Forty Trees on the Nursing Home Lawn

Hallie had run every string back to one main cord, and that cord ended in a single plug at the outlet nearest the front door. She stood there holding it.

“You do it, Mom,” she said.

“No,” I said. “You do it.”

She plugged it in.

The whole lawn lit up at once. Forty trees, all of them glowing from the inside, warm gold against the blue dark, and the snow on the ground catching it so the lawn looked like it was lit from underneath too.

None of us said anything. Matt put his arm around Cole. Cole, who is thirteen and does not let anybody put an arm around him, let him.

Then I looked up at the building, and the faces started coming to the windows.

One at a time. An old man in a plaid robe. A woman with white hair in a pink cardigan, her hand at her mouth. Every window along the front of Maple Ridge filled up, one face at a time, like a calendar opening its little doors.

And then, in the window on the east end, an aide wheeled Grandma Irene up to the glass.

I saw her lean forward. I saw her hand come up and lie flat on the window.

We went inside to her. She didn’t turn around when we came in. She was looking out at the rows, and her eyes were wet, and her hand was still flat on the glass.

“Those are our trees,” she said. “Those are Fraser.”

“Yes, Grandma,” Hallie said.

“Walt and I planted the first ones in 1961.” She said it to the window, not to us. “Nobody believed Fraser would do on that sand. Walt said it would. He was right.”

She watched the lights for a long time. Then she looked at Hallie, and for a moment I could see she knew exactly who Hallie was.

“You did this,” she said.

“I sheared them, Grandma,” Hallie said. “This summer. These are from the north block.”

Grandma Irene nodded slowly, like that explained a great deal. She turned back to the window.

Sunday at two, same as every Sunday, Joanne’s Buick turned into the lot.

We were already there. Grandma had insisted on being by the window since lunch, and the aides had moved her chair there and put a blanket over her knees. Hallie was sitting next to her, reading her the church bulletin out loud: the prayer list, the youth group fundraiser, the cookie walk in the church basement.

I saw the Buick first. It came in slow, and it didn’t go to its usual spot by the side door. It pulled into a space at the front of the lot, facing the lawn, and stopped.

The engine kept running. I could see the exhaust coming out white behind it in the cold.

Joanne sat there. I could see her shape through the windshield, both hands on the wheel, the way she had sat in our driveway in August. She was looking at the trees. She didn’t get out.

Grandma looked up from the bulletin, out the window. She saw the Buick. She looked at it for a long time, and then she looked at Hallie.

“Hallie,” she said. “Go get your aunt.”

Hallie set the bulletin down on the bed and stood up.

I watched her through the glass. She walked across the lot in her barn coat to the driver’s side of the Buick and stood there with her hands in her pockets, close enough that Joanne could see her face.

After a while the engine shut off.