The Oak Tree

Smoke filled the cab of the rusted Chevrolet truck. Claire sat with her legs tucked under her and a lit cigarette dangled from the corner of her mouth. On other nights, the truck sat in a path of moonlight, but tonight was different- darker than any night she had seen previously. To her right sat an oak tree — the oak tree. Its lower branches scratch the outside of the truck ever so gently, begging to come inside and get some relief from the rain that hits its leaves.

She flicks the cigarette out the window and into the darkness, unflinching as part of the cherry falls onto the floor, leaving a perfect black circle on the mat. She lights up another cigarette as thunder rumbles around her, and that’s when she sees it —the moment she’s been waiting for.

The women sitting next to her is wearing familiar, homey clothing. Her blue jeans hug the curves of her body. Even sitting down you can see her ample shape. Her shirt is loose and specked with paint and her curly hair hangs in her face. Her face is young for her age and yet is still sprinkled with a few wrinkles. Her gaze is fixed ahead on a simple rope, frayed at the end and double-knotted around the thickest branch on the old oak tree.

Mist hits the front window as Claire drops her cigarette in complete shock. This is really happening. Years of sitting outside this tree and she finally has a chance a chance to find answers to all the questions she had when they cut down the body that hung from the very rope the woman had fixed her gaze on. Since that day, the truck hasn’t moved and neither has Claire. Both have almost become a part of the scenery, the wheels tangled into the greenery beneath them.

The rain has stopped now and the small sliver of moon has sunk even farther into the hill that sits in front of the truck. The smell of wet vegetation mingles with the smoke and reminds Claire of a day when things were happy, when things were better.

The woman slowly turns her face towards Claire and the first thing she notices is the purple and blue bruise that kisses the light skin around her neck. She raises her gaze to the woman’s face. Her thin lips are pressed in a straight line and her cheek bones are sharp and pointed. As Claire moves up to the woman’s once joy-filled eyes, she whispers softly, “Hi, Mom.”

Her mother finally draws her eyes away from the rope hanging from the oak tree and looks at her daughter with as much shock in her eyes as Claire felt. The moment they both have been waiting for has come to be. Claire looks at her mother and feels the words come to her mouth, but she cannot speak. Her mom grabs the pack of menthol smokes sitting in-between them and clicks the ball at the end, allowing mint to mingle with tobacco. As she places the filter into her mouth, the cigarette lights, illuminating the cab once again. Claire follows suit and her mother's frown deepens.

“Since when do you smoke?” she asks, while drawing her attention back to the rope hanging from the tree.

Claire takes a drag and releases the smoke out the always-open window, “Why are you wasting time asking about my smoking habits? I have so many questions, it’s been so long ma. Why has it been so long?”

“We have this talk every time, Claire. We go over this. Every. Damn. Time.”

The rope swings in the distance as a slight breeze catches it and Claire’s hair at the same time — both strands of the frayed rope and Claire’s hair dancing under the pale moon.

Claire follows her mom’s gaze to the rope and sighs softly. Both women sit side-by-side, smoke filling the cab from their lit cigarettes. Claire sits, remembering a spring when the tree held not one, but two double-knotted ropes followed by a plank of wood — the perfect tree swing. A younger Claire sits on the bench while following her gaze to her younger mother, happy on a blue woven blanket.

Neither Claire nor her mother would think that eventually the rope swing that christened Claire’s childhood would be replaced with a body.

“Why did it happen?” Claire whispered.

Her mother’s eyes begin to water but she doesn’t move her gaze from the dark bark of the tree. “Sometimes people just aren’t happy, Claire Bear.”

Though recalling this memory normally brings tears to Claire’s eyes, this truth from her mother does the opposite. Anger flares up inside her and she punches the steering wheel of the truck, bruising her knuckles.

Her mom sits, unfazed as Claire’s outburst begins, like she has sat through this outburst a million times.

“PEOPLE AREN’T HAPPY? That is such BULLSHIT, Mom. YOU WEREN’T HAPPY. How could you not be happy? I just don’t understand how you couldn’t be happy. You had everything. I have waited years for an answer, years to know why you took your own life and left me wondering and that’s the answer I get? ‘People aren’t happy’!”

For the first time since she had appeared, her mother pulls her gaze away from the rope that hangs from the tree and looks at Claire with pain in her eyes. “Claire, I didn’t kill myself. You did.” Her mother pulls down the visor in front of Claire and grasps her chin, forcing her to look in the small dusty mirror.

Claire adjusts the mirror and sees the purple budding bruise that she once saw on her mother circling her own neck, a bruise she may have seen if she took a moment to look in the mirror. Claire feels a thought on the edge of her brain, whispering at her to remember that day.

Fighting — her parents had been fighting over how to deal with her. She had been fighting with a darkness of her own for a while and after asking them for help, they began to yell but not at her, at each other. Rehab again, they said. Or pills — the ones that numb her so she doesn’t feel anything — no darkness but no light, either. As their yelling increased, Claire couldn’t take it. She was tired — tired of fighting, tired of being the problem, tired of the darkness. She ran, unsure of where she was going. She ended up at the one place where she felt okay. The tree was younger then, sturdy and beautiful. The flowers around the hill were blooming with color as Claire climbed to the branch that held the rope swing. When she finally fastened the swing into a circle she felt the most peace she had felt in months.

As the memory fades, Claire feels the tears prick her eyes. She turns to find the comfort of her mother, to give some sort of explanation, but just like the memory, her mother is now gone and Claire is once again surrounded by darkness.