The late afternoon sun seeped into the hospital room only weakly from behind the heavy drapes which were drawn over the window. The faint bit of light that managed to leak in around their edges was all that illuminated the interior of the room, which seemed remote and hollow in its stillness. It was a stark, separated space, its every element seemingly designed to insulate it from all external effects and to maintain a rigid constancy in every aspect of its isolation. The door to the room was closed, so no noise invaded from the hallway outside. The radiator hummed away quietly under the window, tuned to such precision that the room was neither too warm nor too cold—in effect, it seemed to have no temperature at all. The cleanliness of the bedding and the furniture gave the room no distinct aroma, only the sharp, dry smell of pure hygiene. And the ceiling was nothing more than a flat, featureless expanse of acoustic tile which seemed to absorb everything which rose up to meet it from below. It was a place acutely engineered for rest and recovery, and like a lonely, insular outpost on some far flung edge of civilization, the room did exactly what it was intended to do, and nothing more.
Eppie lay on the bed in this hospital room and stared unseeingly through half-opened eyes at the ceiling above her. She was alone in the room, recovering slowly from the effects of the sedative that had been administered to her earlier in the day. For several hours she had drifted repeatedly in and out of consciousness, neither fully awake nor fully asleep. The afternoon passed by in short segments of a few minutes each, as she recurrently awoke just barely enough to realize where she was, saw that nothing around her had changed, and then slipped back delicately into slumber. As she returned each time across the threshold of awareness, she was never able to rouse herself entirely. It felt to her as if all of her senses had gone dormant somehow, that all capacity for feeling and for knowing had temporarily left her, and for this she was grateful. She wanted to be numb for a while, if only to give her mind time to brace itself for the full realization of how her life had changed in the last few hours.
She lay motionless in the vacuum of her senses for an extended period of time, the precise duration of which she was unable to judge, as time itself seemed suspended in its progress. Her thoughts were dull and muted, as if a voice were trying to speak to her, calling out from some far, receding place, but she was unable to hear it. Her eyes looked groggily around the room, but there was no one there. She laid her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes. She thought that sleep would come back quickly to her as it had before, but this time it did not. Instead, she was taken by a detached, unweighted feeling. She felt herself floating off as into an open space, wholly aware of herself yet disconnected from her surroundings, not knowing which direction was up or down, not in contact with any surface or in communication with any being. It was a surreal, unnerving feeling, somewhat like a dream, although she knew that she was not asleep. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and she was unable to pull herself out of it. For a moment she was dreadfully afraid, the strangeness of this feeling grabbing at her soul and striking fear into her heart. She was terrified at the senselessness of it, of the isolation and the feeling of abandonment that it cast upon her, and she despaired of ever being able to return to the comfort of things that she found sure and familiar. As she slipped further away, she wanted to turn herself around and go back in the direction from which she had come, but her mobility was beyond her control. She could not force herself forward nor propel herself back, for there was nothing to grab on to, nothing to push against. There was nothing about her except nothingness. Her arms and legs moved flaccidly in this dreamlike world, but even at full strength they would have been largely useless to her. She did not know where she was nor which way she wanted to go. She was lost, it seemed. Lost, directionless, alone.
In her despair she came at length to discover a way to overcome the awful nothingness that surrounded her, and that was to ignore it. As long as she concentrated on it, she found, it would always be there, and she would never be anywhere except firmly in its grasp. But if she turned her mind inward and focused her thoughts only on the things that she carried within herself, then the nothingness disappeared. It was as if she found within herself an entirely other world to inhabit—a place where she was fully in control of her faculties and knew instinctively how to maneuver. And she was no longer alone there, for everyone she had ever known resided within that realm. They came to her and welcomed her back and wanted to know why she had been away for so long. She did not know what to tell them, other than that she was very happy to be back and would never leave again. And it was at this point that she escaped the abstract void into which her consciousness had fallen, and in the next moment she was back in her hospital bed.
Eppie opened her eyes once again and came back to a drowsy reality. Her heart was beating slightly faster than it had been before, but all else seemed the same. The light in the window continued to fade as the afternoon crawled on toward evening, and she wondered how long it had been since anyone had come in to check on her. She listened for the sound of activity outside her door, but she heard nothing. Sleepily she rolled her eyes back up toward the ceiling. It seemed to be the easiest thing to train her sight upon, although she did not know precisely why.
She tried to keep her mind distracted, tried to think about anything other than the one thing that she knew she ought to be thinking about but did not want to. She couldn't deal with it yet, she told herself. Didn't want to deal with it. Didn't want to know it, didn't want to have to accept it. She was just a girl, for God's sake; hadn't she been through enough? Hadn't she been subjected to enough torment for one young life? Hadn't she suffered her way through so much and reconciled herself to the consequences and consoled herself with the chance to harvest one tiny bit of pure goodness from all of her pain? Was there something wrong with that? Must that be denied her too? Was she unworthy of even that one small piece of contentment? Her mind turned with aching, unanswerable questions, and in her anguish she came to doubt that she might ever be allowed a single moment of manifest happiness in her entire life.
