Family Tree (13 page)

Sometimes she was wheeled in a chair around the rehab center. The place smelled like feet. Old people. Pine-scented disinfectant. She attended a group meeting with other patients in their wheelchairs. Some with walkers. A PT led them through exercises. Pass the balloon to your right. Look up, look down. For the most part, the patients were weirdly silent.

Annie learned their names easily and was told this was a sign of progress. There was Ida, recovering from a stroke. Hank, wearing what appeared to be a modified water-polo helmet on his head. Georgia had tremors all the time. And poor Lloyd, so impaired that his mother showed everyone his
before
picture so they could all see how strong and handsome he once was, totally different from the contorted figure in the wheelchair.

A social worker said Annie should practice gratitude, because most people never emerge from a prolonged coma.

Gratitude. Yes, she was grateful. For what, exactly, she couldn't be certain.

“I want to go outside,” she said.

“Good idea,” her caregiver said. Today's companion was Phyllis.
She was quiet and sturdy, helping Annie transfer from the bed to the wheelchair with efficient skill. The long hallway was bright and clean, lined with rolling carts and helpers with pagers and charts. A few elderly patients lolled in their wheelchairs, their blank, slack-jawed expressions igniting sympathy in Annie. Recognition, too. She was one of them.

The automatic doors parted, and in one whoosh, she was outside. The morning sun in the garden flowed over her like a healing balm. She tipped her head back and let its warmth and light play over her face. She inhaled deep breaths of air, sweet with the breeze off Lake Champlain. The air had a flavor. It was green and tender, a brightness on the tongue.

“I remember this,” she said. “The feel of the sun. The smell and taste. But it's different now.”

“In what way?” asked Phyllis.

Annie struggled to answer, but the words wouldn't come. “I'm hungry.”

“Then you're in luck. Today's orders say you should be starting on solid food. I can take you back inside and we'll call from your room.”

“I'd rather eat out here.”

Phyllis hesitated, then gave a decisive nod. “You're right, it's too nice this morning to be inside. I'll get someone to bring your breakfast out.”

Annie gazed up at the budding trees and the drifting clouds. Gratitude. Breathe. “I've always loved the springtime,” she said.

“Me, too,” said Phyllis, pushing the wheelchair to a wrought-iron table. “My kids get cabin fever at the end of winter. It's such a relief to send them outside to play.”

Annie had always wanted kids. The thought jabbed into her, and she gasped from the phantom pain. Then she ran away in her head, clearing her mind until it was a vast, empty blue like the sky.

An orderly came with breakfast on a tray. He set it on the table before her and removed the domed lid with a flourish, like a waiter in a fine
restaurant. “Bon appétit,” he said with a grin. “Pikey—the chef—made this special for you.”

Her first meal was a golden-brown pancake smothered in butter and warm syrup. It smelled so good she nearly wept with joy. She used the utensils with the squishy handles, the ones that were easier to hold, to cut a moist triangle from the edge of the pancake. The melting butter and the syrup flowed down into the void, pooling on the thick white china plate.

She took her first taste, and all of her senses filled up until she thought she might explode. It was the ultimate bite of sweet comfort. Time stopped, and there was nothing but this moment. Closing her eyes, she let a smile unfurl on her lips. “Tastes like heaven,” she said.

“Vermont's finest. Your mother made us promise to use your family's syrup.”

“Sugar Rush.” Annie opened her eyes and kept eating. She knew with sudden certainty that when it came to awakening memory, there was nothing more evocative than delicious food. The sensual stimulation—fragrance and warmth, taste and texture—roused the slumbering past. With each bite, her memories flowed through her, powerful and vivid. Maple steam curling up to the vent from the evaporator pans. The dry crackle of wood fire.

You smell like maple syrup.
That voice. She remembered it, paired it with a face. And a name—Fletcher Wyndham. He had spoken those words to her just before they made love for the first time. She heard the voice, whispering in her ear, as if it were happening to her right now. Her mind unfurled and slipped backward, seeking something that felt more real and substantial than the world she'd woken up to.

