Short Story: Willow Weep for Me, Side A: Transplant/Transparent

[this story won honorable mention in Honolulu Magazine's short fiction contest. Then, it was entitled, "Arigato: How I Transplanted the Family Tree"...]

XI. “Willow Weep for Me” (SIDE A): Transplant/Transparent

Grandpa is upset.

It’s rare that he gets worked up, not only because he is in general a mellow sort of guy, but because he suffers from a mild case of dementia, and rarely remembers an issue long enough to get angry over it. But if you touch his plants, then you’ve molested his heart.

“Who did that!” he barks, to everyone and to no one in particular. He points to the weeping willow tree in the center of the backyard. It is old, perhaps 25 years. Its grey, rough-barked trunk is about 3 feet in diameter at its base. From about ten feet up, branches spread out in near perfect symmetry, then seem to bend under the weight of their own growth to form a canopy of drooping leaves.

Although it is growing in the unlikeliest of places, namely Ewa Beach, it is thriving. In fact, it has grown too well for its own good. Its aggressive roots have snaked beneath the foundations, buckling the tile sidewalks, and breaking the sewer lines. For this reason, the tree is scheduled to be removed a week from today, something which grandma has purposely neglected to tell grandpa.

That isn’t what grandpa is upset about. The trajectory of his finger points to where a branch should be, but isn’t. In its place is a white oval, remnant of a clean cut. It is hard for the untrained eye to tell that anything should be there, especially since the tree is overabundant in foliage. But to grandpa, who cares for the garden several hours a day, it is as plain as day.

“I tell you, if I find da thief!” He leaves the business end of his threat unexpressed.

Grandma smirks. She’s used to grandpa’s bluster, even if it’s infrequent. But then, she touches my arm, looks me in the eye. “I know it was you,” she whispers. And she pulls me inside the house, leaving grandpa to fume alone.

We sit at the dining table. “Don’t tink I’m stupid,” she barks. “You tol' me you wanna name your daughter Willow, den you ask what we going do wit da willow tree. You cut da branch and planted it at yo' house in Mililani. Who else!”

My head hangs down. There’s no need to admit anything; with my grandma, the truth is always already out.

A moment of unbearable silence.

Then, changing her tone completely, grandma asks, “By the way, how Lynn stay?”

“More than ready to pop,” I murmur.

“Good,” grandma says, nodding. “And she like da nishime?”

“Yeah,” I lie, after a pause. “She really liked it.”

“Das good,” grandma says. “Nishime good when she pregnant.”

And then, without warning, her congeniality vanishes. Back to business. “I know you wanted da tree. But I tol’ you! Dat tree not suppose grow in one dry place like Ewa Beach, but it did! Now look at da sidewalks, da sewer line! Jus’ tink what dat tree would do in Mililani, wit all da rain!”

I nod. Yes, I’d heard these arguments before.

“And dea’s anada reason too,” grandma adds, her voice suddenly quiet. “Obaban was one good lady, she wen’ raise your grandpa and his tree sisters on her own. But even good people get regrets. And if you disrespect da ancestors, den dose regrets come alive, dey get jealous.”

My grandma’s lost me completely. “What does Obaban have to do with the tree?”

Grandma sighs. “Everyting. I tol’ you, right? Obaban’s name was Riyu, Japanese for Willow Tree.”

“Yeah, that was one reason why we decided to name her Willow.” Second choice was my wife’s pick, “Elsa,” the lion from “Born Free.” I didn’t want our child to sound like a Swedish nurse.

Grandma nods. “After Obaban died in ‘80, one of da first tings grandpa did to honor her was plant dis willow tree, and fertilize it wit Obaban’s ashes. I told him it was stupid.” She laughs dryly. “Nice, in his own way, but stupid. But das Masaru. Now, next week, dey going cut down da tree! What an insult to Obaban, to cut da tree dat holds her ashes!”

