The Forgetting Tree by Tatjana Soli

Author:Tatjana Soli
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

A quick family meeting was held around the breakfast table, and it was decided that Gwen would leave early with the children. Mrs. Girbaldi would drive them to the airport. As the girls washed the breakfast dishes, Claire heard Gwen whispering to Lucy, “I’ll have her checked out, too.”

“Have who checked out?” Claire said.

“No one,” Gwen said.

“Turn around,” Claire said. “Sweetheart, quit going behind my back.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know about the appraisal of the ranch.”

“I’m protecting you. Has Minna convinced you to stay?”

“Don asked her to marry him.” Another untruth blurted out. “She hardly needs me.”

Gwen shrugged.

“You’re my daughter. I love you. But this jealousy…”

Gwen blinked her eyes rapidly. “Why do you like her more than us?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Claire said, even though she suspected it might appear that way. “Before I passed out … I saw your brother.” She had intended to keep this a secret, suspecting their reaction, but in her desperation to win them over, she found herself ruthless.

“I just can’t do this. This morbid stuff,” Gwen said.

“It’s a sign. I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Claire said. “I want you to come back here to live. Children need to live here again. It will be like the old days.”

“No one wants the old days back, except you.”

* * *

Gwen passed instructions to Lucy on how to give the injections, but Lucy’s hands shook so badly that she jabbed the needle in like a dart, with such force that it left small, grape-size bruises on Claire’s skin. The grandchildren were herded out the door. Both glanced backward, wondering, she was sure, if they had done something wrong and Nana was sending them away.

“Have them call me on my cell phone,” Claire said.

They stood on opposite sides of the glass window in the living room.

“Alice, will you send me pictures? So I get better?”

The little girl nodded, but she was so young that out of sight was out of mind.

“Gwen, get them some markers.” On Claire’s side of the glass she drew a happy face. Once they realized they wouldn’t get in trouble, the children went wild with the forbidden pleasure of drawing on the glass.

“Can you draw some hair on? Pretty hair for me?” Claire said into the phone.

“Oh, boy.” Gwen laughed. “We’re going to have trouble at home now.”

Tim stared at Claire, not hiding his fascination at how bad she looked, what might be happening inside her, what his mother told him. He started to draw round bugs with scowling faces. “These are the bugs that are eating you,” he said into the phone. “The cancers.”

Gwen grabbed him. “That’s enough.”

“No, no,” Claire said. “Let’s X them out. She put a green X over one; Tim drew a yellow one over another. “That’s a good boy.”

He remained silent, then drew a fish in a bowl that Claire suspected was Mr. Grumbles.

“See,” Claire said into the phone. “Come back from the dead.”

When everything was packed, Gwen made a last attempt. “It’s not too late, you know. To leave. Not too late at all.

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