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When my father passed away at the age of forty, it was the talk of the town. Not that his age seemed too young, plenty of folks died around middle age in this part of our state, but most of them didn’t appear like they were twice their age at the time of death. My father did.
He had a shock of white hair that almost glowed in the dark. Wrinkles crowded his face, especially around his eyes and lips. He had lost most of his teeth. His hearing was going, as well as his eyesight. Though he hadn’t always been that way.
My first memories of my father were of a youthful, energetic young man. My father worked hard. Had a good paying job. Not that we were well off or anything of that nature, but we got by. My siblings and I never wanted for the essentials. We had clothes on our backs, a roof over our hands, food on the table. But with a growing family of five, there would inevitably be unexpected costs. The car needed fixing. The utilities were due. Whatever the inconvenience cost, my parents would scrounge up the money and no more talk would be heard in the house about it. We were never included in the conversation of financial troubles, if in fact there were troubles. Of course all that changed when my father lost his job.
The factory had been a source of employment for many of our neighbors and the town was hit hard by the dipping economy. Without much notice, none in fact, the owner of the factory closed the gates, locking out my father and every other hard-working member of our town. A notice hung on a rusty nail said the owner was indeed sorry and unfortunately he had no other alternative but to close. Overnight much of the town was thrust into poverty.
Without the factory, jobs were limited. The nearest towns were upwards of thirty miles away, a long commute for those without transportation. Our Packard had been new decades ago, and negotiating the country roads and rambling hills was already taxing on the older vehicle without adding a sixty-mile round trip for a job that barely covered the cost of gas. Still, my father kept a brave face, never letting us know we had probable cause to worry.
At night, after my brother and sister had been put to bed, I would sit up reading one of my dime western novels by the light of a tallow candle. In the other room my parents would argue. Their voices had such a weird dissonance, both angry and worried, while also remaining no louder than a whisper. What they said couldn’t always be made out clearly, but the meaning had been crystal. We were in trouble.
There were small signs of the changes forced upon us by the loss of my father’s job. Usually we got new clothes at the beginning of the school year, but the year of the factory’s closing, we had to make do with what we already had. My mother would sew or patch the elbows of my father’s work shirts, the knees of our pants. Meals became more meager. What used to be glorious feasts of roasts or whole turkeys, turned into barely noticeable amounts of meat in flavored water. Anything and everything that could be reused to another purpose or be stretched to the ends of its shelf life, would be.
Though the changes around the house were noticeable, even to my younger sister who only now started to talk at this time, the changes in my father were more subtle.
Perhaps the first time any of us were aware something was different was the night our furnace blew. That particular winter had hit us hard. The ground froze over, killing crops and livestock much needed come spring. Inside our home, we gathered in the common room around the stove. The furnace which had once warmed our entire house brooded in the corner, only useful as an eyesore.
My mother went about her chores without complaint, though she wore layers of clothes and huddled under a blanket as she moved about the house. We all wore blankets just to keep the chill at bay, though we all shivered right down to our bones.
When dinner was ready, we slipped into our mismatched chairs—those that hadn’t been broken down for kindling—and prepared to get something warm inside us. Despite it not being a substantial meal, it could at least be counted on to be warm.
We waited around to start this particular night, however, because my father had wandered off into the hills after another argument over the aforementioned furnace. Reports said there would be no relief from the cold anytime soon, and our area could see a record level of snowfall. My brother had developed a cough, possibly from poor sleep in the refrigerator of a house we had, and my parents feared it would evolve into something worse. Without that furnace going, we all had to worry about getting sick. The heat from our stove only emitted warmth so far, and there wasn’t enough room for five to sleep comfortably in the common room.
Finally my father returned. He entered the house, scraping his boots off outside and shaking the excess snow from his hat and shoulders. I remember he looked tired. We all did in those days. But what he carried in his hands brought a beam of light to us all.
He tossed a small burlap sack tied up with twine onto the dining table. The sound inside was unmistakable. My mother turned her face up to him.
“Where did you get it?” she said.
“I came by it by honest means.” He hung his wet coat up and grabbed a blanket to hang around his shoulders as he sat at the table. My mother had opened the sack and was stacking the coins into piles.