She could avoid her fate no longer. Deliberately, and with forced resolve, her mind came to focus on the fingertips of her right hand. She began to rub them slowly, in small concentric circles, across the threads of the cotton sheet beneath her. The finely woven fabric seemed to have no discernible texture to it; it was simply the clean, napless covering of the bed on which she lay. She closed and opened her fingers completely a few times, bringing her entire hand to life, then she slid her open palm in a wider arc across the top of the bed, but again she felt nothing except the smooth, flat surface of the mattress that lay beneath the sheet.
She hesitated for a moment and struggled to keep her eyes open. A great part of her did not want to continue, did not want to know again the reality that she must face, but she forced herself to do it. With an unsteady nerve she brought her hand slowly to her side. She felt the soft fabric of the hospital gown she wore, so thin and light against her skin. She pinched a small section of it between her thumb and her fingers and rubbed it there gently. The garment reminded her of the downy nightgowns that she had worn to bed when she was a little girl. She would have wished to lie there forever and do nothing else. Just lie there. Just rub that small cottony patch of cloth in her fingers for all eternity, holding herself back in time in that period of innocence which did not seem so very long ago, but she could not allow herself that reprieve. She knew herself to be older than that now, more aware of the harsh realities that seemed to perpetually come at her, more adult in her recognition of the need to face them. Reluctantly she let go of the edge of her gown and let her fingers move on. Tentatively she raised her hand across her hip and drew it toward her abdomen.
It was gone. Her hand met no resistance as it glided flatly across her midsection. The familiar distension of her abdominal wall—that remarkable, enigmatic blossoming of something wonderful arising out of herself—was missing. Her mind had difficulty registering the change. That profound, transforming growth which only a few weeks earlier had seemed so odd and so frightening by its presence now felt unbearably tragic in its absence.
Her hand lingered for a long while near her navel, her fingers moving persistently back and forth across the top of her hospital gown, steadfastly refusing to give up the search for that dearest part of herself—that most precious portion of her being whose loss she could not even begin to reconcile with what little remained. She was no longer whole, she thought; no longer anything more than a hollow shell. She felt herself gravely deformed, as if she had just suffered the removal of some vital organ without which she could not live, nor would want to live. Something greater than herself, something profoundly more important than she, had died, and she felt in that moment that she would rather die along with it than go on living in separation from it. A wave of grief rose up from that hollow core within her and seemed to gather itself tightly in her chest, a heavy, oppressive boulder of despair, and for a moment she felt—wished—that her heart, in its broken and solitary misery, had forgotten how to beat.
After a time her hand surrendered its fruitless search and slipped dejectedly back to her side. The drugs flowing through her system began to assert themselves once again, and suddenly she felt nothing at all. All external sensations were muted; all outward stimuli passed by her unregistered. Her feelings came only from the emotions that emanated from deep within her, and at the present moment she felt not a thing beyond an immense, pervading emptiness.
Her mind grew weary, and she passed back into a shallow, dreamless sleep.
* * *
At the other end of the building, Rachel sat on a plastic chair against one wall of a long corridor and faced a pair of doors along the adjacent wall. The doors were identical in almost every way, except for the fact that one of the doors was open, allowing her to see into the room behind it, and the other door was closed. Within the room behind the open door, Rachel could see an empty hospital bed, its mattress stripped down and flat, with a fresh set of sheets and a blanket neatly folded and lying upon it, silently awaiting the arrival of the next patient to occupy the room. A low, diffuse beam of sunlight invaded the room from a window that was beyond Rachel's line of sight, and the slanted rays fell directly across the empty bed. She wondered if the last patient assigned to the room had recovered from his or her infirmities and gone home, or whether death had rendered the room vacant prematurely. Whichever the case might be, Rachel looked upon the empty bed as an object of sadness which reflected the feelings within her. If the bed had been occupied by a patient, whether in the process of recovery or slowly slipping away, it would yet be serving its intended role and would have seemed a more pleasant sight. But at present it was not. Instead it merely sat there in the sunshine—forlorn, lonely, purposeless.
Rachel stared numbly at the other door and abandoned all hope of being able to affect the outcome of the day's events. Matters that were supposed to be ably controlled, happenings that only hours earlier she had eagerly anticipated and helped to set in motion, had veered off against her will with headstrong indifference, it had seemed, moving toward their unintended consequences, and she was powerless to stop them. She was now a bit player in the drama; the final act would be performed by others. The doctors had assured her that they would do all that could be done, but she was not allowed to be present while they worked. She would have to wait outside.
The closed door was pulled open from inside the room. A male doctor of middle age emerged with a clipboard in one hand. He approached Rachel and introduced himself, then he took a seat in the chair next to her. He spoke to her professionally and in some detail for several minutes, gesturing with his hands against his own rib cage to demonstrate the location and nature of her father's wound. The doctor drew a crude outline of the human thorax on a blank sheet of paper on his clipboard, highlighting the point of entry and showing the major blood vessels and tissues that fell in the path of the blade. He went on to describe the procedures that the surgical team had performed to address the injuries. Rachel said little as the doctor talked, only nodding occasionally to indicate that she understood and blotting her eyes with a tissue.
