The Red Cedar

Melinda – 2004 – Norfolk, Virginia 

            “How are you feeling today, Betsy?”  I ask my patient, who has just been admitted, but who I’ve known for years.    

            “Okay.  Just in for a tune up.”  She chuckles, as she tells me she’s here for what many Cystic Fibrosis patients have to regularly come in for.  A few weeks of strong IV antibiotics to help clear up or mitigate an infection that many CFers are prone to.  “This is my fiancé, Brad”.  Brad holds her hand tightly.  He’s gorgeous, with striking green eyes that remind me of my eldest sons, and dressed in a suit and tie, like he works some serious professional job (maybe he’s a lawyer or a physician leader).  But I quickly write off my guess that he’s a doctor, because he looks absolutely terrified.  To his credit though, he clings to her side.  

            I document her symptoms, and after checking with the doctor, I hang her antibiotics.  Then she asks me how I’m doing.  “How are your kids doing?”  She turns to Brad, “Melinda has like seven kids.  And two sets of identical twins.”  She says with a sense of awe that I’m by now, used to. 

            “Seven?”  Brad asks shocked, though most people usually get more caught up on my two sets of twins. 

            I know Betsy well enough to know she really wants me to tell her how all the kids are, so I do.  Even though it’ll keep me chatting for a little while.  But, it’s a light day on the floor, and I don’t have a full patient load so it’s okay.  “I have six, ranging from three to fifteen.  They’re a handful but they keep me busy.  The older twins are fifteen-year-old boys, and one has it in his head he and his friends are going to  have a famous rock band.  He already plays parties.  The other one fancies he’s going to be a Navy SEAL.  Then I have an eight-year-old daughter who is horse crazy.”  I laugh.  

            “Aren’t they all at that age?”  Betsy asks in between coughs.  “I used to ride.  Does she?” 

            “We’re negotiating.”  I smile.  “But she got a week at sleepaway horse camp this summer and loved it.”  

            “And the really little ones?  How are they?”  Betsy prods. 

            “Lily is a joy.  People say the threes are just as terrible as their twos, and truthfully, she’s hard to pin down sometimes, but she’s so fun to just get home from work and sit with.  She will laugh at just about anything.  She just started ballet lessons.  And unlike the others were, she’s not a picky eater.  She’ll eat anything, even broccoli.”

“She sounds great.  And how are the little twins?”

            “They’re at the “let’s switch places and confuse everyone” stage.  They can’t trick me or the older twins.  But they can trick their dad and their teachers, and their sisters.”  I bite my lip, trying to forget how mad their dad was when they pulled that trick at dinner the other night.    

“Being a twin must be so fun!”  Betsy says. 

 “It must be.”  I agree.  

“And how’s your step daughter?  Is she still in Israel?” 

“Yes, she is.  Thanks for asking.  She doesn’t get home much.” 

            “Are you Jewish?”  Brad asks, and I brace myself for an anti-Semitic comment, but to my relief, he just says, “So am I.  We’re hoping Betsy will be out of here before the High Holidays.”  

            “I hope so too”, I say with a smile.  But, we only have a couple of weeks until then, so there’s no guarantees.  

            I go back to the nurse’s station, and have barely started documenting the use of the antibiotics, before my friend Leah, who works in the ER, runs out of the stairwell.  “Melinda, you have to come to the ER now.  There’s been an accident.”  

Carlos – 1984 – Chapel Hill, Tennessee 

            “How many more trees do you have to load in this truck, Carlos?”  My boss asks.    

            “A few dozen, Ma’am”, I respond.  

            “Very well.  Keep it moving.”  I’ve become the principal communicator with the boss around here because I’m the only one who speaks English.  

            Every little red cedar gets loaded into the truck.  Someday, these trees are going to be something unimaginably large, while right now they’re just little baby trees, big enough to stand on their own, but too small to do much else.  I think of my wife and daughter back home, my daughter learning to take her first steps without my hand there to hold onto her, and my wife’s touch just a distant memory.  

            With every cedar we load onto these trucks, I’m getting another step closer to being able to bring them here.  I used to work on job sites all over Mexico, helping install gas turbines.  But, then Mexico faced a debt crisis, unemployment skyrocketed, and now I’m here.  

            My muscles ache after doing the same thing over and over for ten hours a day, and the pay isn’t exactly what I would have imagined of the American dream, but it’s more than I’d be getting back home.  

