People of the Tree
Obaachan told me once about a group of people who worshipped trees. They believed trees had spirits that manifested in the roots and trunk, the leaves and branches. It was a crime to cut a tree, or even to peel bark. The spirits were ancestors. A village equated a small forest.
I think of my body as a tree, a bamboo, light and flexible. I am five feet tall. I weight ninety pounds. My dad can put his hand all the way around both of my wrists and still have room to spare. And I’m flexible. When we do yoga in P.E., I can stretch farther than anyone.
Lately, though, I feel like a log in a river of molasses. My limbs ache. My pants are tight. I can’t button my blouses.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sally asks me. “You keep dropping things.”
We are in our kitchen with Keisha, making a cake for the cake walk at the back-to-school fair. I pick the wooden spoon off the floor and rinse it. “Slippery fingers,” I say.
“Isn’t that someone who steals?” Keisha says.
“That’s sticky fingers,” Sally corrects. “Get it. Stuff sticks to your fingers.”
It’s the first time Sally has hung out with us. Usually, she calls us the fifth-grade babies, or now the sixth-grade babies, since school just started.
“I’ve got butter fingers.” Keisha holds up her hands. “My brother has sculpted with butter. Also, soap, lard, and wax. He’s crazy.”
“Was that your brother who dropped you off?” Sally asks.
“Yeah.”
“I recognize him. He’s a sophomore. He hangs out in the art room. Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Who knows?” Keisha shrugs.
I put the kettle on, to make soup for Obaachan, then slump into a chair to wait for it to boil.
“Hey,” Sally says. “You’re supposed to be helping.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“You don’t eat enough junk food. That’s your problem.”
“Did you hear about Ms. Nga?” Keisha asks.
“Uh-huh.”
“What?” Sally says.
“Ms. Nga broke off her engagement,” Keisha says. “I wonder what happened. Maybe she fell in love with someone else. Or maybe he cheated on her. Do you know what happened, Lin?”
I shrug, but I do know. Ms. Nga told me about the feeling she got when he came to pick her up, that in going to his car she was “walking off a gangplank.”
“Ms. Nga is difficult,” Sally says. “She used to hit me with her bow.”
I roll my eyes. “She pretended she was going to hit Sally with her bow, because Sally was always caterwauling while I was having my lesson, but she never actually hit her.”
“Caterwauling?” Sally says. “What the heck is that?”
Keisha chuckles. “That was one of our vocab words this week. It means ‘sending out mournful and unnatural sounds.’”
“And the reason she didn’t hit me is because I’m fast.”
I pour the hot water into the miso paste, then tiptoe to Obaachan’s room with the soup. She is sleeping, as she often does these days. In the dim room, the Enso painting seems to float, like a circle watching over her.
I leave the soup on the bedside table.
“I wonder if a person can lose so much weight they disappear,” Sally is saying, when I come back in.
“What?”
“Obaachan. There’s nothing left to her. Here’s a fact. Since the Japanese have started eating a Western diet, they’ve really shot up. It’s the hormones in beef.”
“That’s disgusting,” Keisha says. “I’m not eating beef. They found that mad cow disease in Alabama. It turns your brain to sponge. And why? Because they feed vegetarian cows parts of themselves. Me and Lin are studying it in zoology.”
“Don’t talk about it.” Sally holds up her hand. “I eat a Quarter Pounder or a Big Mac just about every day.”
“Then how come you’re so short?” I ask.
Sally shoots me a look. “Is that sarcasm? Coming from my little sister? Well, I’ll be damned. You’re turning into a teenager.”
A horn honks. “That’s Nathan. I’d better go. He hates to wait for even a second. He’s such a pain. Why is he always early when I’m having fun, then late when I’m doing something awful, like having detention or taking my violin lesson?” Keisha complains.
Sally rushes to the window. I walk Keisha to the door. “Get some rest, girl,” Keisha tells me. “I’m serious. You look bad!”
“Her brother is a major hunk!” Sally says, her eyes glued to the window.
When I wake up in the morning, I am convinced I am dying, or at the very least have appendicitis.
Sally is rushing around the room, shoving books into her backpack, checking her makeup in the vanity mirror. She’s never up before I am. “I told Mom you were sick and she said you could sleep in.”
“I’ll be late for school.”
“Once in a lifetime. I don’t think it’ll kill you. How do you feel?”
“Pain.”
“Where pain?”
“Here.” My hands go to my belly.
“Pain like a vise that tightens and releases?” Sally asks.
“I think I have appendicitis.”
“Mom!” Sally calls.
“What is it?” Mom rushes in. She’s wearing her bathrobe. Her hair is in curlers. “Don’t scare me.”
“Lin’s gonna start her period.”
My face goes hot.
“No. She’s only eleven.”
“She was clumsy yesterday and all pale. Besides, I started when I was eleven.”
I groan again.
“My little girl growing up? I can’t believe it.”
“I grew up, too, in case you haven’t noticed,” Sally says.
“Oh. You! You were grown up when you were three. In case I haven’t noticed. What do you think I am? Blind?”
