The Wishing Trees (31 page)

Ian, Kate, and Mattie had seen Georgia and Holly occasionally over the following years. When the girls turned six, they celebrated together in Disney World. When Georgia’s work took her to New York, she often brought Holly, and they stayed with Kate and Ian. In some ways, Mattie and Holly had been raised more like cousins than friends. They’d seen each other during special occasions, never sharing a classroom, but sometimes a bedroom.

“The girls don’t miss a beat, do they?” Ian asked, watching Holly lead Mattie to the boulders.

Georgia turned to Ian, her hands starting to reach for his, but dropping to her lap. “I wanted to come to New York, you know. I wanted to help. But Kate wouldn’t let me. I don’t know why. I asked her over and over but she always refused. And so we said . . . we said good-bye on the phone. And it was awful.”

Ian nodded. “I’m sorry about that. I tried to change her mind.”

“But why? Why wouldn’t she let me come?”

He saw that her eyes glistened, that she was almost imperceptibly shaking her head. “There’s no easy answer,” he replied. “But Kate was very focused at the end. I reckon all she thought about was Mattie and me. Day and night. She planned this walkabout. She did a thousand other things. She knew she didn’t have long, and she just . . . just focused on us. Not her mates. Not her relatives. She told me once or twice to make peace with my mum and dad, but that was all.”

A tear fell from Georgia’s lashes. She rubbed her eye, smearing her mascara. “Kate was there for me. When Frank . . . did that, she was there. Every day. I needed her so much . . . and she was there. But I wasn’t there for her. Even though I wanted to be. And that makes me feel empty inside.”

Ian reached into his day pack and handed her a tissue. “You wouldn’t have wanted Holly there,” he said, lowering his voice. “Believe me, it’s better that you didn’t come. Sometimes Mattie has nightmares about the tubes . . . about the way Kate withered. And I reckon that’s one of the reasons Kate kept you away.”

Dabbing at her eyes with the tissue, Georgia shifted her gaze from him. “You know, I e-mailed you once, about wanting to come. And to tell you the truth, it hurt me when you didn’t write back.”

His thumb moved against his palm. “I . . . I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to say.”

“So you said nothing?”

He waited for her eyes to swing back to his. “I wasn’t myself. I’m still not. But I’m sorry. That was bloody rude of me.”

She nodded, sniffing. “How’s Mattie?”

He apologized again, then watched his little girl climb to the top of a boulder and extend her hand to Holly. “I don’t know. This trip—it’s been good, I reckon. A real change of speed. But I wish she’d laugh more. I wish she didn’t feel so different from her peers, so much older.”

Georgia’s cell phone rang, but she silenced it. “Different isn’t always bad, Ian. Kate was different. You think a lot of girls graduated from college and just hopped on a plane and flew to Japan? She didn’t have a job, couldn’t speak Japanese. And yet she went. And she met you there.”

“Kate’s mum hadn’t died.”

“But Mattie has you. And that’s a lot. You think it didn’t hurt Holly that her father was more concerned about raising money for his precious museum than spending time with her? That he and I split up? Of course it hurt her. It really hurt her. But children are resilient. More so than adults. And though Holly still sometimes cries about her father, I’m the one who never dates, who won’t ever trust another man, who’s afraid. Holly moved on a long time ago. Just like Mattie will move on. She’ll learn to be happy again.”

“She shouldn’t have to learn how to be happy.”

“No, she shouldn’t. But she will.”

“But—”

“The days will turn into weeks, the weeks into months, and the months into years. And Mattie’s pain . . . most of it . . . will go away. Whatever’s left won’t slow her down in life. It won’t define her. Believe me, Ian. I’ve seen enough of Mattie to know that she’ll laugh again.”

Ian wanted to believe her. He wanted to ask her to repeat each and every word, to write her thoughts down so that he might read them every morning. He thanked her, shifting slightly on the bench to watch his little girl, who was hanging upside down at the top of a slide, preparing to descend toward where Holly waited below.