She said, “There must be enough in here to—”
“Fix the furnace,” my father finished. “Yes.”
We all smiled around the table until my mother noticed my father’s hand reaching for the vat of soup in front of him. His hand and forearm were covered with scratches, blood ran down to his elbow.
“What happened to your arm?”
“It’s nothing,” my father said, and he tried to hide his injuries under the table. My mother retrieved some bandages from the first-aid kit we kept in the kitchen. She kneeled beside him and set to cleaning his wounds. That was the first time I saw a change in my father. Or maybe I’m only convincing myself I noticed.
His eyes seemed to be weary, clouded even, though thinking back now, it could have been from the cold or the stinging pain of the antiseptic my mother used. But something had changed in him.
No one questioned further where the money came from, or what the cost had been in receiving it. We were all just glad to have the furnace fixed. Between that and the stove, the heap of blankets all around the house, we survived the worst of what winter threw at us that year. And when spring rolled around, we were faced with a new problem.
* * *
A little backstory may be needed here, and I do mean a little. Our mother’s parents hated our father. They never thought he would amount to anything and was unworthy of my mother’s hand in marriage. Looking around our present house, it seemed as if they were right. But that’s if my father didn’t have something to say about it.
That spring, after a dismal winter, a letter came through the mail. Apparently while we were freezing for many months on end, a thaw took place in New England. My mother’s parents were coming to visit.
The announcement created quite the upheaval in the power balance of the house. It all went to my father’s side.
One night, their usual quiet disputes were instead loud enough to wake the dead. Aided by the liquid courage found in a quart of moonshine, my father declared that our house would be fixed up before the Maitlands arrived. They would see how wrong they’d been to look down on him. But there was one tiny problem. Money.
We barely scraped by as it was. How could we afford to spruce up the whole house with new furniture, a roof that didn’t leak? Once again, liquid courage to the rescue. Despite fighting the night through, my father left in a heap of rage early the next morning. We feared he had walked out on our mother, and us, when he failed to return through midday and into the afternoon.
My mother put on a brave face, not wanting to let us know she was worried, if in fact she was. My mother had a knack for putting us kids at ease, glossing over stressful situations as if it were merely a fuzzball on the front of her blouse easily flicked off onto the floor below.
Around supper time heavy work boots plodded up the front stoop and the door swung open. Our father stood in the doorway, money spilling out of his torn jacket pockets. He fell into his favorite chair around the stove and nestled his head on the back cushion. We all looked at one another, timid to speak out. We collectively let out a sigh of relief when our father asked for a cold glass of water. As soon as he had recovered, he moved over to the table and pushed the money to the center. We sat in awe at the spectacle. None of us had ever seen so much money at one time before.
“Think your parents will still call me a deadbeat?”
Our mother drew in a breath. She reached for my father’s hand.
“You’re not a deadbeat,” she said. “I’ve always been proud of you.”
He kissed her palm and pressed it against the side of his face. She took him in her arms and escorted him to the bedroom. This time both arms were cut up and he had left a trail of blood throughout the house.
To give them some privacy, I took my siblings out to enjoy the remaining drops of sunlight coming through the chestnut trees.
* * *
My grandparents had given a fair amount of warning before they arrived at our humble abode. By then, the place resembled very little of its once shabby appearance. The money our father had brought home was enough to keep men working around the clock. We got a new wood shingle roof. New indoor plumbing, replacing the drafty outhouse we all hated—I got to help with its demolishment. The whole house had the scent of fresh paint. The windows were cleaned, allowing in bright sunlight, which did more than lighten up the indoors; it also lifted our spirits. We were returning to a sense of pride, and well-being. Not since my early days, before the factory closed, had our house looked this good. Folks came out of the woodwork to stop by to check on all the improvements being made.
Talk went around town, speculating on where we’d gotten the money. In those days it seemed every week there was a bank robbery somewhere in the nation, and most folks wrongly attributed my father to the life of a thief. He reiterated to my mother over and over that he had gotten the money by honest means, and in that I always believed him. Still it wasn’t a small sum of money he’d come up with and we all wanted to know how he’d gotten it in such a hurry.
If one of us was feeling brazen enough and we could catch him in one of his better moods, he would always answer with the same adage: “Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know?” And then he would tip us a wink.
