The Language of Trees (17 page)

Suddenly, Luke took off running toward the forest. For a second, Victor watched the boy fading into the distance as though he were dissolving into the air. Victor, stunned, let himself exist without emotion, imagining he was not Luke's father. He just stood there, watching Luke disappear into the trees. He wondered whether he had any real feeling at all for the boy, and in that empty space he felt a fleeting sense of freedom. He could let the boy run off and perhaps they would never find him. All the burden, rejection and resentment he felt would be gone. And everything would be the way it was meant to be, almost perfect, as it had been before the boy was born. Somehow, Leila would come back to him. She would give Victor the love that she once did.

A minute later, Victor's conscience took over. He chased the boy, following his trail of downed grass into the woods. When he couldn't find him an hour later, Victor returned to the dock and drank a bottle of whiskey and thought about what to do. When the rains started, the lake became a mirror of raindrops and trees. It was hard to see. The air was filled with a kind of quiet that made it hard to speak, which is why Victor could hardly open his mouth when, three hours later, Melanie walked out from behind the trees, her long white T-shirt soaked to her thighs. Maya and Luke lagged behind her, holding hands. How had the girls found Luke? How did they know the boy was even lost? Had they been spying on them the whole day? Had they seen what Victor had done? As they walked toward him,
they looked ethereal: small pale ghosts in the hazy light. Although he couldn't make out their expressions, he sensed their anger with him, just as he'd get up and open the front door because he knew Old Sally was standing on the other side of it waiting to come in.

As they approached, Melanie, taller and rosy-skinned with two blond braids that hung over her shoulders to her waist, held his entire fate in her vaporous stare. Maya looked distraught, covered in mud, her hair in tangles, unrecognizable but for the red mouth parted slightly and the knowing gaze that didn't lift. Victor worried that they had seen him hit the boy. He waved at them. They didn't wave back, and Victor knew Leila would surely go crazy if she knew. When they finally reached him, Victor noticed that all three children were covered in mud, that Melanie was without socks, that her gray sneakers were wet, the laces untied, and her legs were as full and as white as two soft clouds, the skin appearing spongy and swollen. Maya and Luke stood behind her. Victor wasn't sure he wanted to know how they found Luke. They had some connection that he would never be a part of.

Victor noticed Luke's precise measurement of Melanie's footsteps. The boy took the greatest care to place his feet directly in Melanie's path as she trudged through the mud toward him, as though the rest of the ground was hot coal. It amazed Victor how Luke could stop time. Putting peas on a fork could be broken down into innumerable steps. Getting into the shower had to be approached from a few different angles before going in, as though Luke was first negotiating with the molecules dangling in the air, then the actual rays of light. Luke delighted in all these little victories, for they were contests he would always win, having figured out how best to succeed in his own universe.

Once at the shoreline, Luke would not make eye contact with Victor. Victor tried to smile as he reached down to pat the boy's head. That is when the boy's eyes closed, his head of curls fell to one side, and his small legs buckled underneath him before his body collapsed onto the sand. Luke had fainted, as though the force of Victor's slap had finally hit him.

Victor carried Luke to the boardwalk, the first time he had touched him in years, with the girls following. Luke's lashes were caked with mud, his face soiled. Victor tried to play the good father. He bought the children Buried Treasure popsicles at the ice-cream stand, after which Luke seemed miraculously revived. The girls licked the cylindrical pink ice cream slowly, humming softly between bites. Again, Victor tried to gauge whether or not the girls had seen him hit Luke. But he was certain their minds were elsewhere, focused on drawing their tongues around the cones to dig for the illusive white eagle, the prize inside. Victor didn't know how many of the damn things he had bought the kids over the years. It hadn't made them love him.

For the car ride home, Victor grabbed a blanket from the trunk and covered Luke's legs with it, just for show. Luke had already fallen asleep. Victor adjusted the blanket and glanced quickly at Maya. She held his eyes there, knowing. She smiled softly at him, and he knew in that moment that she had seen him hit Luke. And that she would keep his secret. As he got into the car, a warm breeze settled like a soft pillow behind his neck, and he relaxed into it, leaning back into the seat. Then Maya pulled the blanket over her legs and turned her back to him. Melanie, next to him in the front seat, stared straight ahead and said, “I won't tell because you'll get arrested. But don't ever hit him again. Or I'll call 911.” But by that time, Victor had already decided that he owed nothing to either of
his daughters for they kept secrets from him. Victor looked at his sleeping son in the rearview mirror. The child possessed so peaceful a presence that it made Victor hurt.

