Back to Fall 2024

The Tree of Life

Nina Francus | Fiction, Fall 2024

“Miss Heller?”

Perry looked up. A nurse stood over her, clipboard in hand.

“You can go in now,” the nurse said, handing back Perry’s ID. “Room 334, just up that hallway and around the corner. Sixth door on the right.”

Perry nodded. “Thanks.”

Standing, she moved to stow her ID in her back pocket, only for her hand to slide off the back of her skirt. It took a moment to register – the smooth curve, the neat darts, the pleated edge of a false pocket – and then Perry remembered. Sighing, she slipped her ID into her tote. Her hand brushed the jeans she’d been wearing that morning, now folded and hidden at the bottom of her bag.

Leaving the nurse’s station, Perry made her way to Room 334. It was in a quiet ward with beds to spare.

To anyone else, empty beds in a long-term care unit were a victory. To Perry, they were an omen. She liked to think of herself as rational. But the family superstitions lived inside her. Spit three times at the mention of evil. Always close a book when you finish reading. Never sleep with your head facing the door.

Passing rows of empty rooms waiting to be filled gave Perry a chill. It was the same feeling she’d had when her mother called, and not only because a hospital visit was mentioned. Entering the house of the living dead was one thing. Doing so at the same time as her family was another.

“Dr. Edelman says your grandfather has a few weeks left, maybe a month.” Over the phone, her mother’s voice was brittle, stained glass under too much pressure. “It would be nice if you came.”

Such an innocent phrase to conjure such bitterness.

But it wasn’t innocent, Perry argued with herself. And it wasn’t a phrase. It was a whole conversation. Were it an honest one, it would go:

“Why haven’t you come to visit yet?”

“Because just thinking about it makes my stomach drop.”

“Don’t you want to see your grandfather before he dies?”

“Not really. He barely knew me.”

“My father is dying. Did you ever think that I might want you here?”

“Sure. But you'll be miserable if I come, and miserable if I don’t.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“At this point? Yours.”

“Selfish girl. How did I raise a child like you? Where did I fail?”

“You didn’t fail. You just have a narrow definition of success.”

Perry batted the conversation away. It had taken a bottle of wine, three cartons of Chinese takeout, a long talk with her best friend, and the majestic patience of her boyfriend to bring Perry this far. It was their support that propelled her past rooms 324, 326, 328. As she walked, she armed herself.

Anger, her sword. Rejection, her shield.

            Her grandfather’s room loomed ahead. Behind the door would be Perry’s mother. Her grandmother. A brother or two. The whole misphacha.

Before the door was halfway open, Perry noticed the heart monitor. It pierced everything – her grandfather’s labored breathing, her grandmother’s nervous twittering, the murmured exchange between her brothers. The beeping set her teeth on edge. Who could get better with the metronome of death ticking along in the background, counting the heartbeats until this whole gloomy exercise was over?

            “Perel?” Her grandmother’s eyes widened. “Oh, my Pereleh.”

Perry pasted on her best smile. “Hello, Grandmother.”

            Grandmother.

Never Nana, Grams, or Grandma.

            Grandmother.

            “Oh, my Pereleh,” the old lady repeated, pulling Perry into her arms. “Thank you for coming.” She leaned over the bed, where her husband lay, eyes closed, an oxygen mask covering his face. “Alan. Alan, it’s Perel. Perel is here to see you.” She glanced anxiously up at Perry. “Dr. Edelman says it’s good to talk to him. He can understand a little, isn’t that right, Ellie?”

            “That’s right, Mom.” Perry’s mother turned her head. “Hello, Perel.”

            It was always Perel, now. For eighteen years, her mother had never thought twice about her daughter’s nickname. Then the reckoning had come, and the pet name that had beckoned a skinny girl with blue eyes and blonde pigtails became a bludgeon. ‘Perry’, her mother had realized, could pass in the wide, secular world.

And Perry would pass.

“Hi, Mom.” Perry gave her mother a short hug. “Dan. Sam.”

Her brothers muttered their greetings, but made no move toward her. Leaning up against the wall was Dan – Daniel Eitan Levi Zalman Heller – named after every dead relative Perry’s parents could get their hands on. The unimpeachable firstborn. Successful, married, fruitful and multiplying.