I feel a chill run up my spine. I had heard of people casting their ashes into the ocean, even blasting them off into outer space. But fertilizing a tree with your own mother’s ashes? It was just too weird. And not a little creepy, too.

And then, suddenly, I realize the situation my grandma is in. “What’s grandpa going to think?” I ask. If he got that pissed off when a branch was missing, what would he think when they took a chainsaw to the trunk?

Grandma says nothing for a moment. It’s clear that this very concern has been weighing heavily upon her. “As it is, grandpa recognize less every day. Da yard, da tree, dat’s all he care about. If dat tree gone-” Her voice trails off.

It worries me to see grandma troubled; it makes me feels like the very earth beneath my feet is shifting. “Do you have to cut the tree down?” I ask hopefully.

“What,” grandma barks, suddenly regaining her edge. “And stop shitting? I tol' you, da tree broke da sewer line!” She shakes her head, sighs loud and long, smiles soft. “No worry about us. Das our burden. But if you plant dat branch in yo' yard, den das yo' burden.”

I bow my head, the only acknowledgment I can give her. “Alright, I’ll think about it.” Not even attempting a subtle segue, I take the cell phone out of my pocket to check the time. “Lynn’s probably waiting.” I rise from the dining room table.

Instantly, grandma is all roses, as though we’d never had this talk. “Ganbatte,” she calls. “Oh, don’t forget! Dea’s one mo' container of nishime in da refrigerator. Get it on your way out, yeah?”

***

The nishime never makes it into Lynn’s mouth. It remains sealed up in its tupperware coffin, next to all of its elders on a refrigerator shelf.

Tonight, Lynn wanted vegetarian pizza, without the cheese. So, right now, we’re sitting in bed, with the open cardboard box between us. There’s a pile of discarded tidbits in the center of the box, composed partly of the cheese I skinned off her slices, and partly of the broccoli I picked off mine.

“Feel better?” I ask cautiously.

My question stirs her memory, and her eyes begin to tear.

“Damn,” I bark, then quickly follow it with an “I’m sorry.”

We’ve just finished watching ER. In tonight’s particularly upsetting episode, Carter and his girlfriend (played by Thandie Newton) lost their baby because the umbilical cord was wrapped around the neck of the fetus.

“Don’t worry,” I murmur, stroking Lynn’s rounded belly. “That’s not going to happen to us.” As if to confirm my statement, there is a fluttering beneath my palm. “You see? There’s our little trout now.” Lynn had come up with the trout nickname when she said that the baby’s gentle quick movements felt like Mozart’s Trout Concerto.

Lynn puts her hand on mine, feeling the baby through herself, through me. It seems to reassure her a bit. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs, brushing at her eyes. “It’s just- don’t you ever feel scared?”

“All the time,” I answer immediately. “But not about what happened on ER. I worry about what happens after that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t worry about the hard part,” Lynn says, laughing shakily.
I try to sound as reassuring as I can. “Look, I’m certain everything’s going to be fine. There’s no reason it wouldn’t. You’re healthy, she’s healthy, every check up has been normal.”

“They thought everything was fine on the show,” Lynn counters.

“Yeah, but that’s just a show!” I smile for Lynn, but inside, I’m bitterly cursing the writers of ER.

“So what are you afraid of, then?” Lynn asks.

I sigh before answering. “Being a father.”

Lynn chuckles.

“I’m serious!” When she sees my expression, she suppresses her look of amusement. “For you, there’s no choice. You carry the baby inside of you, you’re intimate with her in a way I can never be. Motherhood’s so physical, it can’t help but feel real. But me? I feel useless, like a satellite. What have I got to give?”

Lynn is quiet for a moment. “I’m sure you’ll make a great father.”

“Well that makes one of us.”

There’s another pause as Lynn comes to a realization. “Is that why you’ve been trying so hard to transplant that willow tree from your grandparents’ yard?”

My eyes stare at the pile of soon-to-be discarded food in the pizza box. “I figure that if the tree takes, if it grows, then I’ll have something I can point to, and say, ‘There, I planted that for you.’”

