“THIS IS OUR new place,” your husband says. “We’ll be happy here.”
A white farmhouse with peeling paint, far from the nearest neighbor. Behind it, golden hills roll away into the distance. Trees crowd closely around it, sprawling oaks that grow outward as much as they grow upward. Their leaves are small and brittle; their thick branches are gnarled and twisted with age.
Your husband takes your hand and you stand very still, like a deer frozen in the headlights of an oncoming car. He kisses your cheek and squeezes your hand gently. “We’ll be happy,” he says again, as if repeating the words will make them come true. You hope that he’s right this time.
That afternoon, after the movers have come and gone, you are unpacking clothes in the bedroom. You are putting your husband’s shirts in the drawers of the dresser. You place each shirt with its collar toward the back of the drawer, the buttons facing up. His shirts must be right or you don’t know what will happen.
You look up from the drawer and for a moment you forget about your husband’s shirts. The leaves of the oak tree that grows outside the window filter the sunlight; the bare mattress of the bed is dappled with bright spots that shift and move with the breezes. You look out the window into the leaves of the tree. In the shifting patterns of light and dark, you see faces. Women’s faces, looking back at you. When the leaves flutter in the breeze, the women laugh to see you in the bedroom, worrying about your husband’s shirts.
Your husband didn’t mention the women in the trees when he told you about the house, but then it makes sense that he would miss them. You are accustomed to watching for tiny signals that others might not see: the tightening of a muscle in your husband’s jaw, a sudden straightening of his shoulders, an involuntary movement as his hand begins to clench to form a fist. When you can see the beginnings of a frown from across the room, spotting women who live in the trees is simplicity itself.
You hear your husband’s footsteps and look away from the window. He stands in the doorway, with one hand hidden behind his back. “Daydreaming again?” he asks in a playful tone. “What were you watching out there?”
You lie automatically. “A blue jay in the tree,” you say. “It flew away.”
“I brought you something,” he says. From behind his back he produces an enormous bouquet of scraggly wildflowers, an assortment of California poppies, yellow mustard flowers, and dandelions. As he holds them out, yellow petals fall to the carpet, each one as bright as the spots of sunlight on the bed.
When you take the bouquet, he puts his arms around you and kisses you on the neck. You are glad that this is a day for kisses. He sweeps you up in his arms: he is not such a big man, but you are a small woman, a frail woman, barely twenty years old and light enough for him to carry.
He lays you on the bare mattress and kisses you again, so gently, so sweetly. You know just now that he loves you; you are sure of it.
Your body responds to him, responds to his hand on your thigh, to his lips on your breast. His hand strokes between your legs and you moan and press yourself to him. Your body is fickle; it forgets the other times so quickly. He pulls you to him, and you cry out with each thrust, the pleasure coming in waves. Then he relaxes on top of you, and it feels good to have him near.
You look up at his face. His expression is distant, as if he is remembering something. He is looking down at your arm. On the pale skin of the upper arm there are bruise marks, left by four fingers and a thumb. Gently he touches the injury, matching his thumb and fingers to the marks. A perfect fit.
You push the thought away and look into the trees to see the women laughing. If he were to ask what you were thinking, you would lie.
You have acquired the habit of lying, the habit of covering up. To do otherwise would be admitting to failure. You have failed as a wife; you have failed as a woman. Your man is not happy and his discontent is your fault. On some level, deep down where your mother’s voice is stronger than your own, you know this.
Your husband beat you for the first time just a month after your wedding. He was angry because one of his shirts had lost a button in the laundry, and you had forgotten to sew another on in its place. He yanked the shirt from the drawer, threw it at your face, and then came at you with his fists, punching you in the ribs, in the breasts, in the belly.
After it was all over, you lay on the bedroom floor, gasping for breath. You heard him weeping in the living room and you went to him. His face was wet with tears.
He begged for your forgiveness. He said that he would kill himself if you left him. It would never happen again, he said. Never. You rocked him in your arms and the two of you wept together. He loved you and you loved him. How could it happen again?
A week after the beating, you still felt a stabbing pain with each breath. Solicitous and concerned, your husband drove you to the doctor’s office.