I am going to bleed. From there. The thought of it makes me shake, gives me chills. I don’t want to grow up any more than Mom wants me to.
“Well . . .” Mom places both hands on her head. “I have to get to work. You explain it to her.”
“She’d better stay home,” Sally says. “You know how sensitive she is.”
I’m not thrilled about being discussed like someone’s pet, but I don’t say anything. Staying home with Obaachan sounds just fine to me.
“Maybe you’re right. But school’s just started, and I worry she’ll miss something.”
“She’ll catch up. Remember, she’s the girl genius! But I’d better stay with her,” Sally says dramatically. “This is all going to be very traumatic.”
“Obaachan is here.”
“Really, this is a sister case. I’m on it.”
“Fine. Fine. Just add that to the other twenty days you’ve missed.”
“Ten. Thanks, Mom.”
Mom looks at her watch. “My first appointment is in ten minutes. I’d better run.” Sometimes I feel like she’s rushing away from something rather than to it.
“Good job, Sis. I owe you one.” Sally flops on her bed. “Okay, here’s the explanation. Once a month you get grouchy for a few days. You feel like your head’s going to split open and the slightest thing gets on your nerves. You’re clumsy and your brain feels a bit blank. At least that’s how I feel. Then you bleed. All that month’s eggs drop out of your body or something like that. But you know this stuff. Right?”
“I guess.”
“It’s not great. But like most things in life, you don’t get a choice. I’ll get you an aspirin.”
“Okay.”
The only good thing about the morning is that Obaachan comes out. She is wearing her gray sweatpants and black turtleneck. Her head is wrapped in a scarf. “You girls are home? Is it a holiday?” The happiness in her voice makes me realize how lonely it must be for her now that school has started. All summer, I’ve had Keisha over here, so that even if Obaachan was resting in her room, she would hear voices.
“Lin doesn’t feel well. But don’t worry.” Sally chuckles. “It’s not contagious.”
I guide Obaachan to the couch. “Do you want to play cards?”
“Yes. That would be so nice. Sally, will you play with us?”
“No, thanks.” Sally’s voice is sour, like she’s disappointed that she won’t have me to herself. “I’ll just wait on both of you. You want tea?”
“Yes, please.”
“Okay.”
I bring out the UNO cards and sit next to Obaachan.
“That bedroom gets old.”
“I should open the window in there. It’s going to be a nice day.”
“I guess every day is nice, when you look at it the right way.”
My stomach churns, because I know she means: when you Don’t have many Days left.
Sally brings the tea. “Do you feel better, Lin? Has the aspirin kicked in yet?”
“Maybe.”
It is so odd to have Sally taking care of us.
“What is the matter?” Obaachan frowns.
“Nothing that doesn’t happen to any girl,” Sally says.
“Sally is making koans,” Obaachan jokes.
Sally disappears into the kitchen. Obaachan wins three times in a row. She always wins games. “Shall we work on our Japanese.”
“Do you have the energy?”
“Most certainly. It has been too long. Where were we?”
“You were teaching me kanji.”
“That’s right. We have studied katakana and hiragana. Do you remember?”
“Sort of.” Foreign languages and art are my weak subjects. Writing the Japanese characters combines both.
Sally comes in. “Well, if we’re having a drawing party, I’ll join.” She gets her pencil and pad.
“How nice,” Obaachan says. “Who knew this day would be so special.”
“What’s that? Japanese?”
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“It looks like Hangman. You know that game? What does it say?”
“Water,” Obaachan answers.
Sally copies it perfectly.
“Very good. Sally, you are such an artist.”
“I want to be an artist, but there’s no money in it. Keisha’s brother is an amazing artist. I’ve seen his work.”
There is a pounding on the door. We all three look at it, startled.
“It’s me,” Mr. Caros booms. “Rico.”
Sally gets up and opens the door.
Mr. Caros rushes in, his face and eyes red. “Is your dad here?”
“No.”
“What’s wrong?” Sally asks.
“It’s terrible.” He looks at Obaachan. “The end of the world.”
“What?” Sally asks.
“Watch on the TV.” He runs out.
“The end of the world?” Sally turns on the TV. The expression on the newscaster’s face does look like it’s the end of the world. Then the picture changes to a tower and an airplane crashing into it.
“Is that the World Trade Center?” Sally asks. The picture shifts. “It is. Remember, I took a field trip there in sixth grade. A plane crash. How awful! Why would a plane be flying that low?”
Then, as the shot shifts, another plane appears, heading for the other tower. Obaachan looks at the clock. “This happened half an hour ago.”
The door opens. Dad comes in. He tosses his hard hat on the floor, then sits on the edge of the couch next to me. None of us ask him why he’s home from work.
The screen splits and a reporter appears, saying the Pentagon has also been hit by a plane. Our phone rings. I hear Dad tell Mom to stay where she is. He doesn’t want her on the road.
It gets worse, and over and over we watch it, the planes hitting the World Trade Center, then the buildings collapsing, like boxers brought to their knees with a single blow, the people rushing down the street, running for their lives.
Finally, Obaachan turns to Dad. “Why do such terrible things happen in the sky? Isn’t that where your heaven is supposed to be?”