Rings of a Tree

"Billy, I'm so excited."  Jillian sat on the tire swing that hung from the huge oak.  She always called him Billy even though he was a man of twenty.

He pushed her softly, and said, "It will be a beautiful wedding.  The best this county's seen, I'm bettin."

The warm summer breeze tousled her long brunette hair, as it rose with each push of the swing.  The air was fresh and invigorating, the smell of lilacs and grass.  The soft rustling of the green leaves above them. 

Their marriage was approaching rapidly.  Tomorrow they would be entering into an entirely different lifestyle.  Husband and wife.  And children.  Or so they assumed.  Neither of them had really discussed it but it was an unspoken assumption. 

Only fifteen years ago, they played there as children.  They were best friends from their first meeting.  Running around the base of the tree playing Tag and hide-n-seek in the corn stalks of the nearby field.  They found amusement in simple things.  They would both giggle when he would pull her ponytail and run away.  Now they were discussing their wedding.  The simplistic irony in that.

Billy wrapped his callused hands around the rough rope and pulled the swing to a halt.  "We better get back for dinner."  He glanced at his watch.  "We don't want to be late.  Your mom would never let us hear the end of it."

She looked back at him, over her shoulder.  "I love you."

He bent forward and kissed her lips tenderly.  It was brief yet mentally and emotionally connecting.  He licked his lips and stood up straight.  "And I love you."  He smiled at her warmly.  The crevices around his eyes pinched from the width of his expression. 

They walked back to the farmhouse, hands intertwined, telling jokes and laughing.  Their steps were light-hearted and happy.  The rest of the evening passed quickly and it did not take long for the next day to dawn. 

The wedding song started and Jillian began down the path made through the yard.  There was a white carpet laid out the length.  The priest stood under the tree, Bible clamped in his hands.  He smiled as he watched Jillian.  Everyone turned to look at the bride. 

Whispers were heard from family and friends.  “She’s beautiful.”

Billy stood in the shade of the tree on that hot summer’s afternoon, his eyes misted from the joy he felt.  His face lit into a smile.  She was captivating, strung on her father’s arms.  She looked like an angel floating down that aisle.

Her father stood tall as he walked with his daughter, smiling to the guests.  Jillian reached her hand under her veil, and tried to wipe a tear as inconspicuously as possible.  She tried to force herself to smile.  An attempt to fend off the tears from falling.

Her mother’s face radiated with joy for her daughter.  She wished in her heart she would only know the kind of love her parents shared.  They seemed like a perfect match.  He came from a hard-working family and he seemed to genuinely love her.  Material provisions, though important, faded in value when compared to love.

“Who gives this lady?” The priest ceremoniously went through the prepared speech.

“I do.”  Jillian’s father rose to his feet, hand in the air.  A smile on his face.  His eyes conveying the pride he felt.

Through the vows, her mother softly cried, wiping her tears, as they slid down her cheek.  Her father put his arm around his wife and smiled reassuringly at her.  Their daughter would know happiness with Billy.

“I do pronounce you husband and wife.”  The priest said and continued, “You may kiss the bride.”

Billy lifted the white veil, wrapped his arms around his new wife and kissed her for everyone to see.  The kiss tasted of salty tears.  They parted and gazed into each other’s eyes as if they had been lifted to a place where only they existed.  Jillian bit her bottom lip as she looked into the eyes of her husband.

The small crowd let out celebratory laughter, clapping their hands vibrantly.    They had witnessed the beginning.  The beginning of their lives.

A couple months passed before they came back to that big oak tree.  It was not until that calamitous day, in mid-October, that Jillian came running out there.  Tears streaming down her rosy cheeks.  She must have been crying for hours.  Billy came up behind her; his stature and facial expression revealing how worn he felt.

“I’m so sorry sweetheart.  It couldn’t have happened to nicer people.”  He held her tight as she sobbed so deeply her chest convulsed, as she gasped for breath.

Her parents had died in a tragic car accident down the county line; only minutes from the old farmhouse.  There was a tractor-trailer, and a driver who failed to stop, for the traffic sign. 

They held the short service in the back yard.  The priest stood under the tree where he had stood only months earlier, at a joyous time.  It was now a mass of mourners dressed in black, eyes downcast and bloodshot from the sting of tears. 