In the examination room, the doctor asked you what had happened. How had you hurt yourself so badly? You looked at the doctor, an older man with a stern face. “I fell,” you said. “I was getting a bowl down from a high cupboard and the chair slipped. I fell.”
He studied your bruises. The purple marks had turned to a sickly yellow-green. Both arms were mottled where fingers had grabbed you, where fists had struck you.
“I see,” he said. In his report he wrote, “Accident.” And then he told you that you had two broken ribs.
Yes, you thought, it was an accident. Surely your husband would never have broken your ribs intentionally. He loved you. He said that over and over. He brought you flowers and gifts. He promised you it would never happen again.
And then, after a while, he said, “If only you wouldn’t do these things that upset me.”
If only you wouldn’t flirt with other men. So you stopped smiling when you walked down the street, because a smile could be flirting if your husband was watching.
If only you wouldn’t neglect his needs. So you told your sister not to call in the evening when your husband was home. If only you wouldn’t talk back. So you stopped stating your opinion, and he called you stupid because you had nothing to say.
He doesn’t hit you often. And when he does, he strikes where the bruises will not show. Oh, sometimes he slaps you, but more often he uses fists. He doesn’t use his fists on your face, because that would leave marks that you could not easily hide. He punches you in the ribs, in the breasts, in the belly. If you try to block his punches, he strikes the arms. He knows that you will wear long sleeves rather than reveal your failure, your shame, the bruises that are marks of dishonor.
At night, that first night in the new house, you hear the oak trees scratching against the roof. The branches of the one nearest the house rattle against the windowpane, tapping like fingernails on the glass, trying to get your attention. “Over here. We’re over here.” It’s a comforting sound.
In the morning, your husband says that the damn branches scraping against the window kept him up all night. You know that isn’t true: he was snoring while you lay awake. But you say nothing. The women in the trees will understand. You can’t speak out.
After your husband leaves for work, you go outside and wander among the trees. Though the morning is hot, the shade is cool. Insects trill in the grasses, a soothing sound.
Squirrels scold you from the branches, then fall silent, recognizing that you belong here. When you squint up at a squirrel, you see a woman’s face staring back at you. Her eyes are blue, like the gaps between the leaves where the sky shows through. The wind blows and the woman vanishes.
She is shy, easily frightened—you understand that. No doubt she has reasons for hiding. You catch a glimpse of another woman, or perhaps the, same one. You move suddenly, and she disappears.
The women in the trees are like those puzzles in children’s magazines: “Find all the things that are hidden in this picture.” When you searched diligently, you discovered a cocker spaniel in the patterns of the wallpaper, a hammer and saw among the flowers in the flowerpot, a high-heeled shoe in the window curtains. You know you must observe carefully; if you are quiet and attentive, you will see things that other people miss.
Though you walk quietly, you don’t see the women again. But on your way back to the house you find a bright blue feather, and you know that they have left it for you as a sign. They are watching. They will take care of you.
Just as you get back to the house, the landlord drives up in his pickup truck. He has come to see that everything is okay. You are wearing a sleeveless shirt. He notices the bruises on your arms and asks about them. You shake your head, looking away so that he can’t see the lie in your eyes. “I’m so clumsy,” you say. “Always banging into cupboard doors and counters.” The cupboard doors are too high to bruise your arms and the counters are too low, but the landlord says nothing more. People believe what they want to believe; people see what they want to see.
You give him coffee to drink. Your husband would not like having this other man sit in his kitchen, even though the landlord is an older man, potbellied and unattractive.
Your husband would not like it, but it seems harmless enough and you are lonely. You ask him about the oak trees. He tells you that they are California live oaks, tough trees that flourish under difficult conditions.
“How long have they been there, so close to the house?” you ask him.
“A long time,” he says, “a very long time.” They were old when his grandmother was growing up. His grandmother had lived in the house alone for many years, after his grandfather had died.
You nod. You like the thought of a woman living alone in, this house, happy among the trees.
“I offered to cut back the oaks for her,” the landlord says. “They need trimming, sure enough. But she didn’t want me to. Had a thing about them, she did.”
You smile, understanding his grandmother across the years. She knew about the women in the oaks. You think you would have liked his grandmother.