On a warm spring day my grandparents arrived for their threatened visit. We all gathered at the front windows when we heard the cab driver crunch up the road and stop in front of our remodeled home. The doors opened, and from either side two bewildered faces stared back at us. This had apparently not been what they’d expected. My father smiled with such satisfaction he could have drifted off the floor.
My grandparents had stated they would stay for a week, but after two days an excuse was made. My grandfather said, “We hate to do it, but we must be getting back. Our neighbor, who’s watching the home, called this morning to say we have a burst water pipe. I’m afraid we’ll have to cut our visit short.”
They hightailed it all the way back to Connecticut, though we never figured out how their neighbor had gotten into contact with them. We didn’t own an operating telephone in those days.
* * *
Fixing the house up had been one expense, but keeping it that way proved to be an ongoing endeavor. One that required a constant inflow of cash. The strain of coming up with the necessary funds took its toll on my father and his health.
Gray had taken a stronghold around his temples, with more hairs changing color every day. He would get winded easier, possibly from lack of activity. When he’d worked the factory floor, he would have been on his feet for eight or more hours a day. All that walking helped keep his waistline trim. Now he sat on the porch, sipping shine, contemplating his next move.
It had been a couple years since the main factory had closed its doors and rumors began to fly around town that some wealthy businessmen had their eyes on our town as the future site for an airplane parts manufacturing plant. The prospect of employment buoyed my father’s hopes.
Unlike most rumors in our small town, this one turned out to be true enough. The plant opened six months later and a mass hiring took place. Naturally my father applied for a job, but somehow karma got appointed to do the hiring.
George Wells, the man who had his heart set on marrying my mother back in high school, had held a grudge against my father for what he perceived to be an act of war. He never forgave my father for stealing my mother away from him, though ask anyone from their graduating class and no one could recall George ever dating my mother, let alone talking to her. If he did have aims on marrying my mother one day, the idea never left his own warped imagination. Now, because of a self-conceived slight, George Wells was in a position of power to exact his revenge.
My father was passed over for a position at the new plant, being told that we were already well off and didn’t need any handouts. Once again George Wells had gotten something into his head that wasn’t true. Because of the home remodels, he felt our family had enough money to see us get by and there were more deserving families in town that could benefit from the job. That would have been bad enough, but George didn’t stop there with his plan to get back at my father.
Next he contacted the bank and pulled a few strings to have them look into the mortgage on our home. When the factory closed, the local bank took pity on everyone involved and some things slipped through the cracks. With George’s help, the bank discovered my father hadn’t made any payments on our home since. They sent a letter to us informing of their mistake, but that it was our problem to fix. Enclosed was a statement of the money owed plus interest. Once again my father trekked up into the hills in search of the required funds.
When he returned home later that night—each trip took him longer and longer now—his hands and arms were torn up more than usual. On the cuffs of his coat were dried blots of blood. He pushed past us kids on the front stoop to go inside and plopped down into his chair where he proceeded to hang his head for several minutes without uttering a word. As was standard practice at this point, my mother came over and cleaned his wounds. She took the burlap sack of money from him and set it aside. There would be plenty of time to count it later.
There was a certain change in my father. I had never seen my father cry, but that night he sobbed gently. My mother wiped his tears away and cradled his head against her chest. With her free hand she shooed us away from where we were standing in the doorway.
I sat up reading that night, as I often did in my younger years, and listened for my parents. The squabbles they used to have had become a thing of the past. As if they no longer had anything to fight about. Or perhaps no longer had the strength to do so.
* * *
As we ripped off the spent months from the calendar on the wall in the kitchen, our town went through a set of boom years brought on by the aircraft plant. War broke out and the need for parts increased tenfold. It seemed as if the plant never closed during those years. Men flocked to our town in search of work. Crews could be seen passing one another in eight-hour increments as one shift took over for another. If George Wells hadn’t remained in a position of power during that time, maybe my father would have been able to finally get some work. But they don’t call fate cruel for no reason. My father remained unemployed.
