The Pear Tree

Dad was home. That could be wonderful or that could be terrible. Quiet was good. The back-garage door was open and the light was on, so Dad was working on a project out there. I walked by his big truck, without the trailer, sitting in our driveway.

When Dad was home it was always a surprise, to me. Maybe Mom knew when he was coming, but, I did not. I didn’t ask when would Dad be home. I scuffed my way up the concrete steps, walked in and listened for my mother in the house. I could hear some cabinet doors opening and closing and followed the noise.

My mother said that we had a very small house in the middle of nowhere. We moved here in June, when my Dad got a new job with the local trucking company. The town was so small that it didn’t have a grocery store, just a little store that sold candy, milk, eggs, cigarettes, and beer. My mother didn’t like it here. When our car wouldn’t start, we were stuck at the house. No family or friends ever visited.

I made a friend. Dee Dee lived next door and came over the day we moved in. We were in the same grade and we would have the same teacher, when school started, again. My mother bought me a town pool pass, and Dee Dee and I would walk to the pool, nearly every day, unless it rained.

As I slid off my flip flops, I glanced up at my mother. She told me to take my bathing suit and towel outside to hang on the line, and to come back in for a snack.

My mother was a baker. She baked something special every week. Rhubarb pie, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, and red velvet cake. Our twice a month trip to the grocery store, always included a list of items, for her, to bake something new. When Dad was home, the baked goods didn’t last long. He’d sit on the sofa, with a plate of something homemade good, and watch a game. He’d watch any game he could find. He would watch baseball, basketball, football or hockey. If Dad was sleeping on the sofa, I’d be super quiet.

All summer, Dee Dee and I played in the sprinkler on the lawn, made mud pies and sat under the pear tree and looked for bugs. The pears were getting bigger now, but were still too hard and small to eat. We’d play hopscotch and jump ropes on the driveway, if the truck was not parked there. One day, my mother invited Dee Dee over to help us make ice cream. We took turns cranking it, with the radio playing and a warm breeze blowing through the kitchen.

Then school started, and my mother spent part of every day collecting the pears that had dropped onto the ground, and picking the ripe pears from the tree. Our neighbor, also, had a pear tree, so we didn’t have anyone to give the extra pears to. Cookbooks from the town library sat on the kitchen table, with pear recipes tagged with scrap paper bookmarks.

My mother and I picked up the fallen pears, now, every evening. My Dad had skidded on some rotten pairs on the ground, and became angry. We didn’t want it to happen again.

Mom let me help with the baking. If Dad wasn’t home, and we had a day off from school, Dee Dee would come over to help, too. With the windows open, we would all sing along with the radio, as we washed, peeled, measured and mixed.

As the leaves turned gold, red, brown and orange, we had pear cake, pear bread, pear crisp and pear muffins. The pear tree was no longer fun to sit under, with old bits of mushy pears on the ground and the bees hovering about the rotten fruit smell. I would sit on my front steps waiting for Dee Dee to come outside. If my Dad was home, we’d go to her yard. If my Dad was not home, we’d collect wildflowers, interesting rocks, and talk about the kids in our class, at my house. We’d play until Dee Dee’s Mom opened her door and called her home.

The leaves are gone now and my new winter coat was hanging by the front door. Mom and I sit in the kitchen. I am having a slice of pear cake, for my afterschool snack, as Mom drinks coffee and writes on some papers. Dad had been home for the past two days, but he had left early this morning. I didn’t see him leave, but I had heard the big engine start up.

As I watched my Mom work on her paper, I noticed that her makeup is caked near her left eye. I know we won’t be going anywhere for a couple of days, now. Dee Dee and her family moved away, over a week ago. I still see Dee Dee in school, but not at my house, anymore.

The back-screen door slams shut, as I step outside. With nothing to do, I look over at Dee Dee’s dark and empty house and then up through the bare branches of the pear tree in our backyard. There is no sun in the sky, to be seen.