Forty Trees on the Nursing Home Lawn

The residents who could walk started going out to the lawn in the afternoons, in their coats, with the aides holding their elbows. They walked the rows the way Joanne had, slow, touching the branches.

The aides started bringing residents out in wheelchairs, bundled up, two or three at a time, right after supper when the lights were brightest. One aide, Kim, told me she pushed one lady down every single row because the lady said she wanted to pick out her tree.

And the town started driving by. That is the part I didn’t expect. Maple Ridge sits on a corner a few blocks off the main road, and once people knew, they came. Families in minivans with kids pressed against the back windows. Old couples in Buicks just like Joanne’s. Pickup trucks that slowed to a crawl.

Every night in December, from dark until nine, there were cars going slow past that lawn.

Duane came by on a Wednesday. I was there dropping off a plate of cookies for the nurses’ station, and I saw his old truck pull in and park at the far end of the lot.

He got out and walked down to the lawn and stood looking at the trees with his hands in his coverall pockets. I went out to him.

“Duane,” I said.

“Jenna.” He didn’t look at me. He was looking at the north block trees in their rows.

We stood there a while. Then he said, “I should tell you something.”

I waited.

“She had me pull those off the north block. For her stand in town. She knew what they were. Best trees on the place.” He pushed some snow with the toe of his boot. “She told me to stack them by the road for the night. Next morning I was to haul them to town and sell them for forty-five apiece.”

“But you put the sign on them,” I said.

“I put the sign on them.” He nodded slowly. “Ten dollars cash. She’d called them seconds to your husband’s face. I figured if they were seconds, they were seconds. And I figured your girl might come by.”

“I’ve worked for that family twenty years,” he said. “I sat in that kitchen when Walt was still alive. He’d have paid that girl a dollar a tree and thanked her for it.”

“Does Joanne know it was you?”

“She knows.” He almost smiled. “She asked me about it on Monday. I said, you told me they were seconds. She didn’t say anything else.”

He touched his cap to me the way he had to Hallie, and went back to his truck.

The following Sunday we came at one, like always. But this time Joanne was already there, sitting in the chair next to Grandma’s bed with her coat folded over her knees.

“Hi, Joanne,” I said.

“Jenna. Matt.” She stood up. “Hallie. Cole. Come in. Sit.”

There weren’t enough chairs, so Cole sat on the windowsill and Matt stood. Hallie sat on the edge of Grandma’s bed. Grandma was in her wheelchair by the window, with the branch from the north block in a water glass on the sill next to her. It had been a week and it was still green.

Joanne reached into her coat pocket and took out an envelope. A white one, thick.

She didn’t hand it out a window this time. She got up and crossed the room and stood right in front of Hallie, and held it out with both hands.