You have lived in the farmhouse for two weeks when your husband decides that you must celebrate the two-week anniversary of the move. He calls you from work and tells you not to make dinner. He brings home a pepperoni pizza; turns the lights low, and puts an old Elvis Presley album on the stereo. Together, you eat pizza from paper plates, and he talks and jokes. He tells you about his boss, imitating the way the man puffs out his cheeks when he talks and making you laugh.”
When Elvis sings “Love Me Tender,” your husband takes your hand and pulls you up off the couch. He holds you close. As you dance, he sings along with Elvis, his voice deep and loving. When the song ends, he kisses you.
In the sudden silence, you hear the wind rattling in the branches outside. You ignore the sound. Your bruises have faded and you are happy. You think right now that you will always be happy.
When you were a child, your family moved a lot. Your father worked as a mechanic in a garage, and he could get work anywhere. When he didn’t like his boss or the house or a town, he moved. Sometimes you stayed in one place for six months; sometimes, for three; sometimes, only for two. You and your sister were jerked from school; you packed your things in the cardboard boxes that your mother never bothered to throwaway, and you drove to a new town, a new house, a new school. You had no choice.
Sometimes, you would cry about leaving your friends.
Once, you ran away and tried to stay at a friend’s house, reasoning that your parents might leave without you, they just might. But they didn’t. Your father found you, and you moved again.
After that, your parents never warned you before a move. You would notice an odd tension around the house, a peculiar feeling of activity even when everything was still. Then one morning, you would wake up and your mother would be wrapping the dishes in newspaper and packing them away in boxes.
After a while, you stopped making friends. What was the use when you knew you would be moving in a month, in two months, in half a year? No use. No use at all.
You swore that when you were grown-up you would live in one house. You would stay there with your husband who would take good care of you. You would live in the house all your life and never move. That’s why you like thinking about the landlord’s grandmother—an old woman living in the house that was hers, making friends with the trees. You like that.
You have been in the house for a month when your husband brings home a hammock made of colored twine.
“Perfect for this place,” he says. “It will look great hanging between the trees.”
He takes a beer from the refrigerator. He’s been drinking more and more beer lately. He says that he needs it to relax after the long commute. He has been late to work a few times, and his boss is on his back. He doesn’t like his job. You try to be sympathetic and understanding.
When he goes out to hang the hammock, you go with him. He wanders from tree to tree, looking for two that are the right distance apart. The hammock came with some rope, but not much. None of the trees seem to be positioned right. This part is too widely separated; this one, too close together.
As he searches for the right tree, your husband is getting angry. He carries his beer in one hand and the hammock in the other. He does not like the oaks—you know that. They have deep roots. He does not like things that are stronger than he is.
“What about these two?” you say. “They look about right.”
“Too far apart,” he says impatiently.
You look up into the leaves where the women live. You can’t see them, but you know they are there. You can feel them all around you. They will help you if they can.
“I think it might fit here,” you say. He glares at you and throws the hammock at you in exasperation. You catch it, smiling as if he were doing this in fun. You pretend. You lie to yourself and to him and to the women in the oaks.
You don’t fool anyone, but you do it anyway. It’s automatic now.
The distance between the trees is perfect. The rope just reaches. You think gratefully of the women in the oaks as you tie the rope around the tree, stringing the hammock a few feet off the ground. Your husband is watching, angry that you succeeded where he failed. You speak to him softly, trying to placate him. You tell him that this will be a wonderful place for him to rest on weekends; you tell him that this is a fine house, that you are so happy, that he is so wise. He turns away as you are tying the rope and goes to the kitchen for another beer.
You test the hammock, lying down under the trees. The sun is gone and the first stars are out. You don’t want to go back to the house, but you know that the longer you put it off, the worse it will be.
The sun is setting. In the leaves above you, the women are dancing. You can only catch glimpses of them, but you make up the rest. They are beautiful—slim and young, about your age really. You hear them calling to you; they know your name. Perhaps they overheard it when your husband was yelling at you. Your name sounds different when they say it softer, gentler, like wind caressing leaves, like summer rain on the grass.
Your husband calls to you from the porch. Reluctantly, you leave the hammock and go toward the house, “Where’s dinner?” he grumbles, and you smile as if he is just joking.
As you go toward him, you see that he is holding a beer in one hand and a saw in the other. He’s on his third beer: you see two empty bottles on the counter.
