The Paper Tree

“You can do it,” I said, encouraging myself with all the enthusiasm I could muster. I puffed on my half smoked Marlboro Light. This cigarette constituted my fourth in fifteen minutes. It needed to be the last. Smoking meant certain failure. I could not fail. I had to become the duteous granddaughter.

Last week, Aunt Kay had called to tell me my grandmother had congestive heart failure. Two days later, she had called back to tell me they had found a dark spot on grandma’s lung. Grandma had always been there for me: scraped knees, school plays, first crushes, and dumps. The one time I had needed to be there for her, I wasn’t.

Being the oldest and unmarried, the family had asked me to stay with her. I had jumped at the opportunity. This would be my chance to pay her back for all that she had done.

From my car, I studied the two and half story white house with its peeling paint, iced over panes, and broken porch swing.
Why have they let it go like this? I thought. This isn’t the house I remember. Grandma would never allow such a thing. Taking the last puff, I put the Marlboro out in the car ashtray as I stepped out of the car.

The house felt colder than the February air outside, and my breath hung before my face like the smoke I had just exhaled. I grabbed some kindling and paper from the back porch, and arranged them into a pile in the wood stove. I lit the paper with a match. The fire burned slowly at first, lapping at the wood playfully, until the wood darkened and erupted into angry flame. Soon the metal of the stove radiated enough heat to warm the room.

I shut the stove door, and glanced around. National Geographic magazines, books from every genre, and family pictures lined shelves and tables. The room also contained a purple and yellow afghan draped over a rocking chair, a record player with Elvis’s albums in the corner, and a ceramic squirrel watching me from its perch on the mantle.

Holding my hands over the reddening metal of the stove, I turned my attention toward the picture frame in the center of the mantle. It showcased a tree made of green and brown construction paper with family photos scattered about the branches. My grandmother’s picture stood alone, attached at the trunk. She smiled with offered up hands, as if to say: “What am I going to do with them all?”

I held such nostalgic affection for this room. I remembered when my grandmother and I had read by the fire. She had teased me by telling me I read too slowly, and that she had managed to get three books read to my one. I had always answered back that at least when I read a book it stayed read. She has a nasty habit of re-reading halfway through a book before remembering it.

Realizing that the cigarettes were still in my pocket, I opened the stove door. I grinned upon seeing the fire in full blaze with wood spitting and sputtering in protest. I pulled the pack out, ready to throw them into the flames, when the backdoor opened. I stuffed the pack back into my coat with a quick movement. My aunt came in carrying a portable oxygen tank with a hose that ran from the machine to my grandmother, who hobbled in behind her.

“Welcome back,” I said. Her arms held bruises, and her hair was matted. I wanted to cry. Hug her and hold her tight. I held back, trying to be a fountain of confidence.

“I just want to lie down,” Grandma said, not stopping on her way toward the bedroom. “I’m tired.”

My aunt followed her into the bedroom, tank in hand, helped her into bed, and went into the kitchen. I watched, as she removed a carton of Vantage Ultra Lights from a kitchen drawer, and placed it behind some mason jars full of tomato juice in the pantry.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“No need to tempt fate,” Aunt Kay said. “I just don’t want her to get into them, just in case.”

“Why don’t you take them with you, or throw them away?” I asked, knowing the answer already.

Aunt Kay stopped in mid-motion, and frowned. “I didn’t think about it, too late now.”

That sounded good, but I knew the real reason. My grandmother, normally an extremely loving and caring woman, could be very cross and stubborn. I had been there to see her adult children back down from her enough times to know. Never had she yielded.

“I’ve got to get going soon,” Aunt Kay said, “I have to pick up Charlie from soccer.”

“Can’t you stay a little while? I could make some coffee.”

“No, I have to pick him up. Donnie doesn’t get off work until five. Don’t worry; everything will be all right, you’ll see. You’ve stayed here before. Just think of it as another visit. Everyone will be coming over. There’ll be people here all the time.” She snapped the top button of her coat. “I was hoping the oxygen people from Homed Co. would be here already. Just let them in when they get here and tell them to set up in the bedroom. I’ll stop by later. Oh,” she said as she pulled a large Ziploc bag from her purse, full of various pharmacy bottles, “these are her pills. The nurse wrote down all the instructions. She won’t need any until after supper.”