The doctor then discussed her father's prognosis, such as it was, going forward. The detrimental effects of massive internal bleeding; the consequential starvation of oxygen to the major organs; the resulting damage to the brain. He explained both the powers and the limitations of the machinery and the pharmaceuticals that were available to maintain the bodily functions of patients who had suffered such trauma.
Again Rachel nodded silently. She understood.
The doctor had a form for her to sign, if she wished to do so. It would be helpful for everyone involved if she would specify in writing the extent to which they should strive to maintain what remained of her father's life should his condition take a turn for the worse. Rachel read the form carefully, then checked one of the boxes near the bottom and signed her name. The doctor expressed his condolences as he took the clipboard back from her. She could go in and see her father now if she wished, or she could return at another time—it was up to her. In a few minutes the hospital would hold a news conference at which the doctor would detail the Mayor's condition to the press in much the same way as he had just done for Rachel. He would also state that all decisions regarding the Mayor's ongoing care would rest with his family, and that no firm decisions had yet been made in that regard.
Rachel thanked the doctor for his efforts as he arose from his chair and excused himself, but she remained seated as he walked away toward the front of the building. She returned to her pensive state, staring morosely at the door across the hall. She could not bring herself to enter her father's room just yet. There were things she had wanted to say to him, things that had occurred to her in just the last few hours, words that had eluded her tongue for most of her life, and she now felt the regret of those who realize that they have waited too long. She thought back to her childhood, to the days when her father was a good man and she had loved him as she had loved no other. She had known nothing of his politics back then; indeed, she had known nothing of politics at all. But of those things that she had known, he had been the incarnation of all that was good—father, teacher, provider. He had taught her how to read at an early age because she had wanted so to learn. Each night after dinner she would crawl into his lap with a picture book and beg him to read her a story, and together their fingers would move across each page. She remembered them all. Hansel and Gretel. Mary Poppins. Jack and The Beanstalk. More often than not she would nod off in his lap and he would carry her up to bed.
It was funny, she thought. He never changed. He was the same man that very morning as he had been twenty years earlier, and he had undoubtedly been exactly the same even twenty years before that. It was only her opinion of him that had changed so radically through the years. She had observed him from every conceivable angle. She had seen him from below, looking up to him with innocent, childlike adoration as a little girl. She had also seen him as an equal, facing off against him eye to eye during that turbulent period when she was coming into her own as a person. And she had looked down upon him as well, convinced in her later years that she knew more than he did about almost everything and was an immeasurably better person than he was because of it. Now, for the first time in her life, she saw him from all of these perspectives at once, a montage of human strengths and failings, both good and bad, coming together into a new composite, and she was disarmed by the effect. She knew that she could not, in such a short span of time since her father was cut down, reconcile such a diverse array of feelings for him into a single, consistent whole. That was going to take a while. But like a planet orbiting slowly around its central star, turning a different face toward it as the seasons passed, always and forever trying to break free of its gravity yet never quite able to do so, Rachel began to see her lifelong relation to her father for what it was—an ever-present force of nature that she had simply had to deal with. And she had dealt with him as she was inherently tempered to do, with both love and hate in due course as she had observed his many sides. Their fractured history was a mutually created thing that offered as much insight into her own identity as it did into his.
In the end, she felt, he had been wrong, still entirely wrong, in what he had attempted to do. She had formed opinions through the years that were now so deeply engrained that they would never leave her, no matter how her father's downfall might otherwise affect her. But in her father's final, unthreatening hours, she could no longer summon up the passion to hate him. She had been wrong as well, she now saw, unafraid to face her own faults. Not so much in the stand that she had made against him, but in that hate that she had allowed to consume her. Her hate had not been something that he had imposed upon her. It was not a true and necessary thing. Instead, it was something that she had cultivated from within herself, something false. Something seemingly helpful that she had conjured up and used in her war of opposition. It had been a weapon really, an easy and ready tool and little else, that she had forged from her anger and her conceit, and pointed at him, and ultimately used against him to tragic result. That someone else had struck the blow that took him down was beside the point. She bore as much responsibility for the event as anyone; she had helped to fashion the weapon that killed him.
In fairness to her father, she realized that she had never seen a corresponding hatred flaring back at her from within his heart. He had been cold and uncaring at times, but never vicious. If at any time she had somehow found the means to forgive his unjust ways, she thought it likely that he would have taken her back into his arms without another word, much like the sleeping little girl that he had so often carried up the stairs. But she was no longer that little girl and could never again be, and so he would now depart her life without a just farewell.
In the end he had been, in essence, a guidepost, one of many, by which she could mark the progress of her life, and now she felt the onset of what looked to be an abiding sadness at having to carry on without that guidepost in sight.