            I load the final red cedar into the truck, and go into the warehouse for my lunch break.  It’s already 2 pm.  After lunch, there will be another truck to take the red cedars far away.  And tomorrow there will be more and more.  I sometimes wonder what happens to those little trees, where they go, where they grow.  I sometimes imagine they feel like me – displaced, yearning for another place, but grateful for the opportunity to make their mark wherever they find themselves. 

Annie – 2005– Norfolk, Virginia

In Richmond, I got into any car that would take me and my outstretched thumb.  I didn’t care where it was going.  “You’ll have a hard time finding anything if you come all the way to Virginia Beach with me”, the old lady who picked me up says.  “So I’ll let you out here.  Do be careful, dear.”  

I grab my small duffle and step out of the car at the gas station she’s brought me to.  I’m not sure what she thought, that I have money to go inside for a piece of pizza or a hot dog?  That I can just wander around the parking lot of happy families and ask for a ride?  I see them give the homeless guy sitting outside, some side eye.  I’m not looking for that.  I will have to walk down the road a little to find a ride, and in my condition, it would’ve just been easier if she could’ve left me on the side of it.  

Nonetheless, she was a nice old lady, and shared some cookies and water with me.  And while I’m here, I may as well do something about the rat’s nest on my head, even though I didn’t have the foresight to pack a brush when I left Rochester two days ago.  

After splashing water on my face and finger combing for at least fifteen minutes, I figure I’m just delaying the inevitable.  I envy the kids dirtying their fingers in huge bags of Cheetos and wonder if I wait long enough, if someone will throw out some uneaten chips or candy.  

“Annie”, I think to myself.  “Are you really that desperate?”  At school, the other girls used to say I was, that I was desperate for attention, desperate for somebody to love me, desperate to get some.  How come I was desperate, but Tate wasn’t?  How come I’m the one who pays the price for being a couple of horny teenagers?  

If they could only see me now.  Maybe I am desperate.  

            That thought is enough to make me stop thinking about gas station snacks.  I nibble on the last piece of bread that I stole out of my parent’s pantry the night I left.  Then I start walking onto the road, looking for a good place to search for a ride.            

            A few minutes into my walk, I spot a tree, just off the road, that has a pile of things beside it.  At first, I wonder if there’s anything discarded in the pile that I could use.  Clothes, food, anything at all.  

But as I get closer, I see it’s a memorial.  No matter how much I’m lacking food and simple staples right now, I’m not going to steal from a memorial.  Yet, I still move closer, curiosity drawing me in.  In psych class a few weeks ago, we learned that humans often experience something called negativity bias.  We won’t focus on the pretty trees around us as much as we will on this one – this one that says something terrible happened here.  And I kind of get it right now.  Also, it’s easier for me to focus on some potentially sad thing that happened here than the one going on in my own life right now.  

            But then I get to the tree, and I stare down at all the things in front of me, and I can’t quite fathom what I’m looking at.  

            First I look at the tree itself.  It seems unscathed, except for a little bit of blue paint on the truck, that presumably came off a car.  

Next to the cross and piles of flowers and candles, there’s a stuffed elephant, and a stuffed bear and a rabbit too.  I’m about to walk away, because how can you look at something like this and not feel like your heart will stop beating?  But before I walk away, my eyes catch a photo of a little girl in a ballet outfit.  A child’s scrawl covers the bottom of the photo, “We miss you, Lily.”  

            My breath hitches, and I walk down the road, stick my thumb out, and move forward.  The driver of the car that stops is about my age, and wearing a high school band T-shirt.  There are two other kids in the car – a boy up front and a girl in the backseat.  “Where are you trying to go?”  The driver asks.  

I briefly hesitate, and then open the door and get in the backseat.  “As close as you can get me to Wilmington would be great.”  

            “You’re in luck”, the girl in the backseat says.  “We’re going to look at UNC Wilmington.”  

            “Where are you from?”  She asks.  She seems sweet, but I’m not ready to talk about that.  

            “Up North.”  I mutter.  

            She glances down at my hand on my stomach.  I’m not successfully covering up the bulge from anyone.  She nods, “Do you have family in Wilmington?” 

            “Yes, my great aunt and uncle live there.”  They don’t know I’m coming, but I’m hoping they will be happy when I show up on their doorstep.  I look out the window, and think about the tree on the side of the road, the stuffed elephant.   

            My parents told me I was ruining my life by having a kid at 17, that I could either marry Tate or leave.  My sister said I was irresponsible and should consider giving the baby away.  My best friend’s parents told her she couldn’t hang out with me anymore.  

