Family Roots

     I haven't posted a short story in a while. I wrote this one and sent it to Cemetery Dance but alas, it was rejected. Such is life. This would make a good Night Land story, our version of the Twilight Zone. Read it to find out what happens to Joan as she tries to pull up her roots and move on... in NightLand!

     When my father died, he left his house to his three surviving children, my two sisters and I. I loved that house. We all had fond memories of our childhood home, but I was the only one who wanted to keep the place in the family. Carolyn and Donna had both moved away and I had been watching over Dad's affairs the past three years. It was a struggle making time for him when I had my own family to contend with, especially with my wife constantly pushing me to put him in a nursing home. I guess that's why it happened the way it did.

     I bought the house from the estate. Dad had built it himself fifty-two years ago and left it to the three of us. He was a carpenter by trade and kept the place immaculate, updating the kitchen and baths to more modern designs as the years went by. The house was huge because he planned on having a big family, but things didn't work out that way. My mom died shortly after I was born and he never remarried.

     He was as meticulous in the landscaping as he was in everything else, planting a variety of bushes and trees on the property. One tree in particular was his favorite and overhung the large tiered deck off the back of the house. It was a massive old-growth oak, and while he didn't plant this one -- it was probably over one hundred years old -- he would sit in comfort under the shade of its leaves every day during the summer months. The limbs spread out over a large portion of the backyard as well. As we were growing up, he often told us that he would live to see his grandchildren swinging from the sprawling branches one day, and he was right.

     Between my sisters and I, he had seven grandchildren when he died. One of the last things he had built was a sandbox underneath the grand old oak, right next to the tire swing. He lived to see the children swinging from that tree; it was his dream come true, but it was also the end of the road for Joan and I.

     We had been married for seven years and had three kids, twin boys and a girl. Dad's house was perfect for us, it had five bedrooms and four full baths. We were finally able to spread out. The kids didn't have to share a bedroom anymore; they were getting too old for that anyway. Dad had tried to get us to live with him several times, but Joan didn't want anything to do with it. Two months after we moved in, the trouble started.

     "We should cut the tree down."

     "Why, because a bird shit on your head? You've got to be kidding, Joan!"

     "It's not just that, and you know it. There's bird droppings all over the deck!"

     "Nonsense, I've only seen a couple of spots. I mean it's not like birds have a designated shit zone you know."

     "Keep it up Bryce. I'm sure you find this hilarious. You don't have to worry about birds shitting in your hair because you don't have any left!"

     "Now that was uncalled for, I can play that game too if that's what you want."

     "I'm not playing games!"

     "Why don't you just wear a hat?"

     "Oh, so now you want me to cover up my blazing red, circus clown hair that you never liked, don't you? Just come out and say it, Bryce!"

     "Maybe the birds thought your hair was a big red bull's-eye, I don't know."

     With that remark, Joan stormed off in a hissy fit. She didn't speak to me for days. That was more often the rule than the exception lately. She never did support me much while I was caring for Dad. It brought out a side of her that I never realized existed, not that our relationship was great to begin with. Still, I hoped that getting out of our cramped rental house would help smooth things over between us. And it might have if it wasn't for the oak tree.

     A few days after the bird incident, we had a violent summer thunderstorm blow through, complete with high winds, lightning and hail the size of dimes. The kids and I sat in the living room and watched the light show through the patio doors that opened out onto the deck. Joan was in our upstairs bedroom, complaining about how the high humidity was ruining her expensive hairdo.

     The twins, Jake and Jeff wondered where their mom was but their little five-year-old sister Hannah knew, and told them so.

     "Mommy's hair is sick! She put all this junk on it and then covered it in a plastic bag!"

     "She'll smother it!" said Jake. "Won't it all fall out like yours did Dad?"

     "Dad's hair didn't just fall out, his brains pushed it out to make room for more, didn't it Dad?" said Jeff.

     I chuckled at the simplicity with which kids looked at things. It was refreshing and took my mind off the real reason why Joan was upstairs; she was still pissed at me. I had tried to reason with her. I told her we could make any changes she wanted to make the house more like our own, except cutting the tree down. Anything but that.

     The next day was Saturday and I had to work. I got up early and had a cup of coffee out on the deck, watching the sunrise. I noticed a small branch had fallen from the oak tree into the kid's sandbox. I figured I had better hire a contractor to trim the dead branches out and thought nothing more about it until I got home that evening. When I walked in the front door, Joan was waiting for me.

     "I have a surprise for you, honey! Come, let me show you!"

