Chapter 27
Over the next weeks, Caleb and I seize every sliver of time we can—while Abby is at school and Adelaide stays with Mom to play a game or share gossip, while Caleb and I visit landmarks across town to gather information for grant applications.
Caleb introduces me to the town as if I’m visiting for the first time, and, in some ways, I am.
I knew it as a frequent tourist, but Caleb’s Grand Trees is more honest. It’s filled with the people who have committed to this secluded, volatile patch of land.
We take his canoe onto the lake, floating in the water while eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
We visit Bob and Carmela on their land behind the B and B, where Caleb convinces Bob to cut down a patch of pines infested with bark beetles, but not before patiently explaining the science multiple times and listening to Bob’s reservations.
We prepare the camp for the annual preseason party, an event for locals planned for the weekend before the summer campers descend.
We eat pasta on his patio beside the light of a citronella candle with the chorus of the forest as our background music.
We make love in Caleb’s cozy cabin as the spring rain prattles on the tin roof and wind chimes sing on the porch.
In between the long stretches of pretense, Caleb and I find moments to be us.
We relax into each other with affection that is as comfortable as it is startling.
We are polite in public but passionate in private.
The stolen kisses and half-dressed trysts make me feel like a new person.
Is this what everyone experiences when they fall for someone?
I feel lighter, more attuned to the beauty around me, more focused and productive. I feel—more.
As the weeks turn to months, Mom and I get into a rhythm. We’re careful with each other, but instead of tiptoeing, we’re treading lightly. It may be nominal, but it’s progress.
One night as I help Mom get ready for bed, she reaches for my hand. “Eden, honey. I want you to know how much I appreciate you staying with me. I know it’s a sacrifice.”
“It’s not a sacrifice, Mom,” I assure her, squeezing her hand, but she doesn’t let go. It’s cool and soft in my grip. Her skin is a thin layer of satin.
“I love having you here. I’ve always wanted you here.” Her words toy at the border of dangerous territory, but for once, I decide to create a neutral zone and welcome her in.
“I heard you and Sonny built this bedroom for me. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner.” I sit beside her on the edge of the bed and glance at the space, at the love poured into the wood siding and plank floors, at how the windows overlook the forest and not the ravine. It mirrors my childhood bedroom.
She pats the top of my hand with a wistful smile. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.”
I wait for more, for her to initiate a discussion, but she looks at her lap and grows silent. Maybe it’s as close to a proper apology as I’ll ever get, and the nearest I’ll move to acceptance. It’s still better than where we’ve been. Forward progress is good, no matter how slow.
“Me too, Mom.”
When I decided to stay, I wanted to set aside my hurt and build a better future for us.
But I’m not the only one who took a chance.
It was just as brave of Mom to receive me so readily.
It’s an act of love to let someone care for you, to be vulnerable and put your life in their hands.
Mom could have refused me. Maybe she should have refused me. It would have been my karma.
As a teen, I didn’t set out to break Mom’s heart by rejecting her attempts to care for me after the accident.
But I saw her pain when I rebuffed her. As a minor, I couldn’t kick my mother out of my hospital room, but I could—and did—direct my requests to my dad or the nurses.
I had lost control of my body and future, and I punished Mom for all of it. When only some of it was her fault.
And yet, Mom isn’t retaliating. She’s embracing me. She’s letting me care for her the way I wouldn’t let her care for me.
I hate to threaten our careful peace, but she’s given me so few openings, and I don’t want to miss this one, narrow though it is.
“Have you given any more thought to treatment? Perhaps I can schedule an appointment with the neurologist and go with you before I leave? Run interference?”
Mom looks out the window and sighs, but she sounds more resigned than defensive when she says, “I don’t know, honey.”
“Just one appointment. I won’t make you go back if it goes terribly.”
“The doctor made it seem hopeless.” Mom hazards a glance at me, and her expression is fragile. I wonder how much of her resistance is her avoiding the reality of her own mortality.
“So we’ll find a different one,” I try.