Alone she sat in the hallway, quietly watching the door, feeling the weight of years of unresolved enmity slowly lifting itself from her soul.
While Rachel sat thusly vigilant, a man approached up the hallway from the direction in which the doctor had departed minutes earlier. Rachel did not know the man, but his attire marked him as a priest. He walked directly up to her.
"You must be Rachel," the man said softly by way of introduction, extending his hand to her. His voice was warm and reassuring.
Yes, she was, she said, somewhat uneasily, as she shook his hand.
"I'm Father Andrew," the priest said. "Do you mind if I sit down?"
No, Rachel said, she didn't mind. She drew an uncomfortable breath as the priest took a seat in the chair next to her. Silently she wished she had mentioned to the doctor that she didn't need to speak to a member of any clergy.
"The doctor told me about your father," said Andrew. "I'm very sorry."
"Thank you," said Rachel.
"I know your father well. He has attended my nine o'clock mass every Sunday without fail for as long as I've been at Saint Michael's."
"I'm not surprised," Rachel said. "Dad was a regular churchgoer. Has been all his life." She spoke in a hollow, defeated tone.
Andrew looked at her with sympathy. He seemed to know the tensioned relationship that Rachel had had with her father. "Your father is a believer, Rachel," he said. "He lived his life according to his beliefs, even when it was difficult for him to do so. There's no greater strength than that."
Rachel thought for a moment. "I suppose you're right," she said, "but strength isn't everything." She dabbed the remnants of a tear from her eye. "There were times when I would have traded some of that strength for a bit more understanding of other people's feelings. He wasn't the worst father in the world—certainly not as bad as I made him out to be at times—but he was a very stubborn man. Too stubborn for his own good, I guess."
"I suppose we're all stubborn in our own way," said Andrew.
The grim visage on Rachel's face softened. "That's for sure," she said.
They sat for a few moments in silence, then Rachel leaned the back of her head against the wall and spoke in a reminiscent tone. "Dad used to take me to church with him when I was a little girl," she said. "I used to like to go with him and Mom when I was young. Every year my parents would buy me a new church-going dress for my birthday. Sunday mornings were the only times I was allowed to wear it. It made me feel special to wear my prettiest dress once a week."
Andrew looked at Rachel kindly, trying to imagine the young woman who now sat beside him in blue jeans and an oversized flannel shirt as a girl of five or six, dressed up prettily for church by her parents like so many other little girls who attended his mass each week. It was a contrast in images that, while broad, was not unresolvable.
"Then when I was around twelve or so," she continued, "I began to dislike going to church, and by the time I was fourteen I had really grown to hate it. I don't know precisely why, to tell you the truth. I guess I just lost interest in hearing the same old stuff preached to me over and over again each week. But Dad made me keep going. It was this iron-clad rule he had—no daughter of his was going to miss church on Sunday. So he made me go, and we would sit there together in the front pew where we always had to sit, right up in front of everybody, and I would hate it. The priest, the altar boys, the ushers, the other people in the congregation, the entire mass itself—I hated the whole thing. But I had to put up with it because I was too young to be able to stand up to my father. It wasn't until I was sixteen that I finally found the nerve to tell him no, I wasn't going to do whatever he told me to do anymore. We had some huge fights about it—that and other things, too. We would yell and scream at each other until Mom broke down and cried, then Dad would finally give in. That was ten years ago, and I've never gone back to church since, except for a few weddings and funerals, and one christening a few years back."
Rachel shook her head and smiled apologetically. "I hope I haven't offended you, Father. It's not church itself that I dislike so much, it's just that I can't stand being told what to do. I accept things much more easily when I'm allowed to deal with them voluntarily, on my own terms."
Andrew nodded his head. "I understand," he said. "Nobody likes being bossed around. Maybe your feelings will change as you grow older. If you ever decide to return to the church, you would certainly be welcomed back."
Rachel looked at Father Andrew in a weary, unselfconscious way. He struck her as remarkably magnanimous for a priest, less severe and judgmental than those she recalled from her youth. She felt relaxed in his presence. "May I confess something to you, Father?" she said.
Andrew glanced up and down the hallway. "Well," he said, "this isn't exactly the kind of place where I normally take confessions, but I suppose it will do."
Rachel let out a tired sigh. "I mentioned that I had gone to a christening a few years ago," she said. "Well, I was actually the godmother at that service, believe it or not, and I had to lie to the priest in order to do it. You see, one of my girlfriends from high school had had a son, and she called me from Pittsburgh and asked me if I would be his godmother. I didn't realize it at the time, but the church requires proof that a child's prospective godparents are Catholic. If you come from out of town, you have to provide a letter from your local parish certifying that you are registered there, and of course I wasn't. So I called the priest at Saint Michael's and made up a story about how I had just moved into town a few weeks earlier and I hadn't had time to register. He told me to come to mass that Sunday and to see him afterward. I remember arriving at the church just as the service was ending. I slipped into the last pew as the recessional song began, and I made eye contact with the priest as he walked up the aisle, pretending that I had been there for the entire mass. When I met with him afterward, I was worried that he might quiz me about that day's homily as he filled out my registration card, but luckily for me he didn't. He just wanted my name and address."
