Fall Semester” newsletter that I deleted without reading and a course syllabus from my child psych professor. I scrolled through it halfheartedly, counting on picking up a hard copy my first day in class, but before I could click out of the message, something caught my eye.

  Under the heading Written Reports/Activities, an item toward the end made me catch my breath.

  Activity 5: Autobiography. Students are to write an autobiography of their first twelve years of life. This is a subjective report and should not be longer than 2,500 words. Topics to include are family interactions, relationships with siblings and parents, most memorable grade school year and why, peer connections, major life events, and overall memories of childhood.

  I wondered if it was too late to drop the class. Wasn’t I supposed to be assessing other kids? I had no desire to perform an autopsy on my own late childhood. I shuddered and quickly closed the Internet tab so I didn’t have to see the other horrors that the class contained. Maybe I didn’t need child psych for my degree. Or maybe I could switch degrees. I was only one semester invested in a four-semester program. The credits might transfer.

  My other e-mail address was personal. I had signed up for a Hotmail account in a high school computer class, and since I rarely used it and never seemed to deal with annoying spam, my user name and password hadn’t changed in nearly a decade. It still made me giggle to type my password—camelmenthol16, my choice of cigarettes and the age when I smoked them. Little rebel, I thought, my mind skipping to Simon and his upcoming teen years. What would I do when he came home smelling like smoke? I forced the thought from my mind and turned my attention t
o the screen in front of me.

  There were a few more e-mails in this in-box. A forward from Michael. A note from a coworker wondering if she could have a couple shifts off next week. A reminder from the school that classes started at 8:15 on Monday morning. Another note from Michael, this one more personal. A quick I love you. I miss you.

  I clicked on the Junk tab just to clear out the extra baggage and glanced at the list of unknown senders with a trained eye. A couple of Nigerian moneymaking scams and some newsletters that I was sure I had never signed up for. I was just about to hit Delete All when a name that looked different from the rest seemed to jump off the screen. My cursor paused over the sender’s name and my fingers turned to stone above the keyboard.

  Patrick Holt.

  Was this some kind of joke? Had some spam engine managed to string together the two names that had changed my life forever? The subject line said simply, Hello. It wasn’t enough to assure me that this wasn’t some cruel mistake, but it wasn’t an off-putting offer for free Viagra either. Click on it? Or delete it?

  It wasn’t really a question, for from the moment I saw his name, I knew without a doubt that I would click on the e-mail, even if it was undoubtedly a virus that would make my computer spontaneously combust. What was a little conflagration when the father of my child could have sent me an e-mail?

  How long had it been since I’d seen Parker? I hardly knew him as Patrick, but his names, all of them, were like tattoos on my skin—forever, indelible. If I heard someone call out to a Patrick in the grocery store, it was hard not to turn and look. And when I’d considered giving Daniel up for adoption, Holt was one of the many agency names that popped up—and the only one that made my heart skip a beat. But no matter the titles his parents bequeathed him, Daniel’s dad would always be Parker to me—the insolent, arrogant grad student who left me without a single look over his shoulder.

  “Is it you?” I muttered to the computer screen, squeezing my eyes shut as I clicked on the message. There was no audible pop, no indication that the mysterious Patrick Holt who found his way to my Junk folder had infiltrated my computer and fried the hard drive. I opened one eye and then the other. It wasn’t meaningless scrawl or a plea for funds or an advertisement for a drug I didn’t need or want.

  It was a note.

  Tightrope

  “Julia! Honey, it’s breakfast time!”

  Grandma’s voice floated up the stairs and penetrated the snarl of sheets that tangled around my head. I pushed myself up groggily and fumbled for the alarm clock that sat on the table beside my bed. Eight thirty? I never slept this late.

  Twisting out of my sagging mattress, I flung the sheets off and grabbed the cotton robe that I kept hanging from a hook on my wall. I took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding with . . . what? anxiety? guilt? shame at letting the rest of the house rise and shine without me? When I reached the kitchen, I was breathless and no doubt a sight to behold. I stopped in my tracks at the peaceful scene of everyone around the table and pulled the belt of my robe tighter with a self-conscious tug.

  “Your hair is sticking up, Mom!” Daniel giggled at what I could only imagine was a bird’s nest of tousled waves.

  My hair had been long for years, but when Daniel was two and insisted on twining it in his fingers as he fell asleep, I decided enough was enough. I asked my hairdresser for something cute and stylish, and she left me with a long bob that fell just past my chin and curled softly around my face. I loved it, but I never quite got used to the fact that I had to actually do something with it. Long hair I could ponytail or clip back and ignore. Short hair I had to style.

  “Is it that bad?” I asked, running my fingers through my hair to muss it even more. “Are you embarrassed of me? Should I bring you to school like this on Monday?”

  “No! Wear it to church like that!” Daniel shouted.

  “Church?”

  “Did you forget that it’s Sunday?” Grandma laughed. “That must have been one heavy sleep.”

  All at once my night came flooding back. I had hardly slept at all. It felt like I had hardly breathed. Had my heart continued to beat through the witching hour? I didn’t remember much past 3 a.m.