I often wondered why my father didn’t seek work elsewhere then, but as the months wore on, it became more apparent to my naive sensibilities that pride kept him from taking any old position. Once talk of our perceived affluent lifestyle had circulated, this being in the days before the airplane plant had been constructed, my father saw no way of going back to a humble life, even if we were technically part of the lower class. To lower himself, as it were, to scrubbing toilets or waiting tables, would open him up to even more ridicule. All of this strain and stress wore him down.
It seemed as if overnight my father’s hair went completely white, but memories are a fickle thing and I could be lumping many days, weeks, or months into a twenty-four-hour stretch. Still there’s no denying that my father appeared older. His shoulders sagged under the weight of the world. Once, he had a surplus of energy and would get down on the floor with us kids to play. Now, he needed help getting out of his chair. Old age rapidly closed in around him.
* * *
Soon the money my father brought back from his last excursion into the hills ran out, as money is apt to do when it isn’t being replenished. As the money dwindled, so did our happiness.
Meals returned to their meager form. Our shoes wore out from trekking to and from the schoolhouse. The Packard, once pride of place in our front yard, had ceased to be of use, and weeds poked through the open hood and crowded around the deflated tires. Funny, no one from town, those once quick to call themselves friends, said anything about it. Not to us, anyway, if they said anything at all about our circumstances. Now, my father couldn’t get a job even if he wanted to scrub toilets.
My father slept most of the day, waking only for meals or to sip shine in the hazy afternoon light. He seldom talked, at least not to us. Sitting in his rocking chair on the porch, he would oftentimes mutter something to himself. If any of us would chance to meet his face, a sadness would pervade his countenance. Weary eyes drooped, along with the corners of his mouth, a mouth that once seemed to hold nothing but a smile a short time ago.
Throughout it all, my mother stood by his side. A dutiful spouse who never questioned nor said a word against my father’s choices. If she ever felt bothered by it, she didn’t make it known to us kids. In fact, if anything, she was glad with the way things turned out.
One warm summer day, with all the windows of the house opened to allow the soft breeze to whisk the stuffiness from the indoors, I sat reading in my father’s chair near the stove. He was on the porch, his rocking chair creaking a soothing song in the background. My mother stepped out to shake out a rug when I heard my father’s voice in what felt like years.
“You sure are stunning to look at,” he said. His voice, once smooth, had become gravelly. “Better than any picture postcard.”
I got up from my chair and snuck over to the window in time to see him reach out for her hand. My mother tucked a strand of hair behind her ear before offering her own hand.
He asked, “Are you ever sorry you married a poor wretch like me?”
She cradled his face as her eyes shined back at him.
“Never.” She smoothed a lick of hair standing out of place on his head.
“Sure you wouldn’t have been better off with that George Wells?”
The tinkling of her laugh was like a long lost song to my ears. She kissed the top of his head but didn’t reply. She turned to leave, to continue with the housework, but he held her hand firm. She stood there next to him, neither one saying another word. I moved away from the window, feeling like I’d interrupted something important, though the image of my parents staring quietly out at the horizon is an image that will forever be burned in my mind.
* * *
Time stands still for no man, and likewise, it didn’t stop for us. Not even in those stolen moments of bliss like my parents holding hands on the porch. The sun rose and the sun set as the days stacked on top of one another. Soon Christmas was upon us.
I had progressed from western novels to pulp crime paperbacks and was enjoying one in bed when my attention was stolen by voices in the living room.
“Let me go this time,” my mother’s voice said. “It didn’t always have to be you. I could have shared the burden with you.”
“It’s too late for that now,” my father said, calmly. Everything he said in those days came across with a sense of grace and calm, his voice seasoned from experience. “I don’t regret a thing,” he continued. “I’ve had a good life with you and the kids.”
“Don’t talk like that. I don’t like it when you talk with such finality.”
Footsteps. Probably my mom pacing the room.
“We both know the end is coming soon. Just look at me,” my father said.
I hopped out of bed and over to the door which hadn’t been closed securely. Through the sliver of the open door I saw my father hold his hands up to his face. They were wrinkled and liver spotted. Arthritis made them curl forward.
“I’m frail,” my father said, lowering his hands. “This may be my last chance,” He sighed. “I want the kids to have the best Christmas. To remember me by.”