 

T
ONIGHT, ON THIS LAST
night in April, Victor has had one too many drinks. He is stone cold drunk, and knows he shouldn't drive home. Still, he wavers to his car, tries to get his key in the ignition and finally gets the car started. It is late and pouring rain. It is not officially hunting season but Victor has just decided that any time is hunting season when you are not in it for the kill. Someone in the bar wore lilac perfume and Victor recognized it immediately. Victor will have to scrub his skin raw to remove the scent.

Somehow he makes it home. Drunk, Victor knocks over the small desk chair and it crashes against the cabinet, almost tipping the lamp over. He sees himself in the mirror: He has the reddest skin of any man he knows. He showers more than anyone on earth, just to clean himself from the scent of everything wounded. But at least, for once, he hasn't been thinking of Luke. Not entirely. Not at first. For most of the evening Victor thought of nothing but his latest pheasant. He sat across the bar from a woman he met at the gas station, sick from the strong perfume mixed with the smell of gasoline. His wife used to say he was a terrible listener, but all he could think about was walking in the wild field and making the noise only a pheasant would hear. And then shots ringing out, watching the flap flap of the wings, how they'd fall like paper tossed into the flickering air, the surge, the upswing, how the bird would tumble then, and the air would curve around the body and swell. For a moment the bluegrass would reach up, straight into the sky, as if to catch the fall and the clouds would smother over, and everything would be united, all blurred earth and sky.

And then suddenly, when he returned to his seat after using the restroom, there was a stack of dimes behind his drink, ten dimes that he counted. He asked the bartender if he had put them there and the guy looked at him like he was crazy. Then Victor felt a bunch of dimes in his coat pocket. The air in the bar took on a chill, and the memories of Luke came flooding back. He resented the boy, maybe even hated him. But he never wanted him dead.

Victor felt even more panicked. Removing the dimes from the bar, Victor had to convince himself that this was surely a better place to be than alone in the house, deafened by his own silence, and waiting at the kitchen table for something, what, he didn't know—the flicker of the lamps, the sight of a paper airplane spiraling above the bathtub, or the scent of lilacs that repeatedly tried to smother him.

Victor knows he is being haunted. He has no patience for spirits. He never liked how the boy's large blue-green eyes would stay in his mind for days, causing him to wonder whether he could read Victor's thoughts. The boy knew that Victor had chaos inside him. Luke had had a way of showing up seconds after Victor had told a lie. He'd meet Victor's eyes, and Victor was forced to skulk away. Humiliated. Shamed.

After Victor's shower, he doesn't notice his pit bull crouched in the corner of the room, having broken its chain yet again. Victor doesn't plan to fall asleep on the twin mattress. Victor's hair is still wet, his face damp against the mattress, when he is startled by the sound of sirens. Still drunk, he opens his eyes and sees a small bloody T-shirt on the floor, and a flurry of feathers circling above it as though caught in a small tornado. Luke has finally come for him. Judgment Day is here. Cars are honking and there are shouting voices outside his window. The radio suddenly turns on. The announcer is talking about
the tornado, the thunderstorms, and the vortex caused by the meeting of two winds that are blowing in opposite directions, shown on Doppler radar. Loud, spinning storms striking the earth. As Victor sits up, bleary eyed, all he can think about is the scent of lilacs in Leila's yard. He can no longer bear the guilt of that night, the death of the boy. Victor can no longer live with the secrets that tore apart his family. He has to know the truth. He knows that wherever he goes, wherever he runs away to, he won't be able to forget his mistakes. He also knows his daughters won't come near him if he just shows up. He knows they will all slam the door in his face. But Melanie had been the leader, the one who had once taken care of him. Surely she still felt something for him. If he had her on his side, the rest of them, Maya and Leila, would follow. Still, Melanie would not forgive easily, that much he remembered about her.

As soon as Victor stands he hears a low growl coming from the corner of the room. He stops. Through his bleary eyes he can see his pit bull. There's a ferocity in her eyes he's never seen. Suddenly, she lurches at him. The dog sinks her teeth into Victor's naked thigh as Victor screams so loud it rattles the windows. The stink of blood fills the air. Victor grabs for the lamp. He smashes it against the animal's head. Rolling over to the side of the bed, Victor grabs his gun. Agnes lurches at him again, this time biting into Victor's shoulder. Victor tries to wrestle himself out from underneath the animal, but with Agnes's weight it's too difficult. He shoots his dog from below, directly into its heart. Agnes's heavy skull falls on Victor's bloodstained neck, her body splayed across Victor's naked chest. She twitches slightly before letting out a sigh.