  I swallowed hard and tried to force a smile. “Just tired, I guess. And no, I won’t wear my hair like this to church. I’d better hop in the shower.”

  “But we’re having cereal for breakfast,” Simon reminded me, pointing to the three boxes lined up on the table. Grandma was a staunch believer that breakfast should be hot, but on Sunday mornings when everyone was in a rush to get dressed and out the door, we were allowed bowls of our favorite cold cereal. Cheerios for Grandma and Simon, Cocoa Puffs for Daniel, and Alpha-Bits for me. I loved Alpha-Bits. But just the sight of the unmistakable blue box turned my stomach this morning.

  “I’m not very hungry,” I assured him. “Maybe I’ll grab a bowl later.”

  Grandma gave me a funny look, but she didn’t argue. “If you’re going to shower, you’d better hurry. We have to leave in just over half an hour.”

  Technically, we could have squeezed an extra twenty minutes out of our morning routine and slipped into church as the opening hymn was playing. But Grandma liked to be early. She had a blueprint for Sabbath mornings, a carefully constructed pattern that she followed each and every Sunday. I wasn’t even 100 percent sure what activities filled her precious prechurch moments because when we arrived at Fellowship Community, I usually took the boys and sat right down. But whatever Grandma did, when she joined us in our regular aisle, she always radiated contentment as she passed me the stack of notes and newsletters from our mailbox.

  I knew it was important to her that we left by 9:05. “I’ll shower fast,” I assured her and hurried to the bathroom. I was motivated by a deadline, but I was more worried about sticking around too long and giving Grandma the opportunity to realize that something was really wrong.

  As I showered, dressed, and went through my regular morning motions, I couldn’t stop myself from replaying every word of Parker’s startling note. Though I wished I could forget his message entirely, I had memorized it in the long minutes that I sat staring at the computer screen. Now different phrases and words rose to haunt me. To taunt me.

  Dear Julia,

  I have thought about you every day for the past five and a half years. I don’t know what to say except, I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ve moved on from that night in the parking lot, but it haunts me. I believed that I could just forget everything and live my life without the distraction of you or what happened between us. I’m a grown-up now, a thirty-one-year-old chemical engineer at a successful biomedical corporation. You’d think I could leave the past behind, but I can’t.

  Anyway, you have every right to hate me, and I understand if you do. I don’t expect anything from you. But if you still use this e-mail address, and if you can bring yourself to write back, will you answer one question for me?

  Do I have a child?

  Parker

  By the time we left for church, I felt drugged, detached, like the first hour after Daniel was born, when exhaustion and hormones and shock and love all mingled together to make the entire experience feel out-of-body. I went through the motions with admirable composure, but I was sure that no one in my little family was much fooled. Grandma knew me as well as she knew herself, and Simon had always been perceptive. As for Daniel, we were connected; what else was there to say?

  My son sat curled against me during church, his head beneath my arm and his fingers laced through mine as if he couldn’t quite get close enough. It was a rare experience—he normally squirmed, wiggled, and whispered his way through church, but it wasn’t hard for me to overlook his uncharacteristic behavior. I loved him snuggled close. Especially since I felt so unhinged. Daniel grounded me through songs that I didn’t sing and a long-winded sermon that I didn’t hear.

  I have thought about you every day for the past five and a half years. . . . I’m sorry. . . . Do I have a child?

/>   What did he expect me to say? Me too. You should be. Yes.

  What I wanted to say was: You’re a jerk. A loser. A bum. You don’t deserve to know what happened to me or that you have a perfect, beautiful son. Your pathetic e-mail is too little, too late.

  Or maybe I could just pretend that I never got his message. His words could be forever lost in cyberspace.

  It was when the service was over and we were all turning to file out of the pews that I realized I couldn’t simply ignore Parker’s long-overdue plea. Daniel had finally unraveled himself from my arms, and he was several feet ahead of me, excited to find his friends in the fellowship hall behind our quaint sanctuary. Church services were still held in the old part of the building, a modest-size room with wooden floors and benches and stained glass windows that were lovely to the point of distraction. But a new addition had recently been tacked on to the antiquated chapel, a modern hall with a kitchen full of stainless steel and more than enough room for the under-ten set to run themselves into a froth.

  Usually, the first words out of my mouth when the morning service was over were No running, Daniel. You’re going to knock someone over. But today I was distracted, and when he was nearly free of the benches and poised to race down the aisle, my five-year-old tossed a quick glance over his shoulder.

  His chin was tilted away from me, and he looked up through faintly narrowed eyes. There was a smirk on his lips, a grin that he tried to hide because it was obvious that he was convinced he was about to get away with murder. It was that look, that mischievous I-have-the-world-by-the-tail expression that reminded me the most of Parker. Daniel was indisputably the spitting image of his father. He had been from the day he was born. But I was the only one who knew it.

  Parker was a nonentity in our home. Once, just once, I had slipped and mentioned his name, but I couldn’t be sure that Grandma had caught it or that she even realized what I was saying. She never pressed me for information, and I never offered any. The father of my baby was a ghost, as nameless and anonymous as a stranger. Yet I lived with a piece of him every day.