Tears streamed down my mother’s face. What could she say to that? She walked back to my father in his favorite chair. She sat in his lap and gazed into his face. A face we’d all come to know so well, yet still felt strange. The juxtaposition of my two parents, side by side, made them look ages apart, though in reality they were no more than a few years from one another. You couldn’t fault a stranger who might happen upon them to believe my mother was my father’s daughter.
The radio had been turned down low. A station playing a melancholy Christmas song. The song ended and an announcer came on to say that concluded their broadcast for the night. Then the room went silent.
“I should get a move on if I’m to be back at a decent time in the morning to go shopping.” My father consulted a clock on the wall. “It’s already Christmas eve.”
My mother got up and clicked the radio off. She hid her face from my father, but I could read the pain and sadness there. I crept back into my room and slipped into my good boots. I didn’t know where my father went when he disappeared into the hills and would return with a stack full of money, but I figured it was time to find out.
* * *
I gave my father a head start and waited till my mother went into their bedroom. Her gentle sobs filled the house, marring an otherwise peaceful silence. Snow fell outside the window in a soft sheet of white. I took my heavy coat off the hook by the door and snuck out without a sound.
My father had left a trail of footprints through the snow, making it easy to follow. The downy snow wasn’t strong enough yet to cover his tracks. My own feet crunched as I stretched my stride to step where my father had. My smaller boots failed to fill the large impressions left behind to lead me.
The night was still, not even a breeze to rustle the naked limbs on the trees. The only sounds were of my steps on the snow and, somewhere ahead of me, my father coughing. It was a bitter cold, one that would settle into your bones if not properly clothed. How long we would be out there, I didn’t know. My nose began to run and my eyes stung from the cold.
A few times my father would stop to rest. Each time I thought we had arrived at wherever we were headed, but after a few minutes he would press on again, venturing further and further into the back hills where no one lived. We had left the inhabited area hours ago and were now in the wilderness where plenty of black bears, cougars, and other animals roamed free.
Just when I felt I couldn’t go on any longer, my father stopped and knelt down in front of an innocuous looking copse of Aralia spinosa. He removed his gloves and blew on his hands to keep them warm. His breath condensed in the night air and curled around his head.
I remained a safe distance away so as to not alert him to my presence. His mouth moved as if in prayer, but his voice was too low to be heard. When his speech had come to an end, he looked up and peered into the center mess of young shrubs.
A blinding yellow light grew in intensity. I don’t know how he could stand gazing into that light from such a close distance. Even I had been forced to look away. The light became diffused, allowing me to turn back, and that’s when I noticed he had shoved his hand into the bush.
He winced in pain as he thrust his arm further and further into the shrubs. I wanted to get closer, to see what he was doing, but remained where I was. Soon he pulled his arm out and coins clinked in his hand. These he put into a burlap sack he’d produced from his coat pocket. He then reached back into the shrubs, again wincing from the thorns tearing apart his flesh.
He repeated this action until he had filled the sack and them some. Once satisfied, the light in the middle of the Aralia spinosa dimmed until it winked out. My eyes needed a moment to adjust back to the darkness.
My father had stood up and wrapped some gauze around his mutilated hands. He slipped his gloves back on, taking his time to not make his cuts flair up any more than was necessary. Before departing, he took one more look back at the copse of young trees.
“No more,” he said. “No more.”
He pulled his coat tight and lowered his head to the cold. Then it was time for the trek back to our home.
I allowed him to go by, pulling myself deeper into the shadows so he wouldn’t see me. After he’d gone on, I came out of my hiding place to examine the copse of Aralia spinosa. Dotted all around the virgin snow were drops of my father’s blood.
While my father took more breaks going home than he had to get to the money bush, I took a wide arc around him to beat him back. I couldn’t take the chance of arriving after him and having no good reason to explain what I’d been up to.
Arriving home, my mother was asleep in her bed. I tiptoed to my room and closed my bedroom door over, leaving it cracked to listen for my father’s safe return.
Time passed, and I must have drifted off. The warmth of my bed had lolled me to sleep until the sound of heavy boots kicking snow off them called out from the front porch.
I pulled the blankets close to my head as my bedroom door creaked open. My father’s exasperated breathing came from the threshold, then he turned and disappeared into the house. He must have known I had followed him that night from my own snow-covered shoes left by the front door. But why he chose not to say something in that moment, I could only speculate on because he didn’t bring it up until the day he died.