Beside him, a half-head taller, was Sam, who flinched when Perry used his English name. For a few years now, her middle brother had been going by Shmuel. No longer the laughing companion of her childhood, Sam had become the somber sage. Perry’s very presence was provocation.

“Come, Pereleh,” said Grandmother, nudging Perry toward the bed. “Say hello.”

Perry looked at her grandfather. “Hello, Grandfather. It’s good to see you.”

Her first lie of the day.

The heart monitor beeped through the silence as Perry cast around for a subject. Fortunately, her grandmother spoke for her.

“Isn’t that nice, Alan?” she said, picking at her husband’s hand. “Perel’s come all the way from Seattle to see you.” She turned her watery eyes on Perry. “How was the trip? It wasn’t too long on the airplane, was it? You know I can’t stand those awful machines. The first time I flew, well, you remember, Alan, it was our trip to Florida…”

Like that, Grandmother was gone. It was 1950-something. She had no daughter, no grandchildren. Nothing but a new husband working his way through night school, a tiny apartment of her own, and the joy of being out from under her mother’s thumb.

Perry shrugged. “The flight was fine.”

“And your job? You’re still happy?”

“Yes.”

A truth.

“And the apartment? You still live by yourself?” 

“Yes.”

A lie.

“I don’t like it,” Grandmother fretted. “All alone in that big city. Why don’t you come back to the East Coast?” She looked at Perry’s mother. “Ellie, why don’t you make her come home?”

Perry shook her head. “I like Seattle.”

A half-lie. Perry did like Seattle. But what she really liked were the 2,500 miles between Seattle and here.

“Do they even have Jews out there? Outside of California?”

“There are Jews everywhere, Grandmother.”

A lie, generally speaking. But true about Seattle.

“And they have synagogues? Nice ones?”

“Of course.”

More speculation than lie. Perry had never looked.

“Good, good.”

Sam’s eyes bored holes in Perry’s back, while her mother’s disappointment brushed her shoulder. Self-righteousness leaped to Perry’s defense. Where did they find the nerve to judge her lies? The same family who had prophesized strokes and heart attacks should her lifestyle be revealed to the grandparents.

Perry took a seat in the corner. The heart monitor beeped on.

“You know, I was just saying to Daniel and Shmuel that when your mother was young,” Grandmother said, perching on the hospital bed, “Alan used to work on shabbos. He would wake up at 6:00 on Saturdays and go to the early service. Then he would head to the office and work until evening.” She peeked at Sam. “Of course, it was only when money was tight,” she added, omitting that these periods were best measured in years.

Sam nodded, but offered no words of reassurance.

“He had to support his family,” Perry said, glaring at her brother.

“He did. He did.” Grandmother nodded, silent for a moment. Then the pleading tone was back. “Of course, he hated it. He wanted to be in synagogue. You remember, Ellie, how he carried you when you were a little girl? Holding you up so you could kiss the Torah?”

“I remember.” Perry’s mother managed a threadbare smile. Her eyes were trained on the hospital bed, following the faint rise and fall of her father’s chest. It was hard to imagine anyone sitting on those thin shoulders, but Perry knew her mother remembered. She remembered everything.

“He worked like that so you wouldn’t have to,” her grandmother said, patting her husband’s hand. Her gaze traveled to her grandchildren. “None of you.”

Perry caught her mother’s eye. The unspoken conversation resumed.

“You see what he gave up for you? What he wanted for you?”

“Operative word: he. What he wanted.”

“He wanted you to have what he couldn’t. Your grandfather, your father, me. We did everything to give you the opportunities we didn’t have.”

“That’s not fair. Opportunity implies choice. Something that can be accepted or refused. You didn’t give me an option. You gave me a duty.”

“So is blinking a duty to you, as well? Is breathing?”

“Blinking and breathing are biological functions coded into my body.”

“As Judaism is coded in your blood and God in your soul.”

Perry looked away. She’d tried having this conversation with her mother a dozen times, to no avail. Perry wanted to about talk biology and psychology, intellectual pursuits and personal freedom, a world full of surprises and experiences. Her mother wanted to talk legacy and community, duty and family obligation, divinity and morality. It was like speaking Swahili to an Inuit.

