The Wife Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

putting flesh on his bones. But he’s filled out in recent years and I’m not sure if it’s Olive’s cooking that’s fattened him up or the way he now feeds so greedily on Jesus, who called himself the Bread of Life.
    I have six daughters. I never wanted a boy. When I was growing up on the farm, there were enough men in the house to last me a lifetime. William, on the other hand, like a farmer looking for cheap labour, dreamed of a houseful of sons. He got only Morris. The baby I miscarried at six months and the other one that died of pneumonia after three days were both male and now I wonder if, all his life, we haven’t somehow made Morris carry the burden of those two dead boys.
    “I wish your sisters were here,” I said to Morris at the hospital, though in truth I fear my girls. They’ve grown into clever, angry, intrepid women who at this moment are producing political plays in Brazil, climbing mountains in Nepal, searching for rare plants in Indonesia, teaching English to German children.
    “Why do you need the girls?” asked Morris bitterly. “I’ve been here every second day since Dad’s stroke. Aren’t I good enough for you?”
    I blinked at him and pressed my lips together. Sighing tiredly, he closed his bible, gave my shoulder a firm squeeze. It wasn’t so much the hand of a son as that of a preacher.
    “I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “It’s all right, Morris.”
    He pulled on his coat. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be late for supper,” he said, shuffling on his feet, awkward at this moment of farewell. Why could I not rise to embrace him, this son of mine who’d driven hell-bent to be at my side after William’s stroke? As a teenager, Morris sometimes hugged me so hard he broke my ribs, which, when I was fifty, were already brittle with osteoporosis. I could feel them snapping like dry twigs, hear them popping like bottle caps. After that, the agony of a deep breath, of turning over in my sleep. Sitting now beside William’s bed, I was certain that if anyone touched me, I’d shatter into a million pieces. How, I wondered, have I become this old and crumbling woman?
    “I’ll try to come back tomorrow.”
    “You don’t have to, Morris.”
    “I’ll be here.”
    “Drive carefully. Don’t fall asleep on the road.”
    “Not to worry, Mom. God is my pilot.”
    I’ve seen the stickers all over the bumpers of his car: GOD IS MY PILOT. I BELIEVE IN ANGELS. REAL MEN LOVE JESUS. MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER. SMILE: JESUS LOVES YOU.
    Dear girls,
    …It’s a new joy to wake up these mornings, feeling not only refreshed but somehow whole and at peace withmyself. And without your father shouting up the stairs, Morgan, I want my eggs! I’m able to lie in bed and watch the sun creep across the floorboards to filter through the jungle ferns on the closet curtains. As the room warms and brightens, the hours, though they lie shapeless before me, seem full of possibility. Each day is now mine to create in all its fullness.
    This morning I descended the stairs and found the house full of October light. Leaves, luminous as shards of stained glass, flew past the windows. Your father’s easy chair, catching as always the best of the day’s sunlight, invited me to sit down. And though outside the gardens are fading, the buds hardening off for winter and the tree roots growing cold in the drying earth, I felt something blossoming within me, unfolding like the petals of a flower. Trembling with caution, surprise, bewilderment, I walked from room to room, floating with an unfamiliar lightness of spirit…

October 21
    Dear girls,
    …Do you remember the Wife Tree? How in the autumn her bright branches shone their extraordinary light into all the rooms of our house?…
    Dusk has fallen by the time I arrive home these days. I go about the house turning on lights and closing curtains. Then I make my habitual trip to the cellar.
    “Give us this day our daily potato. That’s how the