     I was taken aback by her sudden change in attitude from the past few days.

     "Hang on a sec, let me get my muddy boots off, the job was flooded from all the rain we had last night."

     "I know!" said Joan. "And the wind! We had branches down all over the place!"

     I felt a warning twinge in the pit of my stomach at her words. "What do you mean? I was out there this morning, and there was only one little branch..."

     "Right in the middle of the sandbox." she interrupted. "Can you imagine if one of the kids were playing in it when it fell?"

     "It was hardly more than a twig, Joan. Besides, I called someone to come out and trim all the dead stuff out. He's coming Monday."

     "Well, you don't have to worry about that now. I took care of it. Come look!"

     "You had someone come out and trim it you mean?"

     "Yes. I had to pay a little extra because of all the wind damage last night, they were pretty busy cleaning up downed trees."

     "But we didn't have a tree down."

     "We do now," she said.

     I got my boots off and followed her out onto the deck. I couldn't believe my eyes. The oak tree was gone. There was nothing left but a huge, gaping hole of emptiness in its place. They had cleaned up every scrap and even removed the stump, leaving a big scar in the lawn beside the sandbox. The old weathered tire swing lay forsaken on the ground next to it. I was furious.

     "You just couldn't leave it alone, could you?" I said.

     "What's wrong with you? I thought I did something right for once."

     "Bullshit. You were looking for an excuse to cut that tree down and you jumped at the chance."

     "No, Bryce, it's not like that. I was thinking about the kids."

     "Really? Where are they? Why aren't they out here playing like they always do?"

     "Well, they're a little upset is all."

     "I'll bet the are! They loved that tree. Their grandfather used to watch them playing under it all the time. It's probably one of the few memories of him they'll keep."

     "Give me a break. They know he's gone now and this is our house. They'll get used to it."

     "Don't stand there and tell me you did it for them. You did it for yourself, or maybe it was just to spite me."

     "For Christ's sake, it's just a damn tree. Plant another one. I've got to go." She turned to leave, then stopped. "Don't you want to know where I'm going?"

     "No." I answered.

     "I have an appointment with my hairdresser."

     "On a Saturday night?"

     She smiled at me knowing her bluntness had the desired effect. I didn't think we had drifted that far apart, but I guess I was wrong. She probably did have the tree cut down to spite me after all.

*****

     Sunday morning, I went right out to the nursery and bought another oak tree. Joan had come in late that morning and I hadn't bothered to wake her up. I took the kids with me, and together we picked out the nicest tree we could find. We were in the backyard planting it when Joan yelled out the door for me.

     "Jeff, you and Jake finish packing the dirt around the root ball. Hannah, you drag the hose over here, and when I get back, we'll water it." I went to see what their mother wanted.

     I found her in the living room, jerking and pulling on her favorite chair.

     "What do you want?" I didn't bother hiding the coldness in my voice.

     "What did you do to my chair?"

     It was an old style, wing back chair supported by solid-wood claw shaped legs. "I didn't do anything to it, why?"

     "The sun is too bright, I wanted to turn it away from the window, but it won't move."

     Her eyes were all red and puffy like she had been up all night partying, probably because she was. Thinking this was more a case of her trying to get me to wait on her than anything else, I walked over to the chair and gave it a shove. It didn't budge. I gave it a little more effort the second time, throwing my weight against the back of the chair, and still it didn't move so I got down on my hands and knees and looked under it.

     I was stunned at what I found. Roots had sprouted from the wooden legs and embedded themselves into the floor. I got to my feet and backed away from the chair, ending up at the patio door. I glanced out, checking on the kids. They appeared to be waving to someone up on the deck, except no one was there.

     "Well, what's wrong, why didn't you move it?"

     I didn't know what to tell her.

     "And will you look at that! I've told the kids a dozen times to leave that picture alone. Can't you do something with them?"

     There was a picture of my mother and father hanging on the wall. Hannah would often take it down and hold it on her lap, staring at her grandfather, and the grandmother she never knew. She could never seem to get it hung back in place without it being crooked. I smiled at the thought but when Joan reached for it, I was surprised at her reaction.

     "What the hell is this shit?" She had grabbed the frame and tried to straighten it but quickly jerked her hands away, staring at them.

     "Now what?"

     "There's something sticky all over the frame. It's stuck to the wall."

     The knotty pine wall the picture hung from looked wet. It was the knotholes, they were seeping pitch that ran down the wall like tears, coating the picture in sap.

     "That's impossible," I said. "That wood is over fifty years old, there's no way there can be any pine sap left in it."