Lynn smiles softly. “That’s silly. Silly, but nice.” She wraps her hand around mine. “That’s why I love you, freak,” she says warmly. “And that’s why you’ll make a great father.”

***

Lynn is asleep.

I find myself creeping out into the cool midnight air of Mililani, wearing a T-shirt and shorts, until I stand in the black of my freshly composted yard, before the branch that I stole from grandpa’s willow tree.

I am disappointed. The few remaining leaves on the branch are beginning to curl and blacken, presaging their eventual fall next to their siblings. The branch itself seems to have lost its verve. It sags and droops, as though imitating its mother tree, but as a mockery. Its arc towards the soil is premature, more a cave-in than a canopy.

I gingerly try to prop the branch up, but each touch only seems to make its angle more precipitous. With a sigh, I give up.

I am in my own world when I creep back into bed next to my wife. Oblivious to her deep and even breathing, I am for some strange reason consumed by my grandma’s words: “If you plant dat branch in yo' yard, den das yo' burden.”

Her words pursue me into a dream.

***

I am 8 years old again. It is 1980, the year Obaban turns 101.

8 and 101. Neither are ideal ages for any sort of meeting of the minds: I am too young, with flickering concerns, and she is too opaque, her tongue and ear exclusively Japanese, and her expressionless face, a Kabuki mask. I hear stories from my grandmother about how benevolent she is, and for that I give her as much respect as an 8 year old could. But I still feel myself stiffen whenever I have to hug her, whenever I search for eyes in those sinking hollows, and a smile in that denture-less grimace.

She dies in the fall of that year.

At her funeral, held at Mililani Memorial, I guiltlessly run around outside with my sister, away from the intolerable solemnity and wailing of the Shinto music within. It is an October evening, and the moon is brilliant, painting the cemetery in ethereal light. There is a statue of a man in the distance, perhaps a memorial to some important figure. I make up some story about that statue being a ghost, and tell it to my sister. Both of us try really hard to catch it making a move. I almost do.
In the last segment of the dream, the piece that surfaces with me, I see a tree root snake beneath the ground of the cemetery, thirsty for life. And then, in the strange but utterly natural way of dreams, the ground turns into a womb, and the root becomes an umbilical cord, swiftly drawing a knot around a fluttering fish.

A trout.

I wake with a vague feeling of unease.

***

The next day finds me again at my grandparents’ house in Ewa Beach.

“Where’s grandpa?” I ask my grandma, as she sits at the dining table, rolling sushi.
Instead of answering, she points to the seat across from her. I reluctantly sink into it. She looks like she is in the mood for a sermon.

She peers into my eyes. “Who's a parent?” she asks.

At first, I’m not sure what she’s asking. “Apparent?”

“Yes,” grandma says impatiently, “A parent. Who?”

I realize what her question is. “Uh, I guess someone who raises kids.” It seems like an obvious answer.

Grandma shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs, almost in disgust. “I tol' you! Who is da child?”

My brow furrows. Where is she going with this? “Willow?”

Grandma sighs in frustration. “Your child is your ancestor,” she exclaims. “You don't remember?”

I nod slowly. It’s a Tenrikyo concept, kind of a hybrid between Buddhist notions of karma, and Confucian ideals of ancestor worship. In Tenrikyo, people never really disappear upon death; they come back some indeterminate time later, reincarnated within the family line. A grandparent can come back as a grandchild, for instance. When I think about it, it really is a fascinating idea, with a kind of elegant logic to it. If a parent treats their child well, then they are, at one and the same time, paying back their debt to an ancestor (perhaps their own parent), and “paying things forward,” insuring that, when they come back after their death, they will be well-taken care of.

Grandma’s eyes lock on mine again. “So, who is a parent?” she asks once more.

“Uh... The child?”

Grandma nods, to my relief. “Good,” she says. “The parent da child, da child is da parent.”

