A Remote Reprieve Part 2

Have you read Part 1 of the story?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’d do that for me?” Jill asked, looking up from her teacup toward the mysterious man.

He nodded.

Jill beamed at him. He waved his hand in dismissal like what he just agreed to was no big deal. For her, it was life-changing. Doubt set in quickly. Jill couldn’t understand why a stranger would want to help her.

Recognizing she still didn’t know the man’s name, she chuckled to herself. Hunter had told her that hopping the next plane out of town was reckless. She wondered how we would react when he heard that she had spent the night at a stranger’s house without even knowing his name.

It seemed like a good idea at the time she thought.

“What is your name?”

“Anton.”

“Hi Anton, I’m Jill.” She extended her hand out toward him. Gripping it firmly, Anton gave it a good shake. “Hi Jill,” he said with a smile.

“Drink tea. I go town.” Anton instructed.

Jill nodded as he left the room. She looked around. There was no TV, no radio, and nothing to read. With Anton gone, she could snoop around to find out about him, but there was nothing to snoop. Anton’s house was 2 rooms and there was barely any furniture.

He cooked over a fire and slept in a hammock. The table and chairs she was using were the only furniture in his home. There were no drawers to peek in, no closets to rummage through.

Jill grew bored quickly and walked out to her shed. Unzipping her backpack, she pulled out her phone. No service. No internet. She let out a huge sigh.

She’d be here for 6 months without contact with the outside world.

Trying to take her mind off of it, she stepped sideways through the small shed door and into the backyard. It looked more like a secret garden. Flowers bloomed and trees bore fruit in every inch of it. Being in that backyard was like being inside your own little world and Jill needed that more than anything while she lived out her last days as a terminally ill woman.

She walked around the small path that led between all of the plants. When she reached the end, she saw a pear tree. Its branches were sturdy and growing in weird directions. It had gnarly bark and a huge trunk. Nothing about it looked like any pear tree that Jill had ever seen, but pears were hanging from it. It has to be a pear tree, she thought.

The fruit tasted sweet and was perfectly ripe. Crossing one ankle over the other, she rocked her feet while she hummed and sat in the tree’s shade. The trunk of the tree supported her back as her humming grew louder. She didn’t recognize the song she was humming but she just let it flow.

When she finished the pear and Anton still hadn’t returned, Jill did the only thing there was to do. She laid down and took a nap.

Anton’s humming woke her up. She could see him through the window, moving around in the kitchen. He was chopping vegetables and humming while he worked. Jill didn’t notice he was humming the same song that came to her under the pear tree.

A display of vegetables lay out on the counter in Anton’s kitchen. Jill noticed all of the different colors going into a bowl. Anton turned as he heard her enter.

“Lunch almost ready,” he told her.

“What can I help with?” she asked.

“You here to help with you,” he laughed.

Jill sat down. After being alone for so long, Jill wasn’t used to someone caring for her. She watched as he moved effortlessly around the kitchen gathering different spice jars. Jill got worried. She didn’t use many spices in any of her food at home.

“Why so many spices?” Jill nervously asked.

“This no spice. This healing herb” he replied, placing a bowl filled with veggies and herbs in front of her.

Jill observed the bowl, her hands in her lap. She lifted pieces of lettuce to peek under them. Anton looked on in amusement.

This is a far cry from my usual peanut butter sandwich, she thought, picking up her fork. It was wooden and hand-carved. Jill wondered if Anton made it.

She took a big bite, bigger than her mouth could handle. Embarrassed, Jill covered her face with her hand. “Did you make this fork?” she asked.

“Yes. You make yours today” Anton quickly replied.

Wide-eyed, Jill stared at him silently while they finished eating. After cleaning up, the two of them headed into the backyard. Jill presumed it was to start the healing. To her surprise, Anton grabbed an ax from what looked like it used to be a barn. He led the way to the pear tree.

“You get wood to make fork from this tree,” he instructed while he pretended to use the ax on a branch.