SEVERAL HOURS LATER, IAN, MATTIE, GEORGIA, AND Holly walked toward downtown. Holly was their leader, holding Mattie’s hand as they descended a pedestrian pathway running parallel to a series of escalators that carried businesspeople from downtown to their homes in the hills. The escalators didn’t have steps but were flat and steep. Glass and steel canopies protected the moving walkways from the elements, though the sides were open.

The tiled steps next to the escalators were broad and spaced far apart. Her feet following a long-ago established rhythm, Holly took four paces and then stepped down, repeating the process over and over. “Each day, Mattie, the escalators run down the mountain from six to ten in the morning,” Holly said, her voice as quick as her feet. “And they carry all the workers to their offices. Then the escalators switch directions, and from ten in the morning to midnight, they go up, carrying people home. My mom and I ride the escalators to school and work every day. We hardly ever have to take the stairs like we are now. But since we’re going downtown when most people are leaving, we’re going in the wrong direction and so we have to walk, walk, walk.”

Mattie smiled, watching shoppers and businesspeople on the rising escalator. Many riders read magazines or newspapers. Others chatted on cell phones, sent text messages, or spoke with one another. “I want to take them up,” Mattie said. “All the way from the bottom to the top.”

“And you can. After dinner, you can go all the way up to your hotel.” Holly stepped off the pathway, crossed a street, and then moved on to another set of stairs. She waved to a Chinese girl who was on the adjacent escalator, saying hello in Mandarin. “That’s Lian,” Holly said. “We go to school together. She’s got seven brothers and sisters. Imagine that. I bet they go through a lot of toilet paper.”

“You . . . you can speak Chinese?”

“I speak Mandarin. One of the Chinese languages. The most popular one. It’s really not so hard when you get used to it. Kind of like talking underwater.”

Mattie’s gaze swept over Holly’s perfectly arranged hair, her white tights, and her plaid skirt. Mattie wished that she could speak Mandarin, that she got to ride an escalator every day to school. She glanced back at her father, who was talking with Georgia. “Do you like living here?” Mattie asked, watching a yellow double-decker bus pass on a nearby street.

Holly nodded, smiling. “Remember when we went to Disney World? Hong Kong’s kind of like Disney World. Except there’s no Mickey Mouse.”

“Or Aurora.”

“Or Ariel or Jasmine or Belle or Snow White.”

Mattie laughed. “Maybe we should dress up like we used to.”

“We could have a dance party. At our apartment. You could borrow one of my Chinese dresses.”

“Really?”

Holly called out to a group of girls who had tied a long rope to the middle of a chain-link fence that bordered a parking lot. One girl held the other end of the rope and was swinging it around and around. Two girls jumped over the rope near the middle, while two other girls waited nearby. “Those are my friends,” Holly said. “Want to meet them?”

“Okay.”

Holly asked her mother if they could play for a minute. Still holding Mattie’s hand, Holly led her from the pathway, past a series of open-air restaurants, and to the parking lot. Once in the nearly empty lot, she greeted her schoolmates in Mandarin and then added in English, “This is my friend Mattie. From New York City.”

The girls—who wore school uniforms featuring gray sleeveless dresses with blue shirts and maroon ties—stopped jumping and said hello to Mattie in English. Mattie was surprised by how nice everyone looked, with carefully parted hair, white socks, and black shoes. She felt silly in her old jeans, T-shirt, and lopsided braids. Wishing her mother had dressed her that morning, Mattie greeted the girls and moved to the back of the line. Her father, she saw, was watching her intently.

Soon the rope was circling through the air. Holly’s friends laughed, jumping on two feet or one, twisting around and around, repeating a phrase in English that made Mattie giggle. When it was her turn to jump, she stepped next to the rope and watched it spin above and behind her. She timed her leap perfectly, and Holly and then the other girls began to chant: “Fire, fire, false alarm. Mattie fell into Bobby’s arms. How many kisses did she receive? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, ei—”

Mattie’s feet got caught in the rope and the girls immediately ceased their counting. Holly giggled, touching Mattie’s cheeks, which had turned red. “My friends are silly,” she said. “We’re always doing this at school, always making up new songs. Song after song after song.”