            By the time we get out of the car on the campus of UNC Wilmington, and I’ve walked to the address I wrote down, I’ve come to a decision.  If I have a daughter, I will name her Lily.  If I have a son, I will also love him fiercely.  But either way, no matter how challenging it is, this child is going to be mine even if my great aunt and uncle slam the door in my face, like everyone else in my life has.  I knock on the door.  

Teddy – 2012  -- London, UK

            “Teddy, are you and your brother available for a few questions?”  A reporter asks after I place 12^th in the 5k at the Olympic Games.    

            I nod.  “I’ll go find him.”  I don’t have to go far.  He just finished about forty seconds ahead of me, in third place, and right now he’s waving off reporters, though he can’t do it forever.  I tell him about the interview.  He hesitates.  We knew this would happen but we still don’t love talking to reporters, “You know what they’re gonna say about us.  The amazing amputee twins.”  

            I shrug, “I don’t care.  You did this.  We did this.  And I’m proud of that.” He sighs, looking down at his half an arm and my prosthetic legs.  My brother’s disability means that he had an actual shot of winning the Olympics, while me breaking the top 15 was nothing short of a miracle.  That was a tough pill to swallow for a while, but then I watch the way he’s adapted to his situation too, the way he continues to adapt, no matter how hard it is to play a guitar with one and a half arms, or button a shirt.  

            Then he nods.  “Okay.” 

            They immediately roll the cameras, “I’m here with Teddy and Tyler Hewitt, twins who raced for the U.S. today.  How do you guys feel today?”  

            “It’s pretty amazing.”  Tyler says.  “When we were fifteen, I watched our brother-in-law, Miles Mizrachi, medal in cycling at the Olympics, and I always hoped that one day Teddy and I could be here for ourselves.  So it’s definitely a dream come true.”

            “It’s pretty hard to believe.”  I laugh.  

            “And Teddy, you’ll be back here for the Paralympics in a couple weeks, won’t you?”

            “We both will, but we won’t be competing against each other again.  Different disability categories.”     

            “That’ll be great to see.  I bet you’ll both do great.” 

            We both smile.  

            “What made you guys both want to compete in the Olympics, despite your disabilities?”

            “Well, we were both running competitive times, and we’ve been racing in college against able-bodied athletes, so we got to the point where it was like ‘Why can’t we run in the Olympics?  And we figured, we won’t have a chance to win, but we can do pretty well.  And we were right, so we’re both pretty happy about that.”          

            “I bet.”  The reporter says.  “Can you tell us a little bit about how you both lost your limbs?  It was an accident, right?”

            “Yes”, I offer.  “We hit a tree in our car when we were five.  Our dad and sister died, so it puts the limbs we lost in perspective, I guess.  It was really hard after that.  But our older siblings and mom were really supportive, and pushed us to push our own limits.”

            September 2012 – Max

            The only thing worse than having a kid who hates you is having several kids who hate you and knowing you did something to deserve it. 

Sometimes I have dreams at night where I’m driving along Old Bay Road at night, and we past rows and rows of red cedars, and that’s the dream.  I get home, tuck my kids into bed and the next day, we do it again.  

            But in real life, I wake up in a 70 square foot cell, just trying to keep my head down.  The only reason I haven’t been beat to death for killing my 3-year-old in a drunk driving accident is because as a doctor and an inmate, I’m uniquely qualified to help the people in here.  Saving someone’s life when they get shived is one way to make allies.  

            Allies.  Not friends. 

            Someday, I’ll get out of here.  I’ll practice medicine if they’ll let me.  They probably won’t let me, but I’ll try.  Until then, I’ll keep spending my allocated computer time reading articles about my sons.  Today I read another article about how I’m dead, how I was killed in a car accident more than ten years ago.  I notice that my sons don’t tell the world what really happened to Teddy’s legs, Tyler’s arm.  They conveniently left out the part where I was the drunk driver that caused the crash.  They just spin a story that protects me, frames me as a victim, instead of the monster that I actually am.  

            My ex wife came to visit once.  She didn’t even speak to me, just laid the divorce papers on the table and sat by silently as I signed over all my assets to her.  

            I may still be alive, but I’m dead to my kids, and frankly, I’m dead to myself.  I was a shit father, but killing your own kid?  Albeit accidently?  You don’t recover from that.  

            Someday I’ll go back to that tree and I’ll pray alongside of that road.  I’d pray it was never been planted but if it wasn’t that red cedar, it could have been a building or a bridge.  I’d pray they were never born to me but they are beautiful, talented people.  There’s no going back, no erasing my sins.  All I can do is go back to the tree and beg God to forgive me and what I did to my little girl.