“It’ll be on the table in just a minute,” and you hear echoes of your mother’s voice saying “Yes, dear. Of course, dear,” while your father shouts about something or other.
“I’m going to take care of that damn branch that’s been keeping me awake,” he says, stepping off the porch and heading toward the oak nearest the house. You stand by the porch and watch as he climbs the tree. The branch that scrapes against the bedroom window grows off a sprawling trunk that is as thick around as your waist. He straddles the trunk and saws at the branch awkwardly. He is clumsy with the saw, a little drunk, you think. The tree in which he is sitting trembles each time he jerks the saw.
You can hear the leaves rattling, the oak women talking excitedly among themselves.
“Be careful,” you say. You are not sure what you are warning him against: the sharp saw, the oak women, the danger of falling. Or perhaps you are warning the women.
You are not sure, but you know there is danger somewhere nearby.
He drags the saw toward him and the branch creaks, a high cry of alarm. It dips lower to rest against the ground.
Only a thin strip of bark and wood holds the branch to the tree. He pushes the saw forward and the bark gives way suddenly. The branch falls and the saw slips through the gap, striking his leg. He cries out. The crash of the branch hitting the ground is like a burst of sudden laughter.
You bandage his cut, a ragged gash. The blood and pain have calmed him, and he submits to your attention willingly.
At times like this, he is a small boy, grateful to be taken care of. You baby him and bring him his dinner, happy that the earlier tension has somehow dissipated.
That night, when he is asleep, you slip out of the house and lie in the hammock. From the woods, you can hear the creaking of insects, the rustle of small animals in the underbrush, the low hooting of an owl. When you were a little girl, a teacher read the class a story about an enchanted forest. Dryads lived in the trees, coming out to dance and sing in the moonlight. One day, a little girl went to the forest and met the dryads…
You don’t know what happened next. Your family moved the next day and you never heard the end of the story. In your mind, the little girl is still living in the enchanted woods, never leaving, growing up among the dryads and learning their ways.
You lie in the hammock and wait to see if the women will sing, but you do not hear them. After a time, the moon comes up, and you go back to bed.
You have a red notebook, like the one that you carried to classes during the one year that you went to community college. Sometimes you write in your notebook, trying to tell the truth. You write, “I love my husband.” You consider the words, remembering your broken ribs. You cross the sentence out, then write again. “I hate my husband.”
You cross that out too. The truth is a slippery thing, as elusive as the women in the trees.
The summer goes along. You try to take care of your husband. Small things anger him: He sees a letter from your sister and he says that she never liked him. You smile at the checkout boy at the grocery store and your husband says you are a slut. You ask him to take you to town so you can go to the library, and he insinuates that you think you are better than he is, you think you are so smart. But these are all minor complaints. You soothe him, you comfort him, you make him dinner.
Your mother writes you letters, telling you the family’s latest address and asking how you are doing. You write back cheerful notes that say nothing. You have nothing to say. The first time your husband hit you, right after you were married, you asked your mother if you could come home. She was packing the dishes for another move and she said that you must stay with your husband. Make your husband happy, she said. In your letters, you tell her that your husband is happy.
When your husband is at work, you walk in the woods. You feel strong when you are among the trees. On a warm day, you kick off your shoes and climb a tree. High in the foliage, you find a place where two branches come together to make a natural seat, as comfortable as a rocking chair. When you look down, all you can see are leaves. You are alone at the top of the tree, hidden from view.
For a while, you sit and listen to the jays squawk and the squirrels chatter. The leaves rustle, fluttering in the breeze. When you squint your eyes, the flickering light looks like sunlight on water.
You fall asleep and the oak women gather around you. In your dream, you smile at them. “This is a beautiful place,” you say.
They murmur to you, their voices no louder than the whispering of the leaves. “Stay. Stay with us!” They stretch their hands out to you.
You look around. “I can’t live in a tree.”
They mutter reassuringly. “You can do anything.”
You shake your head, knowing they are wrong.
Their eyes are shaped like almonds; their hair is the color of new grass; their fingers are slender and graceful.
The smallest one, a young girl with a sweet smile, whispers, “You are beautiful.”
You look down at your hands. You have been biting your fingernails again. Your wrists are so thin you can see the bones. Your hair is thin and stringy. You are ugly.