“You jump,” Mattie said, eager to join in on the chanting.

Holly took her turn, laughing as her friends’ voices rose, as the rope spun faster. She jumped until she fell, and the girls began again to take turns. Ten feet away, Ian watched the game, smiling, glad that he’d decided to contact Georgia.

The friends continued to laugh and chat until a woman called from somewhere above. Two of the girls replied, and after saying good-bye and gathering up their rope, they headed toward an escalator. Holly and Mattie bid farewell to the remaining girls and then followed Georgia and Ian back to the pathway. They walked another five minutes down the mountain before the escalators ended. The land had become flat, and skyscrapers were abundant.

Georgia led them to a steel-and-glass building. They took an elevator to a restaurant on the top floor, which provided a partial view of the harbor. Hundreds of well-dressed diners were gathered around lacquered tables, which held soups, whole fish, dumplings, steaming vegetables, deep-fried prawns, and about anything else the mind could imagine.

A hostess took them to a table near the far window. Ian helped Mattie into her seat, wondering if he should have pulled Georgia’s chair back for her as well. Seeing the extravagant piles of food around them, he thought of Rupee, wondering how he was faring. Earlier in the day, before they’d met Georgia and Holly, Ian and Mattie had sent Rupee another package. This one contained books for him and his orphanage—books about learning English, about science and math and art. The books were Mattie’s idea. She’d included another sketch for Rupee in the package—an image of Hong Kong at night.

The waitress handed them menus, and the girls started giggling about something. “What are you two little ankle biters laughing about?” Ian asked, pretending to scowl.

Mattie bit her lower lip, still grinning. “I told Holly how you ate chicken feet.”

He rubbed his stomach. “You did? Well, they were quite lovely. A real treat to the old tummy. In fact, I reckon I’ll order another batch.”

“Daddy!”

Ian put a napkin on his lap. “You see, Holly, our little Roo here is afraid of such delicacies. Why don’t you order her something fun to try?”

Holly nodded, grinning. “How about snake soup? Or a thousand-year-old egg?”

“Snake soup?” Mattie asked, pushing a plate away from her on the table. “No way.”

Ian chuckled. “Just order it in Mandarin, Holly. Roo will never know.”

As the girls continued to banter, Georgia ordered a glass of wine. Ian asked for a local beer. She smiled at him and he wasn’t sure what to think. He felt guilty about sharing a smile with an attractive woman in the wake of Kate’s death. Georgia’s grin flickered the way a candle might in the wind, and he wondered if she had experienced a similar thought. When her wine came, she lifted her glass to his and took a long sip.

Ian felt compelled to say something to Georgia, to thank her, perhaps. But he was torn. A part of him didn’t want to enjoy her company, didn’t want any sort of temptation to arise. Another side of him was grateful that they’d experienced a pleasant afternoon together, and he needed to let her know of his appreciation. Tapping his foot under the table, he drank again from his beer, thinking about Kate, wishing that she, rather than her friend, was sitting beside him, asking himself why she’d sent him in this direction.

The waitress returned, and Holly spoke in Mandarin, laughing between words, pushing her bangs from her face. The woman smiled and left. “What did you order, Princess Holly?” Georgia asked, aware that Ian was uncomfortable and trying to lighten the mood.

“It’s a secret.”

“It’s not fair that only you can speak Mandarin,” Georgia replied. “Just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean that my brain shouldn’t be as quick to pick up a new language.”

Holly shrugged. “Well, you could study with me more. I’ll quiz you tonight.”

“Did you order the snake soup?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Mattie scooted her chair away from Holly’s. “I don’t want to see any snakes.”

Rolling her eyes, Holly moved her chair closer to Mattie’s. “It’s not like that, silly. The meat is all cut up. Like pieces of chicken.”

“But it’s not chicken. It’s snake.”