The Last Flight(57)
By the time they reached the tree farm, she’d worked out a plan. After they returned to Berkeley, she’d work all night. Again. She redoubled her efforts to focus on Liz, who was describing the tree they’d buy, a special one they’d plant in front of the house instead of propping it in a stand of water for a few weeks.
“You won’t believe how beautiful it will be,” Liz told her as they walked between rows and rows of tall, majestic pines. She examined each tree, checking to see whether it was full all the way around, before moving on to the next one. She spoke softly, carried somewhere else by memory. “My dad and I used to do this when I was a girl. Every place we lived—and there were many—the two of us would look for a new tree to join our family.” She reached her hand out as they walked, brushing the pine needles with her fingertips. “He made Christmas magical.”
When Eva was little, when she thought there was still a chance they’d come back for her, she used to fantasize what Christmas would be like if she’d grown up with her birth family. If her mother hadn’t been an addict but instead the kind of parent who would insist Santa was real, staying up late assembling toys and filling stockings. And when Eva woke, she’d race to the tree and tear off wrapping paper, each present bigger and better than the last, always exactly what she wanted. Maybe her grandparents and extended family would come over. Perhaps there would be cousins, other children to round out the image of her perfect family. But now that picture had shifted, carrying with it the knowledge that those Christmases would have been heavy with her mother’s absence.
“Will your daughter be coming for the holidays?” Eva asked, unsure how she’d feel about meeting Ellie, of being displaced by the daughter of Liz’s heart.
“She’s working,” she said. The finality of her tone made it clear that she didn’t want to discuss it more.
Liz slipped between two trees and into another row. “This one,” she called, her words muted by the thick pine needles surrounding them and underfoot.
Eva followed the sound of her voice and found her in front of a tree, nearly eight feet tall and perfect in shape. “How are we going to get it home?” Eva pictured the two of them driving down the highway with this massive tree strapped to their roof, its roots dangling behind them.
“They’ll deliver it,” Liz said, walking around the tree slowly, looking at it from all angles. “We’ll string it with lights that will sparkle. We can bundle up, make some hot chocolate, and sit on the porch and admire it. The best part is that the tree will be here, year in and year out. No more dead trees by the curb at New Year’s,” she said.
As if Eva had ever dragged a dead Christmas tree to the curb. “What if it rains?”
Liz shrugged. “Outdoor lights. Glass and ceramic ornaments. I have boxes of them at home in New Jersey. But I couldn’t stand the idea of a treeless Christmas so I packed some of my favorites and brought them with me.”
Liz took the tag that they’d been handed upon entering and hung it on the tree, claiming it as theirs, and removed a different one that they would take with them to the front of the tree farm to pay.
The daylight was melting into evening as they pulled out of the lot and headed south toward home. Eva leaned back in the seat and stared out the window as the warm glow of the afternoon began to fade, thinking of the long night ahead of her.
*
Their tree was delivered two days later, its roots wrapped in a burlap bag. It came on an enormous truck that also carried equipment to dig a hole deep enough to plant it. Liz supervised the entire thing, choosing a spot in front of Eva’s side of the porch. After the tree had been planted and the workmen paid and tipped, Liz opened her front door and carried out a box labeled Christmas.
With Liz’s stereo blasting carols, the two of them got to work. First they strung the white twinkle lights, and then came the ornaments. Liz had a story for nearly every one of them. Gifts from colleagues and former grad students, whom she remembered with vivid detail and fondness. Handmade ceramic ones from when her daughter, Ellie, had been a little girl. “I’m probably the only visiting professor who ever packed a box of Christmas ornaments for a six-month post,” she said. “But I’ve never had a single Christmas without a tree.” She set aside a clumpy wreath constructed out of dough, the name Ellie written on the back, a quiet sadness on her face that Eva pretended not to notice.
As they worked, Eva found herself wanting to slow things down, to draw the evening out. She thought ahead to this time next year, when everything would be resolved, one way or another. She’d either be somewhere far away or dead. And Liz would be long gone, her short time in Berkeley a distant memory, Eva just another name on a holiday card list.
When the last of the decorations had been hung, Liz disappeared inside and returned carrying something wrapped in tissue paper. As she handed it to Eva, she said, “I wanted to be the one to give you your first Christmas ornament. I hope that from now on, wherever you are, wherever you go, you will think of me when you look at it.”
Eva unwrapped the layers of tissue paper, revealing a handblown glass bluebird.
“The bluebird is the harbinger of happiness,” Liz said. “That’s my Christmas wish for you.”
Eva ran her finger over the smooth glass. The detail on it was amazing, with deep swirling blues and purples, fading into almost ice white in some places. “Liz,” she whispered. “It’s incredible. Thank you.” She reached down and hugged Liz.