The Christmas Trees My Mother Planted

There was a long pause on the line. Then she said, “I’ll tell the chain,” and hung up, and I knew that by Wednesday every widow between Cadillac and Lake City would know about it, which is a faster network than anything on a phone.

The day before Thanksgiving, the girls and I went out to the farm and got ready. We walked the back hill with a can of my mother’s flagging tape, and we tied a strip of red on every tree that was tall enough to put in a living room. It took us the whole afternoon.

We set up two sawhorse tables at the end of the lane, near the pole barn. We hauled the camp stove out of the barn and the big enamel kettle my mother used. We swept the snow off the gravel.

Les came out on the porch once and watched us for a few minutes. He did not come down. He did not go back in, either, for a long time.

On Thanksgiving Day the girls and I ate at home, just the three of us, a small turkey breast and too many pies. I had invited Les. He said he would rather stay put, and I didn’t push. I took him a plate on Friday. He thanked me and set it on the counter and didn’t look at it.

“Tomorrow’s the day,” I said. “We’ll start at nine. You’re welcome to come down.”

“I know what day it is,” he said.

Saturday came up clear and cold, nineteen degrees at sunrise, with a dusting of snow that had fallen overnight and caught on every needle on that hill. I have never seen those rows look as good as they did that morning. My mother would have stood at the kitchen window and said, There. That’s a Christmas card.

We had the sign up on its cedar post at the end of the drive by eight. Otis was there by eight fifteen with his tractor and the hay wagon, the old red one with the slat sides, and two saws in a bucket and a thermos of coffee.

The girls set up the cider table. They wore the matching green knit hats my mother had made them two Christmases ago, the last ones she knitted. Their long blond hair hung out from under the hats, past their shoulders, and every time they bent over the kettle it swung forward and they had to push it back.

Rose set a big glass jar on the table next to the paper cups. It was a gallon pickle jar my mother had saved, washed and dried, with no label on it at all. Rose had thought about a label and then decided against it.

“People will know what it’s for,” she said.

At ten minutes to nine, the first car turned in off the county road. It was a minivan with a family of five, and the father rolled down his window and looked at the sign and looked at me.

“Is it really free?” he asked. “We heard at church it was free.”

“It’s really free,” I said. “One tree per family. Pick any one with red tape on it. There’s cider at the table.”

He sat there a second with his hand on the wheel. Then he said, “My wife’s mother bought from Bonnie every year. Every year.” And he pulled in.

Behind him, there was a pickup. Behind the pickup, there were two more cars.