“You are not seeing clearly,” she whispers. “Truly, you are beautiful.”
The rumble of an engine drowns out her voice. A car is coming up the driveway—your husband is, home. Startled, you clamber out of the tree and hurry home to greet him.
You call to your husband as you walk in the door.
“Dinner will be ready in just a minute.” You can hear him in the bedroom, changing out of his work clothes. You hear his footsteps crossing the living room. From the sound, you try to judge how angry he is that you weren’t home when he got there.
He stands ill the kitchen doorway for a moment, watching you slice tomatoes for salad. He gets a beer from the refrigerator, throws the bottle cap in the general direction of the wastepaper basket. He misses. The cap rolls across the floor, but he doesn’t pick it up. “This place is a sty,” he says. “Sometimes I don’t know why I even bother to come home.” He turns away and you hear the television go on in the living room. By the time the lamb chops are done, he is drinking his third beer. He eats half the chop and leaves the rest. As you wash the dishes, you can hear gunfire from a cop show on the television.
That night, you wake from a bad dream. You dreamed of a time past that you would rather forget. Your husband had his hands on your throat and he was choking you, shaking you, cursing you for something you had done.
What was it? Smiling at the postman, maybe, or folding one of his shirts incorrectly. It doesn’t matter. All that mattered was the air and the pain. He released the pressure just before you fainted. You gasped, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” You didn’t even know what you were sorry for, but whatever it was it must have been bad, very bad to make him so angry. You had to wear a scarf around your throat for two weeks until the bruises went away.
You wake and your husband is asleep, lying on his back with his hands at his sides. A fold of blanket is pressing lightly against your neck and you push it away. You can’t go back to sleep and you are afraid that you will wake your husband, with your tossing and turning. As quietly as you can, you slip from the bed and go outside. In the moonlight, the trees are beautiful.
You are on the porch when you hear footsteps. The door creaks open. Your husband sits beside you on the steps and for a moment you let yourself think that everything will be all right. You listen to him breathing beside you.
“I couldn’t sleep,” you say. “I came outside so I wouldn’t wake you up.”
“You woke me up by getting up,” he says. He isn’t looking at you; he is gazing out toward the oaks.
“I’m sorry,” you say automatically.
“If I’m late again, that bastard will have my ass,” he says, and somehow it is your fault. You are responsible for the long commute, for the unreasonable boss, for your husband’s state of mind. He will be late to work and you will be to blame.
“Let’s go back to bed,” you say. “You need your sleep.”
Moving carefully, you reach out and take his hand. You lead him back to bed.
He falls asleep quickly, but you lie awake beside him, listening to him breathe.
You do your best. You have dinner ready on time. You serve his favorite foods. You keep the house very clean.
But even so, there are small signs—you watch for them and you notice them. He stops complaining about the traffic and his commute to the city, although you know neither one has improved. He stops complaining about the boss who is picking on him, always on his back. You watch and wait, knowing that something is coming.
You try to make sure that everything is perfect. Everything must be perfect. If it isn’t perfect—but you don’t want to think about that. This time, you will follow all the rules. You will put all the shirts in the drawer just so. You will not say anything that makes it sound as if you think you’re smart. You will not smile at anyone. And you will watch him, noticing the slightest signal.
Even though you are very good, sometimes you slip away to your place in the trees when he is at work. Once, when he has had too much to drink and falls asleep, you risk sneaking out at night, finding your way in the darkness.
You are lucky. You don’t get caught.
He is silent much of the time. When he gets home at night, he watches cop shows on TV. He drinks steadily, watching you over the rim of the glass. Sometimes, you catch him watching you. Something is coming, but if you can keep everything perfect, it will not come.
Your husband is at work when the landlord and his wife stop by. The Lions Club is having a pancake breakfast at the local high school and they want to sell you tickets.
They want you and your husband to come; they say you will have a good time; they say you should get out more.
Your landlord’s wife says you need some meat on your bones.
You buy two tickets. You know, even as you buy them, that your husband will not go. But you smile and buy them to be polite. And you think about what it would be like if he decided to go and be charming. He could be charming. He could be sweet. You picture yourself in a sundress. You have no bruises on your arms and your husband is smiling at you the way he used to before you married.