     "Pine sap my ass, I just ruined these white pants trying to wipe it off. My fingers are practically stuck together. Why are you doing this to me?"

     "I'm not doing anything! I have no idea what's going on."

     "Sure, first you screw my damn chair to the floor, and then throw pancake syrup all over the place."

     "It's not pancake syrup! That's insane, why would I do that?"

     "I never liked this shit hole anyway, it's like a goddamned morgue around here."

     "Quit swearing, Joan. The kids will hear..."

     "So what! I'm not going to be around here much longer anyway."

     She walked out of the room with a smug look on her face. She thoroughly enjoyed putting me in my place, that's probably why she didn't notice the wrinkled throw rug on the polished oak floor in the hallway and tripped over it, almost falling. Joan cussed again and went stomping up the stairs to the bedroom. I went to smooth the rug out, but there was no smoothing it. It wasn't a wrinkle after all. Underneath was another tree root growing out of the floor.

     I followed her up the stairs, pulling myself up by the railing. The handrail was unusually rough and as I looked closer, instead of a smooth, sanded piece of finished lumber, it looked like a rough log, complete with bark. I could actually smell the wood as clearly as if it were freshly cut. The spindles underneath the railing were sprouting buds, and a few already had small delicate branches thrusting out from them. The house was growing. It had come alive.

     Everything that was made of wood suddenly showed signs of life. A wood framed picture in the upstairs hall grew a framework of leafy vines, the base molding popped loose from the wall as it thickened and swelled. Hallway doors sprung open from the pressure of the expanding framework that supported them, the floor buckled under my feet.

     Down below, everything looked normal. I looked out the living room window and over the edge of the deck I could still see the children playing around the newly planted tree outside. They had gotten the water hose out and were squirting each other, oblivious to what was happening inside. The destructive effect of the house coming to life seemed to be centralized around Joan.

     I didn't feel threatened by these strange things. I sensed the spirit of my father in this, and his heartbreak at the loss of the tree. His desire for his grandchildren to enjoy it as he wished had been maliciously denied.

     Joan screamed out from the bedroom. I heard the shattering of glass and splintering wood as I reached the door. I couldn't have made my way in if I wanted to; an intertwining maze of roots had grown across the frame blocking the way. The house groaned in protest as the drywall in the bedroom cracked and crumbled with pieces falling from the ceiling and walls. I was too late, regardless; I couldn't have helped her.

     The room was a shambles. The wooden bed frame had grown an umbrella-like canopy of leaves. Molding from the doors and windows had peeled loose from their casings and lay scattered about like firewood. The bathroom door hung askew to its frame and had rooted to the floor.

     A limb from a tree in front of the house had burst through the window forcing Joan into the corner and up against the open closet door. Branches instantly grew out of the raised panels embracing her, lifting her from the floor in a crushing grip as vines slithered from the closet and wrapped around her ankles. With a sure hold on its prey, the rope like growth suddenly pulled taught, receding into the darkness of the closet. The door began to swing shut with Joan still grasped in its deadly clutches; a hand like branch covered her mouth, stifling her screams.

     The door slammed shut with such force that it shook the entire house. Lamps jumped from the bedside tables and the dresser mirror literally exploded. With a resounding crack, the branch jutting through the ruined window frame split loose from the tree and lay motionless. The living canopy over the bed wilted and dropped its leaves as the tangle of green vines withdrew back into the bedposts. No longer supported by its disappearing roots, the bathroom door crashed to the floor. The roots blocking the bedroom door melted back into the walls. A few muffled moans leaked from the cracked closet door, and then all was silent.

     Carefully stepping over the debris, I went to the closet. I pulled at the doorknob but it was stuck; there was a piece of cloth jammed between the door and the frame. I pulled harder and when it came open, a tattered pant leg of what remained of Joan's white pants dropped to the floor. She was nowhere to be found.

*****

     The laughter and yelling of the kids brought me back to reality. I was numb from what I had witnessed and uncertain about how I should feel. I was shaken by what happened to Joan, but at the same time, felt a kind of guilt-ridden relief.

     I went back downstairs and into the living room, thinking it was awfully dark, and that a storm must be blowing in. The brilliant sunlight that had flooded the room before I went upstairs was gone.

     My jaw hit the floor as I suddenly realized why it was so dark. Once again there was a sprawling, leaf filled oak tree towering over the deck and shading the back yard. The kids were taking turns on the tire swing as the ghostly image of my father watched from the deck. The kids waved to him as he faded away, and he waved back...

The End