“You want me to cut a branch off this tree?”

“Yes. Thank tree for helping you live first”

Jill looked at him like he told her he had seen a ghost. This man is off his rocker. I knew this was too good to be true, she thought.

“Go ahead,” he handed her the ax handle.

Jill could barely lift the ax. She chose a low branch and began to swing. It felt like she barely cracked the bark. Anton stood by and watched.

Sweat poured from Jill’s brow as she swung. She leaned on the handle. She needed a break before she lifted the ax again. Each time she took a rest, she got more upset.

She fumed as Anton watched her struggle. She was obviously having trouble standing. Her shirt was drenched with sweat. She knew she had to be beet red, and snot had started to roll down her upper lip. Anton never moved or offered to help.

Jill fell to the ground. Her mind began to race.

You can’t do this. It was silly to think you could get better. You deserve to die, that’s why you got sick. Why are you even trying to do this? You are too sick to do this.

Anton spoke for the first time since she had started swinging the ax. “Looks like you think about a lot”

“Yea, I don’t know why I even tried to do this. I can’t.”

“Is that what you think about?”

“It is. I’m too weak and too sick to heal anyway. I am sorry I came here.”

“That you now. We work and soon you know you can,” he gestured back toward the tree.

Jill couldn’t believe he was going to make her keep going. Anger grew inside her. Consumed with it, the branch fell off after three more swings.

Anton picked it up and handed it to her along with a knife unlike any she’d ever seen. “Bring your new fork to breakfast,” he said as he walked back to the house.

She looked down at the branch and the knife unsure of what to do. With no other options, she decided to try to make herself a fork. After getting to the shed and settling in the small chair in the corner, she began to carve.

At first, she applied too much pressure and cut a huge chunk out. Next, she tried too little pressure and didn’t use enough force to remove the bark. Jill carved for hours before she got the hang of the pressure. Eventually, just as the sun rose over the horizon, Jill held in her hand a fork, about the size you would give to a baby.

Worried it wouldn’t be good enough, she waited until Anton called her for breakfast to go inside. He watched her eat the rice and eggs he had prepared with her tiny fork. Jill watched his face closely but he never showed any sign of judgment.

Once breakfast was over Anton gave her her next direction.

“You know thoughts about giving up from yesterday?”

Jill nodded. Anton nodded back.

“You have close attention to carving last night?”

“Yes. I had to pay close attention to every little detail. Everything about the wood, everything about the pressure. It was tedious” Jill said with disdain in her voice.

“Pay attention to thoughts same way,” he said, pointing at his head. He then pointed to the backyard. “Sit at pear tree and pay attention”

“That’s all?”

Anton nodded. “To heal, you sit with nature and sit with you.”

Jill was astonished. No one had ever told her healing was that easy. She knew it wasn’t. He didn’t know anything and was off his rocker but she was at his house so she would at least give it a try.

The sun shining through the branches of the pear tree was especially warm. The bark in her back was equally comforting and prickly. She sat quietly paying attention as closely as she could. Her thoughts were racing by like cars on a track. No matter how closely she paid attention, she couldn’t even catch a glimpse.

She had no idea how much time had passed when she got up to walk around. Anton was across the yard harvesting herbs. When she approached him, he looked shocked. “You no sit long enough,” he said, returning to picking leaves of mint.

Jill resisted the urge to stomp like a teenager. She hadn’t grown up. This disease took over her life shortly after high school. Instead of rebelling, she returned to the pear tree. The race cars that were her thoughts hadn’t slowed down at all.

Frustrated, she wanted to get up, but something kept her there. She leaned all of her weight into the trunk of the pear tree and felt herself begin to hum. The song felt familiar but she couldn’t put a finger on it. After a few minutes, her thoughts were easy to pay attention to. It was like they had gone from being the racecars to the announcer over the loudspeaker.