Victor, face streaked with blood, knows his dog is dead. But he fires his gun again.

L
ION KNOWS HE'S GOT
to do something. Melanie has been gone for four days. He needs information. He needs a meeting, fast. Needs the help of a few of his ex-addict contacts. There's this silent bond among addicts. A first name and a common history suddenly makes them kin. They're the only people who'll issue support without judgment. But Lion won't listen as they whisper quiet words about serenity. Maybe, if he is lucky, one of them has relapsed and has recently seen Melanie. For this thought, he will pray for forgiveness.

He heads over to the basement of an elementary school near Leila's house. He arrives late for the meeting, just a few minutes after introductions. Taking a seat in the circle, he looks around, almost twenty people. He knows how to read a crowd. A bunch of old-timers. A few young punks. He can tell who's still using. He can identify meth or crack just by the look in the eyes. He nods toward a handful of faces. Smiles are exchanged. One by one, people tell their stories around the circle. Soon it's his turn. He begins to talk, but he can tell they aren't with him. He can't fool these people. They can sense when a person is not feeling what he's saying, when he's cut off from his heart.

Lion knows his mouth is forming the words. He can hear himself talking about his last fight with Melanie. But he has no feeling.

He doesn't want to revisit the million and one times he's looked deep into Melanie's eyes to check the size of her pupils. He had prayed to Matrina each time. But this miracle of normal pupils happened because of his going to church; it was his insurance, he tells the crowd. He looks up, scans the faces. A few nod. He's connecting now. People are waiting for an inspiring story. Success. Abstinence. To prove it can happen. For anyone.

But he can't lie.

“After the fight, I just lost it, stormed out,” he confesses. “I get back, and I'm running up the five flights of stairs to our apartment. I'm so pissed the way she just lets Lucas cry like that—she's afraid of spoiling him. I expected to see her standing in the kitchen making Hamburger Helper.

“But she's gone. Lucas was wet in his crib, his face all pink. I got real nervous. I'm thinking, what if she relapsed. It's my first goddamn thought. That she'd do this to me, to us. And I get mad at myself, you know? My faith in her disappeared, I don't know…”

He looks around. A few of the young women shift in their seats. As supportive as people want to be, they can't hide the fact that a relapse scares the hell out of them.

“Then I wonder if I ever really had any faith in her. And that kills me. Because we had this bond. She had faith in me. I had faith in her. And it's what got us through. Now it's being tested again.”

He tells them how he looked everywhere for Melanie. In the basement, in the laundry room, up on the roof deck. He looks
around and can almost hear their silent self-talk.
It could be me. It might be. I could lose it.

Abstinence is precarious. Yes, they understand.

They fold their hands in solidarity. Not a one takes an eye off of him.
Go on.

“I was living in a fantasy world, pretending to think it was all good. You know, like we had this nice little family,” he says, his voice trailing off. “Here I am, talking about abstinence and God. You got to get this. I just replaced one addiction with another one.”

He's sure they can tell that love was his replacement.

He meets every eye in the circle. “So if any one of you has seen her…” he says. A woman bends down to pick up her purse. An old man checks his watch. His five minutes are up. There are nods. Empathetic smiles.

At the end of the meeting, he listens to the people clamoring around the coffee counter. An old-timer stops him. He advises Lion to go easy on himself. Stay out of judgment. Love is the train that jumps the tracks. Love is the wolf you try to keep tied up. Let go and let God. Don't leave before the miracle happens. God helps those who help…“Look,” the old man whispers, taking his arm. “I'll say what we're all thinking. Go to Two Bears' Cave. If she's there, you'll want to know the truth.”

Lion thanks the old man for his honesty and leaves. He had been avoiding Two Bears' Cave because of an agreement he and Melanie made. The people there are shells of themselves, folks that have given up on their lives. She made him swear that if he ever found out she was there, he would take Lucas and move away. He would tell Lucas that his mother was dead and never speak of her again. It was better, she thought, for Lucas to grow up without a mother than to know the truth about who
and what his mother was, that his mother chose drugs over her own child.

Why not just give Melanie a couple more days? Lion wonders, as he steps out into the cool air. Pray in the meantime. Doesn't she always come back?

He can't wait this time. There is too much at stake.
Four days
.

Lion hits the streets, his boots crunching the hard gravel in the breakdown lane. He is thinking that the people who hang out at Two Bears' Cave have nothing to lose. This makes them dangerous. And who knows what state of mind Melanie is in. If Lion is going to get her out of there, he can't go alone.