“He thought about you every day,” Grandmother said. “Every day he woke up and thanked God for his wonderful grandchildren. You remember how he was at Daniel’s wedding, don’t you, Ellie? We practically had to pull him off the dance floor.”

“The man could waltz,” Dan said, his grave half-smile appearing.

“And wear a tux,” Perry added.

Grandmother giggled. “He could, couldn’t he? He was always a good-looking fellow.” She touched her husband’s forehead, her papery hand brushing back strands of white hair. And there was that look again. Memory. Nostalgia. The sweet disintegration of now.

Just as well, Perry thought. Grandmother had always done best in the past, where things were blurry, and therefore simple, and the future, where things could always be better. She had mastered the blind eye and the sidestep, outsourcing strength and resilience, first to her husband, then to her daughter.

“He would have liked to dance at your wedding, Shmuel. And yours, Perel.”

The understanding smile Perry had adopted froze on her face. Alan Wise would not have come to her wedding, had she had one. Alan Wise – born Alon Weiss in the Weimar Republic and brought to the United States in 1931 – would have been speechless to see his granddaughter’s name next to that of a gentile. He would have torn up the invitation on sight.

Grandmother gave a small sob. Perry’s mother stepped forward.

“It’s all right, Mom. I’m here. We’re all here.”

Perry glanced at her brothers. It was hard to tell which was more uncomfortable. Dan had inherited their grandmother’s talent for aversion, and his eyes, blue and cloudy, were locked between the bedside table and the IV bag.

Sam wore his discomfort like tzitzit: mostly hidden, but with the fringes hanging out. Sam disliked managing emotions, both in himself and others. He shifted from foot to foot, changing positions once, twice, until his elbow rested on the windowsill, his torso turned away from the bed.

An urgent beeping interrupted Grandmother’s tears.

Perry’s head snapped toward the heart monitor. But the green and blue lines were scrawling their usual peaks and valleys on the screen.

“Sorry,” said Sam, silencing his watch. “Dan, it’s time for mincha.”

“Right.” Dan pushed off his position on the wall, stretching his arms.

Grandmother sniffled. “You’re leaving?”

 “We’ll come again tomorrow.”

“Say a mi sheberach for your grandfather, Shmuelkeh. You too, Daniel.”

The boys nodded, and gave their goodbyes: a side hug for Grandmother, a kiss for their mother, a nod for Perry. They did not ask the women to join them for prayer, where the female voice was never required. They collected their coats and crossed back into the world of the living.

 “Help me, Ellie.” Perry’s grandmother held out her arms and let her daughter assist her into a chair. “I swear, this place gets me so worked up. Why can’t we just take your father home? I want him home.”

As her mother patiently recapped the reasons, Perry approached the hospital bed. Looking down at the shell of her grandfather, she waited for something to stir in her. A sense of loss. A flash of melancholy. Some way to draw the traditional trappings of death around her. Torn clothes. Covered mirrors.

But that wounded anger, which blighted all it touched, left her cold. Though she stood at her grandfather’s bedside, she regarded him from afar. Perry could count on one hand the number of times she had seen this man since her bat mitzvah. This man, who would never know about the life she lived; would never meet the man she loved. This man, who hated that man on principle.

“Sing for him, sweetheart.”

Perry jumped. “Hm?”

“You still sing, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

“Sing something for him,” said Grandmother. “He liked to hear you sing.”

“I... don’t know what to sing,” said Perry. “And I don’t have my guitar.”

“Never mind the guitar.” Her grandmother straightened up in her seat. “Why not Eitz Chaim? It was his favorite.”

Perry felt a tug in her chest. Eitz Chaim, the Tree of Life, was sung at Saturday morning services. It was slow and melodic, and had been Perry’s favorite song, too. She hadn’t sung it in years.

Perry cleared her throat, pushing down a sudden dryness.

“Eitz chayim hi,” she sang, “lamachazikim ba.”

The song filled the room, softening the hard lines and harsh lights, sweeping over the cold linoleum floors and drowning out the heart monitor. It was a song that lamented, every phrase rising and falling. Perry knew the melody had been written in the 1970s, but it had a timeless quality. It sounded like forty years of wandering the desert. Like sifting through ashes on a holy site. Like the yawning chasm between mother and daughter.