* * *
That Christmas was one of the best we ever had, the last one as a family. Tired from following my father the night before, I was one of the last to wake up on Christmas Eve. By then my parents had already left the house, presumably to do all the shopping for an elaborate feast and surprises the next morning. Us kids had no reason to suspect something magical was to take place. The previous Christmases had seen us roasting a chicken for dinner and singing carols with the radio, but it was nothing compared to what happened that year.
All three of us kids woke up Christmas morning to the scent of goose in the oven and chestnuts on the fire. The house held a warmth so inviting none of us needed an outer layer. Emerging from our rooms, the glow of the lights on the tree pulled us toward the living room where a fort had been built out of boxes and presents. The red and green wrapping paper had a sheen to it that reflected the twinkling lights from the tree above. We stood three abreast, gaping at the spectacle of it all when the unmistakable voice of our father said behind us:
“What are you waiting for? Have at it!”
We tore across the room and thrashed at the presents. A storm of torn paper and ribbons flew over our heads as we exposed what lay hidden within.
There were toys of all types. A firetruck for my brother. A new dolly for my sister. A baseball glove and bat for me. There was a new dress for my mother and matching earrings in her stocking. A fishing rod and reel. Snowshoes. Candies and cakes. We were runneth over with fortune, but one thing I noticed before anyone else was nothing specifically for my father. His present was watching us.
He sat in his favorite chair, hands on his knees, and the widest smile on his face. He took delight as each new discovery produced yelps of praise and joy from us. Soon all the presents had been opened and a battlefield of discarded paper and boxes lay strewn about the room. My father then leaned back and laughed.
We had our dinner that evening, all of us dressed to the nines in our finest clothes. My father led the prayer and sent thoughts of peace and goodwill to all we knew, including my grandparents and even more surprisingly to George Wells. My father gave one final gift, this one also for himself: forgiveness.
The memories we made that day will always hold a beacon of light in my dimming thoughts of the past. A moment to hold on to and cherish forever.
* * *
The first few weeks of the new year brought bad omens to our house. After the high mark of Christmas, there really was only one way to go. It became painfully clear that my father was not long for this world.
The town doctor came out almost daily to attend to my father’s failing health. No matter what he did, nothing seemed to work, and my father only got sicker and sicker.
We saw little of him during that time, since he needed to rest and use what minor strength he had to get better. If that were possible.
When the doctor came over, usually in the late morning, he would enter with a cheery disposition in an attempt to set my mother at ease, but then after visiting with my father he would leave with a much more dour sentiment. We all knew my father would never be well again, and perhaps that’s why the doctor didn’t try to hide it.
It was when the doctor came that I caught glimpses of my father lying in bed. Only the briefest of moments as the doctor went in and out did my mind collect these snapshots. My father’s skin had paled and his hair had become thin. The corners of his mouth hung down and his eyes could barely open. His appearance stood in stark contrast with the man who had been the image of life and vitality that one December morning.
The doctor exited his room and lingered with his hand on the door. He hung his head and stood in contemplation. My mother rose from her seat to receive his news.
“I’m afraid he’s gotten worse,” the doctor said. He moved away from the door. “He may only have a day or two left. At most.”
He caught my mother as she stumbled. She pleaded for him to do something, anything, to help him get well. What would we do without him?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself. I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday this past September and yet… if I didn’t know any better I would say your husband is my senior. It’s a medical oddity.”
The doctor left shortly thereafter and my mother went into the room to sit with my father. Hours passed and yet she didn’t come out. Darkness grew and still no word.
To preoccupy myself I picked up one of my yellowed paperbacks and read, though the words passed by my eyes without meaning. I turned the pages mechanically if only to have something to busy my hands with.
Sometime in the early morning hours my mother came out and stirred me, for I had fallen asleep with the book across my chest.
“He’s asking for you,” she said. She didn’t have tears in her eyes, but I could tell she had been crying for some time. She led me to the room with her arm around my shoulders. At the door she left me alone to go in.
The room held a musty, sickly smell. All the windows had been closed to keep my father from getting a chill. A single candle flickered on the bedside table.