The crowd remained under that tree for hours, relating stories and sharing memories.  How their eyes lit up when they smiled, the vitality in them.  How young they were at heart, even as the years passed.  How in love they were.  It was said they must have been put on this planet to love each other.

“My sympathies, my dear.”  The elderly neighbor grasped Jillian’s hands after the priest had finished his prayer.  Her hands were cold, as Jillian softly pulled back from the woman.   

“Thank,” Jillian began, her voice faltering as she choked back the urge to cry.  The urge to scream.  To yell, at the injustice of the situation.  Her parents were always there for her.

“It’s alright, dear, don’t push yourself.  Know that Ned and I are just down the road and the door’s always open.”  The sparkle in the woman’s eye caught Jillian’s.  The woman continued, “Your parents, they were the friendliest people I ever knew.”  She intertwined her fingers around the damp handkerchief in her hand.  Her eyes filled with tears. 

Jillian intently watched the woman.  Billy came up behind her and put his arm around her.  “Betty was just going to tell me a story I think.  About mom and dad.”  She attempted a smile.

The older woman glanced from Jillian to Billy, and her facial expression relaxed.  “We just moved in.  Your mama came down the road with a freshly baked apple pie.  No one makes them like her.”  She smiled, lost in the memory.  “And her door, it was always open for us.  She had that wonderful saying too.”  She paused while touching her chin, contemplatively.  “When you’d ask her how she was doing?  What was it now?”

Jillian smiled, and swallowed deeply.  Her voice small and delicate.  “I’m doing great, it’s the rest of the world I worry about.”  She reached for Betty’s hand.

“Ya, your mom sure loved people.”  She pressed her lips together before turning to walk away.

“Jillian, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to see you today.”  A man from the farmer’s feed in town came over to her.  He shook her hand.  “It was a privilege knowing your parents.  And your father.  He’ll be deeply missed.”

Jillian nodded her head in agreement.  She appeared stronger than earlier in the day, as if, somehow she was slowly coming to grips with the grim reality.  Her parents had left this world. 

“He had such a soft manner in the way he spoke.  Always going out of his way.  He was also the most honest person I’ve known.”  He tucked his hands into the pocket of his suit pants.  “More than once he corrected me.  It would have been to his advantage not to.  But he always did.  If the bill wasn’t enough, he’d correct me.”  He nodded his head, as he offered a smile of sympathy and walked away.

A bolt of lightening temporarily illuminated the dark overcast sky of that Autumn day.  Thunder roared loudly and the rain began pouring down.  Jillian stood there after all the mourners had left.  Billy had even went into the house a while before.  She sat on the swing looking at her parents’ graves.  Only feet from the tree they loved.  Together forever.

Her black dress was clung to her, soaking wet.  Her hair drenched, lying straight against her head.  The curls gone.  How would she go on without them?  Tears slid down her cheeks but she didn’t wipe them.  She let them fall.  The void her parents left was so vast the rotation of earth should have ceased.

“Jillian!”  Billy yelled as he put his head out the partially opened back door.  “Come in sweetheart.”

She shook her head but didn’t utter a word.  She let her hands drop in her lap, starring at the puddles form on the mounds of their graves.  Even God was crying.

“You’re going to catch a chill,” Billy spoke while he hurried through the yard toward her.  When he approached her, she just looked up at him.  Her big brown eyes reflecting the agony she felt; the whites of her eyes bloodshot from the salty tears.  “You have to take care of yourself Jill, and the baby.”

She reflexively put her hand on her abdomen and rubbed it.  There was just a small bump.  Her eyelids closed in deliberate, prolonged blinks. 

“Your parents wouldn’t want you catching a cold.”  He smiled at her conveying the sympathy he felt.  He held his hand out toward her, palm up.  She placed hers in it and he helped her balance to her feet.

She walked beside him, holding his hand.  Despite the cold rain, they walked slowly.  It left nothing but silence.  A sense of eeriness.

