The Trees

Content warning for mental illness and allusions to domestic violence.

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The trees were harassing my mother again. 

I edged toward her room when I heard her cry out. “What’s wrong, momma?” 

Rain pattered in through the open window and swirled her chestnut-brown hair with chilly gusts of wind.

Hovering in the doorway, I shivered in my favorite nightgown, the one gramma made for me. My fingers clutched the pastel-colored butterflies she embroidered on it, each one fashioned from her light and warmth.

Tears poured down momma’s face as she screamed. “They’re going to get me! The trees want me to come into their trunks!” Her cries mixed with the howls of the wind. Turning to the trees, she begged them, “No! Leave me alone!” A blast of thunder shook the walls of our rundown mobile home and whirled my mother around to face me again. Eyes wild, she entreated me, “Go outside! Hurry! Throw rocks at them! They’ll leave me alone if you do!”

That was my job, keeping momma safe. Daddy couldn’t be bothered. He also wasn’t around. The senior scientist of a drug-discovery laboratory, he was a man of certainty and order, though he never got either. His good heart but hot head meant he had lots of love but little patience. Thus, to keep from hurting momma whenever her acute bipolar acted up, he stayed away from her as much as possible. I had no choice. But, I would have chosen momma anyway.

Only a preschooler, I began to see what she did. Shadows twisted knots of bark into faces, and the creaking of branches became voices. I clamped my eyes shut and slapped my hands over my ears, shaking my head, but momma pulled my arms down. 

Our frantic eyes met in a clap of thunder.

I don’t want to. I don’t want to! 

“Leira, please!” 

My name! I nodded, swallowing hard though my body still quaked. “Okay, momma. For you.” But the hesitation lodged deep within my chest also stuck my feet to our waxy shag carpet.

“For the baby!”

Though she had yet to be born and yet to have a name, Stephanie flashed through my heart like lightning. I ran outside, slipping on the slick grass, to grab up the biggest rocks I could find. 

The wind did its best to drag me away. Mud fought me too and splattered on my long, white nightie as I clawed at the ground. 

When branches tried harder to snatch my precious mother away from me, I hurled my rocks. “No! Leave her alone!” I cried. “Stop it!”

Momma would never fight her demons alone. 

I made sure of it.

Twiggy fingers reached for me instead. 

A human voice broke through the din. “What are you doing, child?” Hands outstretched, our elderly neighbor cautiously approached me. She hadn’t even brought an umbrella. “What’s the matter?”

Didn’t she see the storm? How could she walk right through it? In a moment, I realized what might be happening. I squeezed my eyes shut, counted to three, and then opened them just like gramma had taught me. She had tried to teach momma the same thing, but momma would never listen to anyone, least of all her mother. Gramma’s face, kind but twisted with worries that ran deeper than her wrinkles, hung like a curtain before my eyes for a second or two until it melded with Mrs. Fletcher’s.

Our neighbor petted the hair on top of my head and knelt down to look me in the face. “Sweetheart, what’s going on?”

I averted my gaze. The storm looked nothing like it had before she crossed the divide between us. Darkness reigned only because the last rays of sun were slipping past the horizon, the clouds merely drizzling. Half-hearted breezes scuttled the trash along the street, and there was no lightning or thunder.

“Is it your daddy again?” Mrs. Fletcher asked, her voice soft, careful.

A pause drew out between us. 

The old woman petted my hair. “Or, was it your momma?”

My stomach churned. Oh no! Someone noticed momma’s sickness. That there were earthquakes only she felt. How rainbows emitted from the television and tried to pull her in. 

Momma’s screams echoed in my head. They’ll put me in a bad place! The neighbors or your father! They’ll commit me, baby! Don’t let them! Those places don’t make you better, they make you weak. Broken! Please don’t let them take me there!

I hadn’t. Shaking my head, I hunched my shoulders and prepared myself to fight for momma’s freedom, her life. They were the same thing.

The storm descended once more.

My mother bolted outside in a flash of electricity. “Sweetheart!”—I winced at the way she shrilled it—“Oh, honey! What are you doing outside? I thought you were napping!” Turning to our neighbor, momma shrugged helplessly. “Kids, huh?” A brittle laugh broke from her throat. “With me eight and a half months along now, it’s hard to keep after her sometimes!” She took me away from the old woman and held me as close as possible over her swollen belly. The new hand in my hair was trembling and ice-cold. “Baby, what were you doing?” she asked, her voice shaking even harder than did her fingers.

I opened my mouth to answer but froze when momma pressed our foreheads together. Her face expanded into that manic look of fear, anger, and warning. Her hazel eyes bore into mine, and her tightening grip made my scalp tingle. I shut my mouth.

“Are you sure you’re both alright?” Mrs. Fletcher asked, coming forward to rub my mother’s back. 

Momma’s cheek twitched, and I wondered if the other woman felt how all of my mother’s muscles had hardened.

“I know what it is, to marry so young and to a man who…” Our neighbor traced the reddened fingermarks encircling my mother’s upper arm behind me.

No longer able to contain her shudder, momma recoiled from the gnarled hand and ran with me back inside. “We’re fine!” she called over her shoulder.