Then

T
he final days of the 2002 sugar season brought a period of calm to Rush Mountain. The flow of sap slowed naturally as the trees budded out with the lengthening days and rising temperatures. Melting snow filled the flumes with rushing water and turned the forest floor to mud.

Kyle seemed happy with the season's yield. They had made a record number of gallons of syrup, and had enough extra sap to sell raw to a big producer downstate. The crews were done, for the most part, except for pulling the spiles from the trees so the tapholes would heal.

Annie's school team had hosted a swim meet that morning. She'd competed in two races and a relay, and had placed in all three, taking first in the one-hundred breast. She'd gone from the locker room shower to a generous lunch Gran had left in the fridge at the house—Cabot cheese grated with spring onions and radishes, slathered with mayo on thick slices of bread—and a jar of spiced applesauce from last fall. Perfect after a challenging meet.

Annie let the dogs out for a run and got started on her chores. Despite the coming spring, the day was a cold one, and her hair, still damp from the shower, froze into stiff corkscrews as she hiked up to the sugarhouse. Today's boiling would be the last of the season. They stopped making syrup after the budding, because late-harvest sugar had an off flavor.

Fletcher was working alone out in the sugarbush. She saw him up
the hill, using a claw hammer to pull out the spiles, dropping each sharp metal spout into a canvas bag to be cleaned and stored away until next year.

He worked the same way he did everything else, with a peculiar grace and efficiency, innately confident in his actions. Even though Annie's mom had branded him a troublemaker, he was the fastest worker they'd ever had on the mountain. Annie's mom was friends with Degan Kerry's mom, and Mrs. Kerry claimed Fletcher was a delinquent who had been expelled from his previous three schools.

And with that pronouncement, the town bad boy was created out of thin air and gossip. It only made Annie more devoted to him. He had promised to come to the sugarhouse after he finished with the last of the spiles. This made her giddy with excitement, because they would have the place all to themselves. The rest of the family had gone into town for a dedication ceremony at the school Beth ran. The Haven had moved into a historic landmark building, newly restored to provide more classrooms and housing for its residential students.

Beth was an awesome sister-in-law. She'd moved to Switchback to work as the director of a local residential school for teens. She had two little kids—Dana and Lucas—a heart of gold, and an empty bank account. After she and Kyle married, the Rush farm became a family farm again. Beth was totally smart about people. She claimed she could read a teenager like a book. Annie hoped Beth couldn't read
her,
because she totally intended to make out with Fletcher Wyndham.

Leaving her muddy boots outside, she stoked the evaporator and the boil began. The room warmed with the deep glow of the fire, and maple steam rose up through the vents in the rafters.

Fletcher showed up in the late afternoon. The mud had frozen, and his footsteps crunched on the path to the sugarhouse. Annie opened the door and flung her arms around him, loving the way the strong embrace made her feel—comforted. Cared for.

“I'm glad you're here,” she said, pulling him inside and closing the door. “Can you stay?”

“I'm supposed to be helping out at the garage,” he said. “Clients keep showing up. Which is good, I guess, since my dad needs the business. But still . . .” His voice trailed off, and he kissed her, then hugged her hard and lifted her feet off the floor. “I thought about you all day.”

“Same here.”

“I watched your first two races,” he said. “I love watching you swim.”

“Really?”

“You're good, Annie. Plus, you look totally hot in your swimsuit. I would have stayed for the relays, but Kyle needed my help.” He picked up one of Gran's scones and dipped it in the syrup pan. “Don't tell your brother, but I'd work for syrup alone if I had to.”

“You're totally insane,” she said, feeling drawn to him like iron to a magnet.

“That's me—crazy,” he whispered, taking both her hands and interlacing their fingers.