Jill followed Anton’s instructions and directed her attention toward every detail about her thoughts. She noticed how hateful the things she thought about herself were. She noticed how sad she felt in her body. She noticed that some part of her, deep down inside, had no will to live.

That’s why I gave up. That’s why I didn’t want treatment. Noticing her thoughts shift, she couldn’t wait to tell Anton what she discovered. The sun was setting when she ran toward his house, shouting excitedly.

Anton appeared on the back porch with a cup of tea made from his herbs. Climbing the steps, Jill exclaimed, “I figured out why I gave up!” She looked up at Anton for his reaction. When he didn’t have one, she went on, “The sad part is, it’s because I have no will to live. How do I get that back?”

“Keep paying attention,” he replied, handing her the cup of tea.

That night, Jill pulled out a notebook. She wasn’t much for journaling but thought writing down a few thoughts wouldn’t hurt. She wrote, today, I learned I don’t want to live. But if that’s true, then how did I get here? Why did I call the doctor? I wonder what makes me feel like I don’t want to live.”

The second she opened her eyes, Jill thought of the pear tree. She stretched her arms over her head and sleepily walked toward it. It was only a few seconds after she sat down that she heard Anton coming down the path. He was humming the same tune she had been humming.

He joined her under the tree with a smiling face. “The tree’s magic work” he affirmed. He seemed so sure and something about that made Jill feel reassured. She smiled too.

The two sat under the tree drinking herbal tea in silence. Jill was paying close attention to her thoughts and she assumed Anton was doing the same. They had their morning tea under the tree every day for the next few months and never spoke a word.

Jill returned to the pear tree after lunch, after dinner, and before bed too. She couldn’t explain how drawn to the tree she felt. The pull was strong and she didn’t understand it. It felt like the tree had a hook in her and kept reeling her in.

Every day she sat against the tree’s trunk and received a lesson about who she was on the inside. She started to pay close attention to the pressure she put on herself, just like she had with the carving, she had been applying either too much or too little.

She had no idea how to figure how much pressure she needed to apply to herself. It seemed like some unreachable and arbitrary idea.

That evening over dinner she voiced her concerns to Anton. She shared that she didn’t know how to figure out how much pressure to apply to herself.

Anton smiled with happiness. “You heal!” he shouted, clapping his hands.

Jill wanted to be happy too but she felt like she had uncovered a problem without a solution. “But how do I learn what to do?”

“You learn under pear tree too.”

Feeling defeated, Jill went to bed without her usual trip to the pear tree. She woke to Anton, humming in the garden. She could see his big sun hat from her window. Jumping up, she rushed to get dressed. She had missed morning tea.

She hurried outside to see Anton unbothered by her lateness.

At the tree, she paid attention to her thoughts. She noticed she was worried about what Anton thought of her and whether or not she had let him down. Jill stood up when she realized that her fear of letting people down had kept her from doing a lot in life.

Anton looked over his shoulder and smiled, knowing she had another revelation. He knew silence and affirmation was the best teaching method, with the pear tree, he didn’t need to do anything more.

Jill grabbed her notebook and wrote, “my fear of letting people down is keeping me sick and isolated.”

She put her back to the tree’s trunk. Anton’s heart smiled when he heard her start humming. He knew the lessons of the tree were healing her.

The first morning of her last week there, Jill put her back to the trunk of the tree during their tea time. She usually only did that when she was under the tree alone.

She paid close attention as her thoughts led her to the revelation she had been seeking.

I never thought I was worthy of treatment. No one ever made me feel worthy and I guess I never let them.

Jill began to cry. She cried so hard she could barely breathe. Anton watched and waited for the tree to do its magic. Tears streamed down her cheeks while a familiar tune made its way out of her body.

Anton joined Jill. Together, they hummed a song of healing the pear tree had taught them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you liked this story, please consider giving it a heart or leaving a tip. Both help to support me to keep writing.

You may also like this story about a widow's getaway that changes her life.

Read about the writer

Follow Izzy on social media

Find other pieces Izzy has written here