After my aunt left, I tried to straighten up the rooms of the house. This did not take long, as I couldn’t find a spot of dust anywhere. I returned to the kitchen, and put my coat over a chair. I read the pill bottles. I wiped the counters. I sat at the table. I reread the pill bottles. I sighed, and drew circles on the table with my finger. The oil from my finger would leave a faint white residue, before dissipating.

Eventually, my grandmother came into the room, her oxygen hose trailing her like a leash. She grabbed the first chair she came to, not her typical seat at the head of the table, and sat. Her chest rose and fell in hard, fast gasps, just the effort of walking had left her panting.
“Do you want me to get you anything?” I asked. Never had I seen her so pale.

“Yeah, give me your body,” she said.

“Why don’t I make something to eat instead,” I said, getting up to grab a bowl. “I looked up a bunch of salt free recipes that sound terrific.”

“Great!” she said, “Make me a T-bone while your cooking yours, will ya?”

I smiled, and shook my head.

She looked at me for a time, almost staring through me. “Whatever you make will be fine,” she said at last. She stood, pulled on the hose to gain more slack, and went to the cupboard.

I watched through the corner of my eye, not daring to turn around.

“Ashley,” she called, “where are my cigarettes?”

“I don’t know,” I stuttered. I never had lied to her. “I think Aunt Kay did something with them.”

“Phhhtttt! I never would have wanted one if you hadn’t hidden them. Where are they?”

“I don’t know.” I could feel my knees trembling. I fought a sudden fear that my legs would no longer support me.

“Ashley Ann, give me one of yours.”

“No.” I had never defied her. I wanted to stand up to her. Tell her how it would be, but the lump in my throat foretold my voice betraying me.

“What?"

Knowing this was a losing battle, I found courage to flee. I ran for the family room.

“Ashley!”

I opened the stove door and stared. The fire had died, leaving only gray ashes in its wake. With a sigh, I retrieved more paper and kindling, and set the fire burning once again. I eyed the paper tree. My grandmother’s picture on the trunk reminded me of Atlas holding up the tremendous weight of the thirty-eight photos that comprised her world.

I have to be strong, I thought. I will make her well again, despite herself.

Heat permeated the room once again, casting out the chill air that had invaded.

I decided to face her, and stepped back toward the kitchen. I halted in the doorway. My grandmother had taken the pack of cigarettes from my coat pocket.

What little food I had eaten that day almost came up, as I watched her smoke. She would hold the oxygen hose away from her face with one hand. With the other hand, she puffed the cigarette. After each drag, she put the hose back on, and gasped for air.

I couldn’t watch any longer, my stomach knotted, and I ran from the room, for a second time. I kicked the wood stove in the family room with every bit of strength I had. The vibrations rippled through the steel pipe of the stove, sending the paper tree crashing onto it. The glass and frame shattered, sending family members flying everywhere. I lunged for the frame, which already smoked on top of the hot surface.

“Ash!” my grandma exclaimed. “What did you do?””
Her picture had fallen between the grates of metal in the stove. I struggled to get to it, burning my fingers in the process.

“Ash!”

The picture browned and curled before me. I gripped the poker to scrape it out, but it didn’t matter. My grandma’s smiling visage had already turned yellow as creosote and withered.

“Ash! What did you do? What did you do, Ash?”

With lagging footsteps, I made the long trek back to the kitchen. Still holding one of my cigarettes, my grandmother sat in a chair, with wide eyes and open mouth. “Ashley, what did you do?” she demanded.

I couldn’t speak. I only managed an “I,” before a knock came to the kitchen door. I moved over to it, gravity clutching my heels, and opened it to a man in a blue shirt with Homed Co embroidered on its lapel.

He was there to install the permanent air tank. The companion for my grandmother that would be at her side, until her last breath. The man looked beyond me, saw my grandmother holding my cigarette, looked at me, and shook his head.

I brought him into the house.