She stared up into his eyes, hazel green and reflecting the flames from the wood fire. She felt awkward and shy and breathless with excitement. The coals under the evaporator created a gentle glow in the sugarhouse, and as the light played over his face, she felt a flood of emotion so intense that it made her chest ache.

He leaned forward and kissed her gently. His lips held the flavor of maple, and they were soft and gentle on hers, full of promise.

“I'm nervous,” she whispered.

That half smile of his. “Me, too.”

She touched his cheek. “Really? I didn't think anything could make you nervous.”

“You,” he said, taking her hand and pressing it to his beating heart. “You make me nervous.”

“I don't mean to. I don't understand. Why?”

“Because you're really beautiful, and I really like you, and I want to get this right.”

Her heart melted. No one had ever spoken to her the way he did or looked at her the way he did. “News flash,” she said. “I won't know if we get it right or not. I've never done this before.”

“News flash,” he said. “Neither have I.”

“Then I suppose,” she said, taking her sweater off over her head, “we shouldn't worry about getting it right.”

What they lacked in experience, they made up for in enthusiasm. And tenderness. And sincerity. And frequency. As she fell into the relationship with Fletcher, the heady feelings buoyed her up and sometimes she actually felt as if she were flying. He awakened in her such passion that she felt unbalanced by it all. The feelings consumed her.

An elemental shift took place deep inside her. The world felt different in every respect. The very air on her skin felt different. The taste of things changed, colors were more vivid. She experienced the world on a whole new level, all because of the way she felt.

It was addicting, this flood of pure emotion, undiluted by anything so rational as a thought. Her heart was rearranged. She knew this was a physical impossibility, but it was exactly how she felt. She woke every day thinking of him, and fell asleep every night dreaming of him.

In between, they spent every possible moment together. She dove into loving him with a kind of reckless abandon that was utterly unlike her. She used to be a planner, cautiously plotting her course through each day. Not when it came to Fletcher.

Springtime burst over the landscape, and they went hiking together, bringing a picnic lunch to the meadow by the creek that flowed past the apple trees. They kissed as the wind blew a storm of pink and white petals down on them, and she nearly exploded from the beauty of it. He took her riding on one of his dad's imported scooters. Though she knew
her mom would disapprove, she got Fletcher to teach her to operate the scooter on her own. They explored the narrow, winding roads together, and Annie brought her camera along, capturing still photos and video clips, then staying up late to edit them.

They found a quiet spot at the atheneum, in a bright corner amid the 910 section. There was a rolled-arm love seat next to a table with a hurricane lamp. “This has always been my favorite section,” she whispered. “Travel and geography. When I was younger, I used to close my eyes and pick a book at random, and plan a pretend journey to that destination.”

“Where would you go if you could choose anywhere in the world?” he asked, paging through a book of photos showing the salt flats of Uyuni, in Bolivia.

“Oh, no way can I answer that. I want to travel everywhere. I want to see everything in the world.”

“You have to start someplace.”

“I've already picked where I'm going to spend my junior year abroad in college. Aix-en-Provence. That's in the South of France.” She pulled a book from the shelf, one she'd checked out numerous times. “They have these traditional farmhouses, called
mas
. They were totally self-sustaining farms, back in the day. All the buildings face south to shield them from a wind called a mistral. They raised everything they needed right there—olive oil, fruit, vegetables, livestock, dairy, even silk.”

“Maple syrup?”

“Well, not that.”

“I could never live anywhere that didn't have maple syrup.”

“Yikes, that's pretty limiting. Look at this. It's heaven.” She gazed lovingly at a spread of an eighteenth-century
mas,
surrounded by vineyards and olive orchards, all bathed in the golden glow of the sun. She glanced at him. “What about you? Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”

“I like it just fine right here.” He never took his eyes off her face.

Oh, boy. “Where'd you apply to college?”

“I didn't. No way I can scrape together the dough.”

“Oh.” She studied the floor, sorry she'd asked. But she couldn't leave it alone. “So, um, would you ever want to go to college?”