I’m a bit impatient, and want to talk to grandpa, so I try to jump start the moral of the sermon. “So, you’re saying, I have to treat Willow with as much respect as I would Obaban, right? Because she’s a reincarnation of Obaban?”

Grandma shakes her head no. “Das not all. YOU da child. Willow will teach you. But da most important thing: God wants you to live through. Understand?”

My expression says no.

“Everyone has innen,” she says. “So everyone has to live through. Make everything clear again. Understand?”

I still don’t really understand, but this time I nod yes.

There are so many questions I could ask grandma right now. Like, if Willow was the reincarnation of Obaban, what is their relationship? Are they both the same soul, or does one take over the other? It is a bunch of crazy, irrational stuff, things I can’t even articulate into questions she would understand. So I give up.

At this point, there is only one thing I feel I can work on, anyway. And I need grandpa’s help, not grandma’s, for that. I rise suddenly. “Thanks grandma,” I say, somewhat dismissively. “But I wanted to see grandpa. Is he around?”

Grandma glances towards the glass-louvered window. “He is where he always is,” she mutters. And then, quietly, almost secretively, she adds, “Tomorrow. They’re coming tomorrow. And he still don’t know.”

“Thanks grandma,” I say again, this time, in a hushed tone. And then, I exit the back door beyond the kitchen, to search for grandpa.

Whenever I try to seek out grandpa, most of the time to call him in for lunch, he’s hidden. He lurks somewhere among the orchids, junipers, and other plants, doing whatever secret tasks he does in his private green world. It is often a challenge to find his diminishing figure, silent and crouched and camouflaged by foliage.

Today, though, it’s easy to find him, because he’s singing some old Japanese ballad in a swaggering voice drunk with memories. Besides, he’s right at the willow tree in the center of the backyard, applying a tar-like material on the wound that I’d made. He sees me, and raises a hand in greeting.

“Hey grandpa,” I reply, walking up to him and patting him on the back.

Grandpa nods. I can tell that he wants to greet me specifically, but he can’t quite remember my name. Characteristically, there isn’t a trace of bewilderment or fear at this inability; he simply takes it in stride that I am to be a familiar, though nameless, presence.

“You doing okay?” he asks. Before I can reply, he says, “Good, good,” nodding his head, and returning to the task at hand. Grandpa is never one for conversation.

“Grandpa,” I call out hesitantly. “I want to ask you something.”

He turns back, a hint of impatience furrowing his brow.

“How would you transplant a tree?”

The beginning of a smile curls the edge of grandpa’s usually hard-set lips. When it comes to horticulture, he’s a veritable encyclopedia bursting at the bindings. “Depends on da tree.”

I know I’m entering dangerous territory, but I’ve got grandpa’s dementia and passivity to protect me. “Oh, I don’t know,” I murmur. I lay a hand gently upon the bark of the willow. “Maybe something like this?”

“Weeping willow?” he asks, his voice rising. “Salix Babylonica?”

“Yeah,” I reply, perhaps too quickly. “I think that’s what it was called.”

Grandpa seems disappointed at the ease of the answer. “Nothing to it. Dis tree, all you do is make a cutting and plant it. Before you know it, the roots take. You gotta be one idiot to kill this tree!”

“Huh,” I utter flatly. “What would you do if roots don’t grow?”

Grandpa shrugs. “Maybe it’s da soil,” he says. His eyes grow distant as he passes from thinking to remembering. “When I planted this tree, the soil here was poor, white coral. So I did da same thing we did when we lived in Waipahu. I used my own shit.”

“What!?” There’s something shocking, scandalous even, about hearing my grandpa swear.

Grandpa looks me in the eye. “Das right, I used my shit. Nating bettah. Back in Waipahu, we nevah had money fo’ buy chicken manure. And we nevah had toilets, jus' chamber pots. So when we had to grow something, we killed two birds with one stone. We emptied da chamber pots into da soil. Dat way, whatever we grew was made of us.” He grins, apparently proud of himself.