Jillian would visit her parents’ graves, kneeling beside them, praying.  Praying for forgiveness and the ability to show unselfish kindness to strangers as they had.  Praying that ‘if only’ that transport truck had stopped.  Even when the tree was bare, weighed down only with icicles on his boughs, she would trudge through the snow and stand by the tree, meditating as she starred at the distance.

The seasons changed, the air chilled and warmed.  The leaves grew brilliant green and then transformed into vibrant hues before falling off.  They never spent much time under the tree except for Jillian’s visit to the graves, until one day in April two years after the accident.

It was a warm day for early spring, the last of the winter’s chill finally behind them.

“Emily, you get back here.  Momma’s gonna get you.”  Jillian chased close behind her daughter, as she ran to the shelter of the tree.  Her stubby little fingers spread out and pressed into the bark.  Every time Jillian almost reached her, she darted around the tree out of reach.

Emily giggled as she eluded her mother.  Childish laughter had not been heard for many years.  They stayed under the shade of the tree for hours, playing and laughing.  They even ate their sandwiches sitting on a blanket.

“I love this tree mama.”  Emily’s bright blue eyes, full of innocence, looked at her mother.  She was only two years old.

“I do too.  You know, your grandparents would come out here, sit back and watch the sun sink over the field.”  Jillian gestured with her hand, pointing out the span of the horizon.  She smiled at her daughter, proud of what her family was becoming.  At least, her parents had left her the farm; she would always have this tree, the house.  She could derive some sanity from the good memories it sheltered.

Once finished lunch, she struggled to get up, bracing her two hands on the blanket and taking it slowly.  Jillian was eight and a half months pregnant.

“Will they love me?”  Emily tugged on the skirt of her mother’s dress, and pointed at her large bulge.  Her eyes expressing that she thought her mother knew all the answers.

“Of course they will.”  Jillian smiled at her. 

Emily bent to pick up the small basket they had taken their lunch out in.  It was nearly as big as her and she hunched her body over trying to be helpful.

The years were passing at a hastened speed.  Emily grew up, as her mother had, on the swing that hung from the huge oak tree.  The first cut to her knee was when she skinned it on the tire.  She was so furious she beat up on it.  Flailing her rounded fists into it.  She kissed her first boyfriend in the shade of the tree.  Now she was sixteen, and her brother fourteen.

“Mom, Charlie is harassing me!”  Emily came storming out of the storm door, slamming it shut behind her.

Jillian was hanging clothes on the line to dry.  The temperature was perfect, gentle breeze, cool air.  Late summer was her favorite time of the year, unfortunately Autumn followed. 

“Don’t believe a word of it!”  Her brother came racing out behind her.

Emily turned so abruptly, her hair tossed over her right shoulder.  “Mom.” she raised her arm out, pointing at her brother.  “Tell him to stay out of my room.”  She let out a deep aggravated sigh.

They were standing feet from their mother.  Jillian clipped the t-shirt she had in her hand on the line.  A small smirk spreading across her face.

Her daughter looked mortified by the expression.  “What’s funny about it mom?  He was in my room.” 

The funny part was, the situation awakened Jillian’s imagination.  If only she had a sibling, she could have been peering in a mirror to the past.  She would have been upset by an invasion of her privacy.  Her smile died.  “Charlie, stay out of her room.”

“Thanks, mom.”  Emily’s tone snide, as she stomped off, feet heavy into the earth.  Charlie just stood there, shrugging his shoulders and hunched over.

“You might want to work on your posture too.”  Jillian smiled at her son.  She picked up another piece of clothing and began hanging it on the line.

Her son grew more handsome with each passing day.  He looked a lot like his father, but there was also a hint of grandfather. 

“Whatever mom.”  He staggered away, off to get himself into another sort of trouble.

Only weeks later, Emily came running towards the large oak, sobbing.  Her heart broken.  A boy followed her.  “I’m sorry Em,” he said and continued, “It’s just not going to work out.  We’re young.  You’ll find someone.” 

His words gave the impression of caring but Emily’s chest heaved from the pain.  “I’m not pretty enough.  I’m not Jane.”  She crossed her arms and then mustered the courage to hold her stance while looking him in the eyes.

The boy just sighed, throwing his arms in the air.  “I don’t need this.”  He turned his back and walked away.