You tell the landlord and his wife that you can’t talk long. You must get dinner started. Your husband will be home soon. But they keep talking until the shadows stretch across the valley. When they finally leave, you make a pot of stew, a big green salad. Your husband is late and you’re glad. Dinner will be ready when he gets home.
Everything will be perfect.
It’s dark. You see his headlights first, sweeping across the trees and spotlighting the house. You stand on the porch, ready to greet him. “Dinner is ready,” you call to him.
He has been drinking. You can smell whiskey and cigarette smoke on his clothes. He pushes past you into the kitchen and you follow him, still trying to smile. He glares around the kitchen. The stew bubbles on the stove and it smells good. Surely he will be happy now: good food, a nice clean home.
“What’s wrong?” you ask. You know as soon as you speak you have said the wrong thing. There was no right thing to say.
“That son of a bitch I work for fired me,” he says. “Are you happy now?”
You can think of nothing to say. Are you happy? No, you’re not happy.
He sees the tickets to the pancake breakfast. Carelessly, you left them on the table. He snatches them up and reads what they have to say.
“You spent money on this shit?” he says. He throws them down on the floor. Before you can speak, he grabs your hair and tries to slap you—once, twice, three times.
You block his hand once, twice, but the third blow knocks your arm aside. You try to pull away, but he strikes again with the back of his hand, rocking your head to one side.
“I’ll teach you a lesson,” he says, and you remember other lessons that your husband taught with his fists. You bring your arms up to protect your face and he swings his fist low and buries it in your stomach. Lesson one: whatever you do, it’s wrong. You double over, wrapping yourself around the pain, and he slams a fist into your head.
Lesson two: the same as lesson one.
You fall to the floor and try to crawl away. He grabs your ankle and you turn on him, slapping at his hand. He grabs your wrist. Desperately you bite him, tasting blood and sweat and cigarettes. You have never fought him so hard before. You have grown stronger during your time among the trees.
When you bite him, he lets you go, and in that instant you are running out the door, off the porch, into the protective darkness beneath the trees. You know your way.
You can hear him behind you, clumsy in his drunkenness, shouting that he will kill you, you bitch, you stupid bitch.
He is cursing you, screaming that you are useless and stupid, a burden to him, a drag on his life.
The wind is up and the oaks are alive. You run among them, ducking beneath the low branches. The women are calling to you in high thin voices like leaves in the wind.
Behind you, you hear your husband trying to follow. The branches slap at him, clawing at his eyes. The roots trip him. You can hear him grunt as he falls.
You are far ahead of him when you reach your secret place and you climb quickly, knowing your way by touch.
The oak women help you, their cool hands clutching your wrists, soothing your pain, urging you on. You find your place and you sit there, very still.
You hear your husband searching for you. He shouts your name, curses you, slams his fist into trees as he passes. He tells you that you must come out.
You sit very still, listening to your own heart pounding.
For a moment, you think, “I’d better go back. It will only be worse later.” But you remain still. After a time, you think, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
A flashlight beam darts across the tree trunks. You can see it flickering through the leaves, but he can’t see you.
You are as invisible as the oak women. You blend into the picture, becoming part of the branches, part of the leaves.
No one can find you here. As he crashes through the underbrush, you fight the urge to laugh. He is not strong, with all his bashing and crashing. You lean back into the fork of the tree, listening to the oak women soothing you.
“Hush,” they say. “Quiet.”
Finally, he goes back to the house. In the distance, you hear the sound of breaking glass. The kitchen window, you guess, but that doesn’t matter now. He can break every window and burn all your things. You don’t care.
Your body is stiff and you are starting to wonder what to do. “Leave it,” the oak women say. “Come with us.” The first light of dawn is rising. Birds are starting to sing.
“Come on,” the youngest one says impatiently. She reaches out her hand, and you take it. She smiles and tugs on your hand. It happens so easily. You stand up and look back at the small body, curled up in the fork of the tree.
So thin, so beautiful. You feel the wind in your hair.
Your husband will never find you here. You will watch him from the trees. Sometimes you will drop twigs on his head. Sometimes, remembering the good times, the times when he was sorry, the times when he danced with you and treated you well, you will miss him.
But you will not be sorry, not sorry ever again. Eventually, you will forget how to lie. And then you can come back down.