Rachel paused and looked at Andrew wryly.
"So I got my official letter from the church," she continued, "testifying that I was a member of the parish in good standing, and I went off to Pittsburgh under false pretenses to serve as a godparent. That was about four years ago, and as I've said, I haven't been back to church since. But to this day I still get solicitations from your church in the mail every few months asking for a donation. I guess I'm still a good Catholic as far as the parish is concerned."
Now it was Andrew's turn to smile wearily. "I don't know if that confession reflects more poorly on you or on the church," he said flatly, and they both chuckled.
Rachel dabbed another tear from her eye. "Well, I didn't say I was confessing for my benefit alone," she said, smiling through her tears. "I just thought I should tell you."
"I'm sure you're doing a fine job as a godmother, Rachel," Andrew said, "regardless of your formal qualifications."
"So, am I absolved of my sin, Father?" she said.
"Consider yourself absolved," said Andrew. "I'm inclined to prescribe attendance at mass tomorrow morning as penance, but I'm afraid that giving you any orders at this point might be counterproductive."
Rachel looked again at the doors across the hallway. "I'll consider it," she said, with a tone of seriousness in her voice.
"Well, if you decide to come," Andrew said, "try to come for the whole thing. I'll be watching the back pews." He saw a hint of a smile return to Rachel's face.
The two sat in silence for another minute or so, then Andrew shifted in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. "Since you've been so forthright with me, Rachel," he said, breaking the silence between them, "would you mind if I were to confess something to you?"
Rachel looked at him in puzzled surprise. "You have something you want to confess to me?" she said.
"Yes," said Andrew. "Actually, it's something I've wanted to tell your father for some time now, but I've never gotten up the nerve to do so, and now I fear that the opportunity has passed me by, so I would like to tell you."
"Okay," Rachel said slowly, as she prepared herself to hear whatever revelation her father's priest may have lacked the courage to tell him. "I'm listening."
"Well," Andrew began, "it has to do with the tree across the street that your father has always admired so much. You know the one I'm referring to, don't you? I'm sure you've heard him talk about it."
"You mean the banyan tree?" Rachel asked. She had indeed heard her father talk about the tree many times in her youth.
"Yes," Andrew said, "the banyan tree. Your father tells the story of how he planted a seed in that spot when he was a boy, and how he forgot about it for several years and then came back to the same place as a young man to find a tree growing there. He talks about how he regrets having forgotten about the seed, and how he would have loved to have watched during those intervening years as it sprouted into a seedling and then into the mature tree that he found when he came back all those years later. It's really a most beautiful story, and I know that he and many other people are very touched by it, and that's why it's been so hard for me to tell anyone what I know. You see, Rachel, your father's story is mostly false."
Rachel sat up in her chair, turning toward Andrew in rapt attention as he spoke. She tried to imagine what knowledge this priest could possibly have about events that occurred when her father was just a boy.
"That tree didn't grow in that spot the way your father says it did," Andrew continued. "In fact, he never even planted the seed from which that tree grew. The whole premise of the story is merely a legend that sprang from your father's imagination."
Rachel had to catch herself to keep her jaw from dropping open in shock. She squinted her eyes at Andrew in disbelief. "Are you telling me that my father has been lying to everyone about that tree for his entire life?"
"Not at all," Andrew said emphatically. "That's not what I'm saying. Your father hasn't lied to anyone about the tree because he truly believes the story himself. He honestly thinks that he planted a seed in the ground on that spot and that that magnificent tree grew up from it. I'm not accusing your father of lying about it; I'm just saying that he's mistaken about some of his facts. He's made some assumptions that simply aren't true, and he's perpetuated them through his story, that's all."
Rachel's face relaxed a bit. "So you're saying that he didn't really plant the seed for that tree," she said, still doubtful.
"No, he didn't."
"Well, then, who did?"
"Nobody."
"Nobody?"
Andrew paused and then nodded his head. He seemed strangely sad at his assertion. "That's right," he said. "Nobody planted that tree."
Rachel shook her head. "Come on, Father," she said incredulously, "you can't be serious. How does a banyan tree grow in the middle of a town like this unless somebody plants it there? That species of tree doesn't grow naturally anywhere on this continent."
"I know, Rachel," Andrew said. "I'm sure that's what led your father to believe that he must have been responsible for it. But I'm sorry to say that he jumped to the wrong conclusion. You're correct that the banyan tree is not native to North America—it's found mostly in Southeast Asia. I saw many of them when I was in Vietnam, and I learned a great deal about them from the local villagers I met there. And what your father has always been unaware of is the manner by which a banyan seed grows into a fully formed tree.
