Page 2 of The Singing Trees
“Yeah?”
Emma put her hand on her own heart. “Thank you. You truly are a saint.”
“Oh,stopit.” Imitating her late grandmother’s stilted Neapolitan cadence, Annalisa said with wild hand gestures swatting the air, “Annalisa asaint?Tu sei pazza!Are we talking about the same girl who gave me the calluses on my arthritic fingers as I worked my way through the rosary praying for her soul?” Just as her grandmother had done, Annalisa blew out a blast of air as if she were extinguishing Mount Vesuvius.
The woman chuckled weakly, a flash of teeth and a slow and mild shake of her shoulders.
Annalisa sat on the edge of the bed and gathered her long white hair into a ponytail, thinking of hernonna, who’d taken her in when she was fifteen. “God, I miss her.”
“I can only imagine,” Emma said, licking her lips. She seemed to be waking up now, her speech flowing easier. “Joking aside, she’d be proud of you for so many reasons. I know you hate talking about the past, but after what I did to you...and what you did for me...”
Annalisa brushed a hand through the air. “The past is the past. The way my memory has faded, I can barely remember the Our Father, so you’re off the hook for anything that happened years ago.”
Annalisa was lying: she could remember everything.
Every single day.
“If it were only that easy,” Emma whispered.
Annalisa was sure that Emma’s inability to separate from the past was why she’d turned down any sort of treatment, including chemotherapy. She was ready to say goodbye. After days of trying, Annalisa was through arguing with her on the topic and had come to accept the fateful decision.
Annalisa raised a finger. “Let me see if I can find someone to help.” She pressed up from the bed, poked her head out of the room, and looked down the hallway. A nurse in teal scrubs, bearing an uncanny resemblance to James Dean—without the styled hair—walked toward her with a stack of bedsheets in his hand.
“Excuse me. Can I borrow you for a moment?”
“Sure.” He sped up and followed her in.
“Would you mind hanging these chimes for us?” Annalisa pointed into the box.
The man shrugged. “That’s a first in my ten years of rounds, but I don’t see why not.”
After discussing the best method, the nurse slid the squeaky swivel chair toward the end of the bed, and as the women urged him to be careful, he climbed up. With one arm steadying the chair, Annalisa handed him the chimes.
Nineteen seventy, she pondered. That was the year she’d made these chimes, and they’d sung to her for many years before she’d given them to Emma. It was funny how she thought in years now. That was something that she’d been doing since her fifties. Everything that had happened in her life had a time stamp to it. Nineteen sixty-nine: the year she met Thomas. Nineteen seventy: the year she escaped the small-town clutches of Payton Mills to move to the city. Nineteen seventy-three: the year she first went to Bar Harbor.Nineteen seventy-seven: the year Annalisa almost saw Elvis perform. He, her favorite musician of all time, had died the day before the performance had been scheduled in Portland. Her unpunched ticket stub (section 122, row F, seat 6) hung in a frame in the studio of her house. Nineteen seventy-nine: the year she’d gifted Emma the chimes as a symbol of her forgiveness.
While the nurse was stretched tall, Annalisa couldn’t help herself and took a moment to appreciate his very toned tush. She glanced at Emma, who happened to be enjoying the same view. They shared a knowing smile. Some things stick with you from your youth.
The man with the pleasing posterior slipped the hook over one of the metal brackets that supported the tiles and carefully climbed back down. “There you go.”
Once he was gone, Annalisa went to Emma’s side and gently took her arthritic hand. It felt like she’d just picked up a snowball without gloves. “I’m sorry I can’t puthimon a hook in here for you. Wouldn’t that be a sight. I guess the chimes will have to do.”
Emma snorted. “When are you going to start getting old like the rest of us?”
“Please. If you only knew what I looked like naked. I’m as ancient as Rome.”
Annalisa patted her hand reassuringly, trying to make some sort of wordless case that everything would be okay, even if it wasn’t true. They stared at each other for a long time, and Annalisa’s heart burned in the silence.
Emma asked, “Would you help me write him one last letter?”
A tear escaped Annalisa as she nodded. She went to the desk and rummaged around until she found a notepad and pen in a drawer, then sat on the swivel chair and slid toward the head of the bed.
Emma wheezed again as she drew in oxygen. After a long pause—the seconds marked by the chirp of the machine—she finally spoke.
Dear Thomas,
What is there left to say? You know I’m sorry. You know I miss you. How many letters can a sister possibly write to her brother before he believes her? My heart breaks again and again. Did you ever truly find happiness, or did I steal it away forever? How I wish you could sit in this room—as awful as it is—and tell me the stories of your life.
You were such a wonderful brother, putting up with me during my teenage years. Can you believe the things I did? So desperate for attention. And you were the only one who ever gave it to me. You even gave up living in the dorms to stay home for me. What would I have done without you? I still laugh about the time you beat up Jim Harrison for calling me a skank.