Emily sat down on the swing and stayed there for hours, crying.  She only managed to stop when her mother called her for dinner.  She wiped her cheeks hastily and took a few deep breaths before walking slowly to the house.

That year winter came with a vengeance.  The most bitter in years; a record low.  The temperature with the wind-chill was minus forty degrees.    Still, Jillian trudged through the yard to the favorite thinking spot.  She was only wearing a long wool coat over her pajamas and boots on her feet. 

“Why, mom?”  Her hands covered her face, and she cried into them.  “Dad, why?”

She had been diagnosed with breast cancer.  A long road lay ahead of her.  Doctors tried to be positive, but stressed they needed to start with radiation treatment right away.  Failing to do so would cause it to spread through the lymph glands and riddle her whole body with the disease.

Billy walked up behind his wife, big boots, bundled in a huge coat, gloves and scarf.  He held her from behind.  Her hands now resting on his arms.  Her eyes starring blankly into the snow covered field.

“We’ll fight this,” he said rubbing her arms, trying to warm her.

She was shivering. 

“We’ll get through this together.”  He tried to fortify her with his words, with his touch, with his love.

She turned around to face him.  She swallowed deeply, her nose red from running, and her cheeks blushed from the cold.  “How do you know that?”  Her eyes pleaded with him, as if he possessed powers beyond human capability. 

His eyes reflected the pain he felt.  They shifted from hers to the ground.  He clinched his jaw, eyes misted with tears.  Starring at a place behind her, he shook his head.

They reached for each other simultaneously and embraced tightly, trying to find solace in it.  They continued in their hug until she was bouncing her legs up and down, trying to fight the chill. 

“Let’s go in.”  He tried to smile at her.

They walked back to the house, his arm around her, her head facing downward.

The months passed, the seasons.  It was summer again.  They were having a neighborhood barbeque.    Ned, their neighbor was there but Betty had passed away years ago.  Now with his advancing years, his health was failing him.  Emily would help steady him as he walked around the yard.  She even filled his plate with food and brought it to him.

Jillian enjoyed laughter with friends.  Billy drained back a beer and flipped burgers on the grill.  His eyes shone with happiness and contentment.

Jillian’s cancer was in remission.  The treatments over the winter did their job, and the surgery had been a success.  They would have to still operate to reform her breast, but she would be fine and recover fully.

Charlie was romancing his girlfriend, leaning in toward her.  She was laughing.  They seemed a likely pair. 

“Oh, boy.”  Darla smiled at him, her cheeks blushing.  “I like flattery.”  She teasingly hit him in his chest.

He smiled, his dimples evident.  A legacy given him by his grandfather.  He leaned in toward her and kissed her on the lips. 

She backed up, her cheeks a flaming red.  “Not in front of everyone.”  She nervously scanned around the yard to see if anyone had noticed.  They seemed oblivious to it.  She smiled at him.

The years passed.  They would come out to the old oak tree, and bear their soul to the wind.  Time was finally in their favor, things going well.  No more tragedies, Jillian’s cancer never revealed its ugly head again; the kids were doing well and growing into strong independent adults.  Corn crops were flourishing.  The whole family was doing well.

Ned had passed away, in his eighty-ninth year.  His battle against time ended.  They held the service under the big oak tree.

Only that oak tree seemed fortified against the effects of aging, strong and healthy as ever.  It’s age only evident in its rings.  It had seen a lot over the years, over the span of three generations.

“Darla, come here,” Charlie said, as he led his sweetheart by her hand, toward the tree. He could not think of a better place to ask her then there.

It was late fall.  Almost all the leaves had turned their vibrant hues, and fallen to the ground, save one.

Darla smiled up at him.  They stood face to face, hand in hand. 

“I have something very important to ask you.”  He swallowed nervously, releasing her one hand as he put his hand into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet box.  He bent on one knee, still holding her one hand.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she began shaking.

“Will you marry me?”  His eyes looked from hers, nervously to the ground.  He opened the black box revealing a simple gold band.

Tears danced down her cool cheeks.  “Yes.”

Charlie stood to his feet, with a sigh of relief.  He slipped the ring on her finger and tightly hugged his future wife.

The last colored leaf floated to its final resting place.  The cold autumn ground.  Another season begins.