"You see, a banyan seed is not like the seed of any other tree. When most varieties of tree seeds are planted in the ground, they germinate just like you'd think they would. They send out roots into the soil to absorb water, and then they sprout their trunks upward toward the sunlight. But a banyan seed is different; it grows in quite the opposite manner. If you plant an unfertilized banyan seed down in the soil it will die. A banyan tree can't grow from the ground up by itself—it doesn't have a trunk that's strong enough to do that. Instead, a banyan grows from the top down. In the wild, the seeds are spread throughout the forest by animals, usually birds and monkeys. When those animals feed on the fruit of a mature tree, they ingest the seeds and later expel them in their droppings from high up in the canopy of the forest. The seeds that fall to the ground will usually die, but those that come to rest on a leaf or a branch somewhere on a tree will survive. The seeds are already fertilized, so they don't need nutrients from the soil right away, and they can get plenty of water if it rains frequently or if the air is humid enough to produce dew in the mornings. They quickly germinate from their perch and send down long, thin roots that cling to the trunk of the host tree, and soon these roots reach the ground. Once that happens, the roots begin to grow thicker and stronger, and eventually there are so many of them that they cover the entire trunk, forming what appears to be a new trunk over the old one. After many years the host tree becomes completely engulfed by these roots, and it's difficult for anybody to tell that there is a separate tree beneath them. Eventually the host tree is smothered and it dies from lack of sunlight, but the younger and more aggressive banyan tree lives on, larger and more imposing than the tree that it subsumed."
Rachel sat back in her chair and blinked her eyes a few times as she let Andrew's words sink in. She was greatly affected by the priest's story.
"The tree is an epiphyte, Rachel," Andrew said. "It grows over and strangles other trees—that's how it can grow so quickly when it's young. There's another name for them, too. Some people call them strangler figs."
Rachel put a hand to the side of her head, as if to steady it from a state of imbalance. "So my father didn't really plant that tree," Rachel said, mostly to herself.
"No," said Andrew, "he couldn't have. The most likely possibility is that he accidentally dropped some of his seeds somewhere along his route that day as a boy when he went about his planting. A bird probably came along and ate them, and then dropped them onto another tree that already stood in that very spot across the street. By the time your father came by some fifteen years later, that original tree was probably unnoticeable beneath a thick, tangled mesh of banyan roots, and all your father saw was a glorious, living embodiment of the dreams of his youth, placed there by his own hand."
Rachel stared at the floor, dazed and silent, still holding her head in her hand. "I think I understand," she finally said.
* * *
Eppie stirred from her sleep slowly and tepidly. Her grogginess told her that the sedative had not yet completely worn off, but she felt more aware of herself now than she had earlier. She still lay on her back in her hospital bed, in exactly the same position that she had been in when she last remembered dozing off.
Carefully, almost painfully, she stretched her limbs to cast off the last vestiges of her slumber. Then, looking around the room, expecting once again to see no one, she was startled to see Rachel sitting by herself in a guest chair near the window. The chair was turned away from the bed and toward the window, the drapes of which were now drawn aside, and Rachel sat solemnly upon it, looking out at the grey, dusky sky. Through the glass the vast crest of the banyan tree rose up like a mountain from the park across the street and still held the foreground of the view, but it had faded substantially into the darkening sky as the last of the sun's light disappeared over the horizon behind the building.
"Rachel?" said Eppie thickly. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand to make sure her vision was clear.
Rachel turned her gaze away from the window. "Yeah, Eppie, it's me."
"What are you doing here?" Eppie asked, and then she immediately regretted her words. She did not mean to question Rachel's concern—why shouldn't she be there, after all? She was merely surprised by her presence.
"I wanted to see how you were doing," Rachel said politely, taking no offense. She stood up and walked to the bed, then sat on the edge and took Eppie's hand in hers. "I heard about what happened," she said. "I'm so sorry."
Their eyes met directly, more so than they had ever done before. Eppie had never seen Rachel look so sad. She must have been crying in the chair while I slept, Eppie thought. Eppie choked back a sob and looked away. It was like looking into a mirror. For the first time that she could recall, Eppie saw her own feelings of loss reflected back to her in the face of another, and she could not bear the sight.
"How are you feeling?" Rachel asked.
"I'm all right," Eppie whispered, nearly inaudible, but Rachel could see that she was not all right. She leaned forward and put her arms around the girl, and Eppie hugged her back strongly and without inhibition. "I'm sorry, Eppie," Rachel said to her softly. "I'm so, so sorry." They held each other for a long time, comforting one another silently and equally.
When they separated, Eppie felt much relieved, but a renewed sense of fatigue came over her as well. "What time is it?" she asked.
Rachel looked at her watch. "It's nearly five."
"Wow," Eppie said, rubbing her eyes again, "I've slept the whole afternoon. How long have you been here?"
"A couple of hours."
Eppie blinked at her in disbelief. "A couple of hours? Really?"
Rachel nodded. Eppie could see that Rachel carried a great sadness—a sadness as large and heavy, perhaps, as the one that Eppie herself bore. "A lot has happened today, Eppie," Rachel said. "I've had a lot of things to think about, and I needed a quiet place to be alone for a while. When I heard that you were here, I decided to keep you company."