“There isn’t another one anywhere near here. But even if there were, with the side effects—and such little prospect for improvement—maybe I’m better off enjoying the years I have left.”
I don’t know what Mom heard from this local doctor or how accurate his message was, but at least I have a sense of why she made the decision to forgo treatment.
I hold my breath, preparing for the vulnerability of these next words. “That’s the thing, though. I’d like us to have as many years as we can.”
Mom smiles, and it’s wistful. “We have missed too many.” She threads her hand in mine. “I’ll think about it, okay?”
As I slide into bed that night, I feel something coming loose in me—like my scar tissue is softening, allowing my lungs to expand and take in more air.
It gives me hope. Because maybe if Mom and I have a chance to make amends, if I learn how to heal from my first heartbreak, I can allow myself emotions big enough to risk another.
I text Caleb good night.
He texts me a picture of the unused side of his bed with a note.
Caleb: Wish you were here.
Me: Same.
Returning to Grand Trees has been an unexpected unburdening, although I didn’t realize I was longing for it until I got here. My return to San Francisco—to the home Jeff and I shared, to the solitary life I had before coming here—looms not as relief, but dread.
But whether I want to face it or not, my return home does loom.
It’s June, and I’ve been here for almost three months.
I arrived at the dawn of spring, when the weather was brisk and the hillside was draped in wildflowers.
But summer is dawning. The days are stretched taut, and unhurried sunsets suspend the stars.
This is the Grand Trees I remember—hot, endless, expectant.
Mom’s bruising is gone, and her stitches have dissolved.
She’s still tentative as she moves, but I don’t know if that’s due to the injury or the disease.
She will get her brace off in a few days.
She won’t need me full-time anymore, once she has use of both hands.
Her found family will tend to her, care for her, and let me know when she needs full-time care.
I’ll have to pick up the battle again then and hope she’s willing to move to San Francisco with me at that point.
But for now, I trust Grand Trees to look out for her.
The campers arrive next week, which will keep Caleb busy managing the day-to-day. I’ll leave soon after, when it will be easier to slip away.
It’s early Friday evening. Mom is resting in her room, and I’m preparing dinner when my phone rings. The screen lights up with Dad’s profile photo, an unflattering selfie from point-blank range. I slip in my headphones and answer on the third ring. “Hi, Dad. Everything okay?”
“I just stopped by to water your garden and thought I’d check on my girl.”
“Thank you.” He has the greenest thumb, and I imagine arriving to a house filled with a thriving garden, but I still don’t feel the tug of home. “I’m doing well, actually.” I slide the pan of seared chicken into the oven.
“And your mother?” His voice is tight, and I suspect this is the real reason for his call.
I hesitate. I never know how to talk about Mom without upsetting him. “She’s healing, doing better.”
“That’s good,” he says, but I listen for the unsaid, because I know his speech patterns, his pauses, the words that don’t arrive until he’s ready.
He doesn’t say anything else for a full minute, and my pulse races the longer I wait for him to continue.
I know I’ve opened old wounds by coming here.
The more upset he is, the fewer words he uses. “I’ve been looking into things.”
I wait again as I dress and toss the arugula salad.
“There are a lot of treatment options here in the city. She could have many good years if she moved home with you.”
My dad is quiet and careful—meticulous. I once again imagine him hovered over his desktop researching Parkinson’s.
He is likely a new expert in a disease neither of us knew anything about just months ago.
It kills me that he still cares so deeply about the woman who discarded him.
He never dated. Never redecorated. Never lived again.
“I know. But she doesn’t want to move in with me. I’ve asked her.”
His silence in response is aggravating. I recognize that my impatience stems from a desperation for him to get over it so I can get over it. My happiness has always been tethered to his.
“Well, you should insist. Try to convince her,” he says.
I drop the tongs in the salad bowl and push it away. “Dad,” I sigh. “I did. I have. I think I’ve made progress on convincing her to seek treatment, but I can’t drag her back to San Francisco against her will. She reacted terribly when I suggested it.”
“Maybe I can talk to her.”