“Sure. And yeah, I've looked into grants and loans and scholarships. It would still be out of reach for me unless I win the lottery or do something radical like join the National Guard.”

“Wouldn't it make you nervous, joining the military after what happened on 9/11?” she asked.

“What happened that day makes
everybody
nervous,” he said. “Ms. Elkins says I should look into night school or online classes.”

“Well, okay, then,” she said, sounding way too bright and chirpy. “It's a start.”

Someone on the other side of the stacks shushed them.

He grinned and touched his finger to her lips. “Right. If you ask my dad—or your mom—they'd say I'll never amount to anything.”

“Then you're asking the wrong people,” she whispered, so only he could hear. “You should ask me.”

“Okay, what do you think, Ms. Annie Rush?”

“I think,” she said, winding her arms around his neck and leaning over to kiss him, “that you are going to conquer the world.”

In AP English class, Annie wrote a poem in the style of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, listing the virtues of an unnamed object of her affection, and how she loved each part of him.

“Wow, you've got it bad,” her best friend, Pam, said, scanning the English assignment.

“No, I've got it
good,
” Annie said, totally unapologetic. She regarded her friend with elation. She and Pam had grown up together, the kind of best friends who declared they were inseparable for life, no matter how
much time and distance kept them apart. “It's so unexpected,” she said. “I never knew love could feel this way.”

“What way?”

“Like people are going to feel when they taste these cupcakes.” She and Pam were making and decorating Lady Baltimore cupcakes, their contribution to the upcoming senior social. Working side by side, they filled each one with brandied fruit and nuts, then added a fluffy white cloud of whipped meringue icing.

Pam stepped back and regarded the tray of gorgeous cupcakes. “They did turn out awesome, didn't they?”

“Indeed. Tell your dad thanks for the bootleg brandy. It's delicious.” Pam's father was a master distiller, specializing in barrel-aged small-batch whiskeys and brandies. He supplied fancy bars in New York and Boston.

“I wonder if it feels different every time it happens,” Pam speculated. “Love, I mean. Not cupcakes.”

“This can only come around once in a lifetime,” Annie said with utter confidence. “I could never feel this way about any other person.”

“How do you know?” Pam asked.

“I just do.”

“My mom says I shouldn't find the love of my life until I'm at least twenty-eight.”

“Why twenty-eight?”

“She says before that, people don't really know themselves.”

As the school psychologist, Dr. Mitchell carried some authority. But Annie knew there had to be exceptions. She and Fletcher were exceptional. She felt it in the very core of her being. He was the one her heart had chosen, and it was nobody's fault she had found him ten years too soon, according to Dr. Mitchell's timeline.

Annie couldn't wait to show summer in Vermont to Fletcher. They went hiking and trout fishing, the dogs bounding along with them. In town, there were concerts in the park, a farmers' market every weekend, and a Sunday flea market that drew shoppers from all over. At an antique-book stall, they browsed through dusty tomes. Annie gasped aloud when she found a copy of
Lord of the Flies
in a fancy slipcase. “It's my favorite book, ever,” she said. “And you're looking at me funny. Why are you looking at me funny?”

“Because it's my favorite, too. No lie, it is.”

“Then we both have really good taste in books.”

“That's twenty-five dollars,” the bookseller said. “It's very collectible.”

Annie eyed the book regretfully as she put it back. “It's a treasure,” she agreed, and moved on to the next booth. She turned to say something to Fletcher, and saw that he was buying the book.

“Oh my gosh,” she said when he handed it over. “I can't believe you did that.”

“It's our favorite book. I want you to keep it,” he said.

She nearly fainted with love for him, literally fainted. Then she took the book from him and hugged it to her chest before stashing it in her backpack. “Thank you,” she said. “I'll guard it with my life.”

“I've read it twice,” he said.

“I've read it three times. I'm going to read this copy tonight. I have a thing for old books,” she said.

“I have a thing for ice cream,” he said, heading for a booth where they were filling home-baked cones with homemade ice cream.