Eppie noticed a calmness in Rachel's voice that she had never heard before. She spoke now as a different person than the one whom Eppie had always known. Gone was the sharp edge of discontent and combativeness which had always underlain her personality, replaced now by an undisguised sorrow. And through that sorrow came an air of peace and acceptance which seemed to mellow her outward persona. Eppie felt a greater bond of kinship beginning to reveal itself between them.
"What happened?" Eppie asked.
Rachel looked down at the blanket. "My father was assaulted today," she said. "He was stabbed with a knife and he was wounded very badly. He lost a great deal of blood and now he's in a coma. The doctors say that there's no real chance for recovery. He's on life support in a room down the hall. I haven't worked up the courage to go in and see him yet."
"Who assaulted him?" asked Eppie.
The question immediately brought a pained expression to Rachel's face. She fought to hold her emotions in check. "We all did," Rachel said in despair. "The whole group was in on it. Me, Allison, Carl, Jennifer—all of us. We were all there, and we were all yelling and screaming at him. It was a planned protest, but it turned into a real mob scene." Rachel paused and swallowed hard. "But it was Billy who stabbed him. He was out of his mind, just like he always was whenever we tried to demonstrate in public, only this time he was more so. He got up in my father's face, and my father wouldn't back down, so Billy went crazy. He stabbed my father and the police had to shoot him."
Eppie stared at Rachel. "The police shot Billy?"
"Yes," Rachel said, her voice cracking. "He's dead." She bowed her head and covered her eyes with the palm of one hand. "Billy's dead, my father is going to die, and now your baby is gone, too. And I've been sitting in that chair for the past two hours trying to convince myself that I'm not in some way responsible for all of those things."
Eppie leaned forward and put her arms around Rachel, much as Rachel had done for her a few moments earlier. Rachel returned the embrace. "Don't blame yourself, Rachel," Eppie said. "You've done more for me than most people would have ever thought to do. I can't tell you how grateful I am."
Rachel hugged her more tightly, and Eppie spoke softly into her ear.
"And I'm sure that what happened between Billy and your father was their own doing. You shouldn't feel responsible for other people's fights."
"Thanks, Eppie," Rachel said, as the two disengaged. "I really don't know what to believe right now, but that thought means a great deal to me." She held Eppie's shoulders in her hands at arm's length. A faint wisp of a grin peeked through her countenance. "How does a fourteen-year-old get to be so wise?" she said.
Eppie grinned shyly back at her. "I'm not so wise," she said modestly, and then she was silent. She could think of nothing else to say in response.
"Yes you are," Rachel said firmly. She squeezed Eppie's shoulders in her hands and looked straight into her eyes. "Yes, you are."
Rachel's hands fell from Eppie's shoulders, and again she took the girl's hands in her own. "Eppie, I've made some decisions today," she said. "They've been difficult decisions to make, but I see now that there are things I have to do. I have to take care of my mother. She can't look after herself, and with my father gone there will be nobody else to care for her. So I've decided to move back into her house and live with her, which means I'll have to move out of the apartment. I haven't told Allison yet, but she will probably want to find another roommate, so you won't be able to live there anymore. But I can make room for you at the house. There's a den in the back that we can make into another bedroom for you. There's a writing desk in there and a good-sized closet, so we would just have to find you a bed and a dresser. I don't think it would be too hard—"
"That's okay, Rachel," Eppie said, interrupting her. She paused for a moment. "I understand about your mother," she then said. "She needs you now, and you need to be there for her. But you don't need to worry about me anymore. I think I'll be able to take care of myself from now on. Shelley has been talking about getting a place of her own for a while now, and she asked if I would want to move in with her. I think I'd like to do that."
Rachel looked confused. "Shelley?" she asked.
"I guess I never mentioned her to you," Eppie said apologetically. "She's a friend of mine from the mission. She has a baby of her own, and she just got a new job, so she'll need a helping hand."
"You mean Father Andrew's mission, right? The place where you've been spending so much time?"
"Yes," Eppie said. "How did you know?"
Rachel smiled. "Father Andrew told me all about it. I just met him this afternoon. It doesn't sound anything like the place that I imagined it to be." She squeezed Eppie's hand firmly. "I'm sure that you and Shelley will be very happy living together in your new place. And if you ever need anything, you know where you can find me."
Eppie looked at Rachel sheepishly. "You're not mad?" she asked.
A tear came to Rachel's eye, and she smiled broadly. To Eppie she appeared to be laughing and crying at the same time. "No," she said, "of course I'm not mad. I've learned not to be that way anymore."
The two talked amiably for a while longer, sharing thoughts and confidences that had eluded them in all of their previous conversations. Eppie felt closer to Rachel than she had ever felt before, and a great sense of relief came to her in seeing that they were parting as friends.
A motion in the doorway interrupted their conversation. An orderly entered the room pushing a food cart ahead of him. "Dinner time," he announced as he wheeled the cart up to the bed.