It takes a moment for me to come to a realization. “But grandma said you fertilized the tree with Obaban’s ashes!”

“Yeah, dat too,” grandpa replies matter-of-factly. He apparently doesn’t see the problem I do, of mixing the sacred with the profane.[1] But the mention of Obaban seems to summon deeper memories in grandpa. His voice softens as though it were an echo of another time. “Obaban was strong. When I was eight, Obaban gave birth to one baby, but it died coming out. Next day, she was out working the cane fields. No crying, nothing.” He touches the bark of the tree. “Das why I planted her ashes in da tree. All her life, she suffered. She always dreamed of dis tree that she was named after, dis tree that she nevah saw. So I gave her what she never had in life. It was my way of saying ‘Arigato.’"[2]

Grandpa fades away, oblivious to my presence. He turns to the willow tree and his memories, breaking out into song once again: “Ringo no hanabira ga kaze ni chitta yo na.”

“The petals of the apple blossoms have fallen in the wind.”

After a thoughtful silence, I give him an unseen wave goodbye.

***

I don’t follow through on my grandpa’s “suggestion” when I return home after work late that night. Resigned, I don’t even check on the branch. I lie beside Lynn, thinking about Obaban. And before I know it, I sink into a dream.

I see a young Obaban, sternly beautiful, lying on the blood-soaked hay of a horse stable. A midwife beside her swaddles an unmoving form. She is crying, but Obaban is not. Obaban’s face is pale, her skin damp. Perhaps it is delirium, but she thinks she hears the sound of children running outside. She longs to follow them, away from this unbearable sorrow...

Then I see Obaban standing before a humble plantation home with an eight year old boy playing beside her. Her eyes are transfixed by a figure she thinks she sees beyond windswept dirt. It seems still, almost a statue. Then the haze clears, and a young man, someone on the horizon of recognition, approaches her. He seems to want to say much, but the only thing that comes out of his lips is a soft “Arigato.”

Then, everything fades away, like a ghost, or a dream, or a memory.

***

Lynn nudges me awake. “I should be thanking you,” she whispers calmly, sarcastically.

Through the fog of sleep, I notice that the mattress feels damp. I jerk upright.

“Babe,” Lynn says. “It’s time.”

***

Willow is born the next day. She’s a healthy 6 pounds, with the voice of an opera singer.

We stay at Queen’s for five days, swiftly accustoming ourselves to our little “fish out of water.”

My grandparents visit us the day we return home from the hospital. My grandpa looks disheveled, confused. Grandma tells me that the willow tree was cut a few days ago, and he hasn’t been the same since.

Instead of greeting us at the front door, he wanders into our near-empty yard, which I haven’t even seen yet, I’ve been so busy. Carrying a swaddled Willow, I follow him, curious. I find him standing before the transplanted branch. He strokes it thoughtfully, smiling as he notices, with me, fresh buds down low.

“Me, I like willows,” he says, turning towards me.

I draw Willow close so I can feel her tiny breath on my cheek. “Me too.”

-------------------

[1] This is what is commonly referred to as “night soil,” because the “offerings” were collected from the chamber pots of residences late in the night. It was and is still a popular practice in regions with both infertile soil and poor sewage systems. There are, of course, several problems with night soil, not the least of which is the smell. It is, for example, inadvisable to use night soil on edible crops, because of the possibility of spreading bacteria like E. Coli. My grandfather, by the way, never did this. However, I still include this “shit” in the story, because it expresses an essential idea: what we (inadvertently? inevitably?) do to our ancestors...

[2] Although you probably already know the conventional meaning of “Arigato” (Thank you), it is illuminating to take a closer look at where the expression comes from. “Arigato” is a polite form of the adjectival “Arigatashii,” which literally means “difficult to exist,” or “rare.” While it refers to the (inanimate) “rarity” of the debt for which one is expressing thanks, I think it may also imply the (animate) “difficult existence” suffered by the person whom one is thanking.