My father opened his eyes upon me entering and gave a wan smile. One frail finger pointed to the empty chair next to the bed for me to sit in.
He asked for a drink of water from the glass next to the candle. The paper straw had begun to wilt and disintegrate in the glass, but he didn’t seem to mind. He thanked me and I placed the glass back.
“I suppose you know why I asked to see you?”
I nodded.
He took his time, as if he needed to regroup his energy after each sentence. His head rolled in my direction, and for a second I saw a flash of my father when he had been younger.
“You’re the man of the house now,” he said after a time. “You’ll have to look after your mother and siblings. Can you do that?”
Again I nodded.
“Good.” He reached out, groping for my hand to give it a pat. “It will not be easy,” he said. “I always thought I would leave you when you were older, but I believe you to be capable of the job.” He coughed and closed his eyes, needing time to recover. “You may be able to find some work to bring in a little money, but should you need more…”
He looked over at me and something caught in my throat.
“You remember the clearing you followed me to on Christmas eve?”
I felt like lying, something I’d never done with him before, not knowing what made me feel that way. Maybe because the weight of the situation had begun to rest on my shoulders. Instead of lying, I nodded.
“That bush is both a gift and a curse,” he said, “as you can tell from my body.” He coughed. “It has the power to give and to take away.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“No, I suppose not. Not at your age.”
His mouth had gone dry and he requested my help to another sip of water. He continued, “I always told you ‘money doesn’t grow on trees,’ but that wasn’t exactly true. That particular bunch of trees can produce money.”
His next words sent a chill down my back.
“For a fee.”
He again closed his eyes. I waited for him to go on.
“Should you find yourself needing money in a hurry, go to that bush and kneel down in front of it as I did that one night. Ask the bush for mercy and request the needed amount. If the bush finds your heart to be true, it will produce the funds, but in exchange it will need payment.”
“How will I know—”
“You will know how much to give it,” he said. “The higher the amount asked for, the more years of your life you will need to sacrifice. The thorns will take it from you.”
“That’s why your arms were always bloody and scratched when you returned…”
He reached out from under his sheets and grabbed hold of my wrist with surprising strength. He sat up.
“That bush should only be used in the event of an emergency, you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Those would be the last words I spoke to my father. He fell back into the bed, exhausted from our talk. He waved for me to go.
At the door, he stopped me by saying, “Send in your brother and sister so that I may say goodbye to them.”
I left the room as quietly as I could, taking one final look at my father in his sickbed.
* * *
He died a few hours after he talked to me. The news spread of his passing and those we hadn’t seen in years came by to pay their respects. For a while, everywhere we went, we could count on people whispering to one another and pointing us out to those that may not have heard the strange tale of my father’s passing. To this day I can’t go home without noticing people talking behind my back. Some things never change in a small town.
Over the years I had been tempted to visit that copse of Aralia spinosa, but I never did. As a witness to the curse that infernal bush placed on my father, I couldn’t allow myself to be taken under its power.
They say money doesn’t grow on trees, but I know different. Because when asked if I know the value of a dollar, I can honestly say I do. All too well.
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PHOTO ATTRIBUTION CREDIT: Aralia spinosa by Celerylady – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12876777
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AUTHOR BIO:
Mark Mitchell graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in screenwriting. He currently lives in the Greater Los Angeles area where he is a member of The Blank Page Writers Club. His short fiction has appeared in Hightower Magazine, Illustrated Worlds, and Canyon Voices Literary Magazine as well as the anthologies Nightmare Fuel: Body Horror (Cloaked Press) and Through the Briar Patch (Hollow Oak Press). Follow him on Instagram @markmitchell.writer.
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WHY WE CHOSE TO PUBLISH “The Money Bush”:
This wonderfully resonant tale of a family’s struggle, set in a period of hard economic times somewhat reminiscent of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, represents author Mark Mitchell’s second appearance in our magazine.
He tells the story from the unlikely viewpoint of one of the kids in the family and holds our interest as he deftly unwraps the story for us. Not only is the writing superb, but it keeps us guessing about the source of the money and surprises us with a bit of magic realism we didn’t see coming. And the strong ending perfectly caps the story.