"Oh, look at the time," Rachel said, glancing at her watch. "I really have to be going." She started to raise herself off the bed, but then she stopped and settled back down. "Eppie, I'm so sorry for your loss," she said. "I'm sorry for everything that I failed to do for you. I hope I've been at least some help to you, and I hope that things will be much better for you from now on."
The two hugged each other warmly a final time and said their goodbyes, then Rachel stood up and left the room.
In the hallway she paused momentarily, looking uncertainly down the hall in the direction of her father's room. Then with a sigh she turned in the opposite direction and began walking toward the front of the building. She had only proceeded a short way when a nurse stopped her.
"Ms. Farrell?" the nurse said.
"Yes."
"I was just coming to find you. You have a visitor in the lobby. She's very anxious to talk to you."
This information struck Rachel as strange. Who would look for her here? If it was a reporter, she thought, she would just as soon slip out a side exit of the building.
"Did she give you her name?" Rachel asked.
"No," the nurse said, "but she's an Hispanic woman, about fifty years old, I'd say. The receptionist said she's your housekeeper."
My housekeeper? Rachel thought. Oh God. She thanked the nurse and walked more quickly toward the lobby.
When she reached the waiting area, she saw the two women that she knew would be there. Rosalynn recognized her immediately and rose from her chair to meet her.
"Oh, Miss Rachel," Rosalynn said, expressing her anxiety in a thick Spanish accent, "I'm so sorry to bother you, but I don't know what to do."
"That's okay, Rosalynn," Rachel reassured her. "You did the right thing. How is she doing?"
"She is very upset, Miss Rachel," Rosalynn said in nervous agitation. "Very upset. I don't think she understand. I hear about the news on the television and I rush right over to your house. All the police are there and she is so confused. I don't tell her anything about what happen, I don't want to upset her, but she know something is not right. She keep asking for her husband, and I don't know what to say, so I bring her here. I am so sorry, I don't know what else to do."
Rachel looked down the row of chairs along the long wall of the waiting area and saw her mother sitting alone, small and confused, in an old brown and gray coat that she had owned for many years. Her hands clutched anxiously at her hat and gloves in her lap.
"I know that you have not been close with the family for a long time," said Rosalynn, "but you are still her family. You are the only person I feel comfortable to bring her to. She still know you, I think."
"Thank you, Rosalynn," said Rachel. "Would you give me a moment to talk to her alone? Then we can all go home together."
"Yes, yes, of course. I will wait for you here."
Rachel took a deep breath and tried to compose herself for the task at hand. She knew that it would not be easy.
"Hello, Mom," she said calmly after walking over to where her mother sat. "How are you feeling?"
Her mother looked up at her as if she were a complete stranger. "I'm fine," she said pleasantly. "How are you?"
"It's me, Mom," Rachel said, seeing that her mother did not recognize her. "It's Rachel. I've come to take you home."
Her mother's face went blank for an instant, as if a small spark of remembrance flashed somewhere in her mind, but then her prior expression returned. "I'm waiting for my husband," she said, with forthright conviction. "He'll be here soon to take me home."
Rachel sat down next to her mother. "No, Mom," she said patiently. "Daddy's not coming today. He asked me to come by and take you home instead. Is that okay with you?"
Her mother thought for a moment. "No," she said slowly, shaking her head. "No, that can't be right. My husband always takes me home from the hospital. He's the only one who knows where we live. I have to wait for him."
"Mom," Rachel said. "Mom, listen to me. Daddy can't make it here today, do you understand? He has some very important business to take care of, and he asked me to take you home for him. He'll be disappointed if you don't come with me. Look, there's Rosalynn. She'll drive us home together. She knows the way."
Her mother looked across the room at Rosalynn briefly, then back at Rachel. She was unconvinced. "But where is my husband?" she insisted. "He's never too busy to pick me up. Never."
Rachel took another deep breath and braced herself for what she was about to say. She had hoped to avoid deception, but she could think of no other way. "Daddy's at home, Mom," she lied. "He's home and he can't leave right now. He wants you to be home with him, but he can't pick you up today, so I'm here to pick you up and take you back home to be with him. Now why don't you put on your hat and your gloves and we'll go home and see him."
Her mother's expression grew more puzzled, but she took up her hat and gloves at Rachel's urging and began to put them on. "My husband is at home?" she said.
Rachel bit her lip. She knew that she would have to think of something else to say when they got back to the house. Her only consolation, such as it was, was that her mother would probably not remember this conversation by that time. "Yes, Mom," she said. "Daddy's home. Let me help you up." Rachel stood and helped her mother to her feet.
"And who are you?" her mother asked.
Rachel took her mother by the arm. "I'm Rachel, Mom," she said, as she led the older woman toward the sliding glass doors. "I'm your daughter."
Rosalynn came over and took the woman's other arm, and together the three of them walked to the exit. The automatic doors opened with barely a sound.
"My husband should be here soon," the old woman said as they left the building. "He always comes to take me home from the hospital."