“Hashivenu adonai, eilecha vinashuva. Chadesh yameinu kikedem.”

As the last notes died, Perry felt tears prick her eyes. They were hard words to sing. Words of return. Words of renewal.

“Beautiful, Pereleh.” Grandmother’s voice cut through. “Wasn’t it, Alan? Your grandfather had quite the voice, you know. Deep. Booming. Misha – you remember, Misha, don’t you, Ellie, the butcher? – used to say he could always tell when your grandfather was at synagogue. He said he could hear him from around the block.”

As Grandmother laughed, it struck Perry how easily the past tense came to her. She already referred to Grandfather with ‘had’ and ‘was’.

There was a knock at the door. “Excuse me?”

It was the nurse Perry had spoken to before. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but visiting hours are over. You can come back tomorrow at 9:00.”

“Thank you.” Perry’s mother said. “Will Dr. Edelman come by tomorrow?”

“Yes, though he might be in before you get here. He starts his rounds at 7:00.”

Perry’s mother touched Grandmother’s shoulder. “Mom, it’s time to go.”

Grandmother’s face crumbled. Though it happened every day, the end of visiting hours was always an injury. “Five more minutes, Ellie,” she whined. “Let me say goodbye to your father.”

“Of course. Come, Perel,” her mother said. “Give Grandmother a minute.”

Perry stood back as her mother approached the bed, placing a hand on her father’s forehead.

“Bye, Dad,” she whispered.

Her mother’s face held real grief. Not the self-regarding distress of her grandmother. Not the discomfort of her brothers. Real pain being desperately suppressed to accommodate the feelings of others.

“Here.” Perry crossed the room and held out her arms. “Come on, Grandmother. Up you go.”

Bracing herself against Perry, Grandmother rose. “Oy,” she said, finding her feet. “Thank you, Pereleh. Such a good girl. Isn’t she, Alan?” She shuffled over to the bed, taking up her usual post. “A good girl, just like her mother.”

Perry pressed her lips together as she collected her bag. It was hard to imagine a comparison that would offend her mother more.

“We'll be outside if you need us, Mom.”

Perry and her mother left the room, closing the door behind them.

“So… will you come back?”

Perry’s ears knew her mother meant to the hospital. 

Her heart heard something else.

“Will you come back to us?”

“Never.”

“It’s disgraceful. Running around the secular world like you belong there.”

“I do belong there. With people who think like me. Who accept me.”

 “Who indulge you. People who let you shirk your responsibilities.”

“No. Just people who understand that there are reasons for leaving religion.”

“You mean excuses.”

“You just don’t get it. I didn’t leave to hurt you. I didn’t weigh your feelings lightly. All I wanted was the basic understanding that the life you wanted for me was not the life I wanted for myself. And even that, that sliver of compassion, you couldn’t find.”

“And where was your compassion for us? We gave you a home, a community, a people, an identity. And you threw it in our faces.”

Perry looked her mother in the eyes. Though they were less than a foot apart, a wall stood between them: colossal blocks of stone, bound by a mortar of rejection and loss. It ran the length of the hallway.

Perry turned away, a knot tightening in her chest. It was a knot made of long Saturday afternoons reading books and playing games with her brothers. Of births, and weddings, and shiva calls with friends and neighbors; of more food than anyone could eat in a lifetime. Of beautiful old songs, sung in beautiful old synagogues, in a beautiful old language thick with belonging, obsessed with survival.

Perry shook her head.

It wasn’t the lack of beauty. It never had been.

It was the lack of space.

“Bye, Mom,” she said, turning to go. “I’ll see you at the funeral.”

__________________________________________

Why is this piece your Trace Fossil?

“One of the great object lessons of my life is that we are all born into someone else’s expectations. We come into the world tiny embodiments of other people’s hopes and fears, beliefs and values, traumas and triumphs. We come out slightly fossilized, slightly paralyzed, by those expectations. And whether we embrace them or refuse them, we carry them – small, petrified knots of should and must and didn’t – everywhere we go.”

Raised in the Steel City, Nina Francus studied creative writing and English literature at Columbia University. Her work has been featured by the Ponder Review, the Liar's League, and the New York Times.