Under the Aspen

Yesterday, I had a mother, but today, there was just a mound of freshly dug dirt under this weird, white tree at the edge of Coille Critheann’s woody property. From my bedroom window, I could see the tree Dad had described, which stood apart from the other trees just like it. I wished I could be as mad as Kenzie was bound to be when she found out. After all, Scotland was supposed to have made Mom better.

There’s nothing more the doctors here can do, Dad had said. We’re going to Scotland, to Coille Critheann, an old family estate where your mother once lived.

At the time, I pretended that I understood. I wanted nothing more than for Mom to be healed, and if moving from North Carolina to Scotland was the way to do it, I would gladly go. But in my naivete, I thought it was temporary. I thought she would get better. I left my friends. I left my nursing scholarship to UNC. I put on a brave smile for my sisters and my parents. But the magic Scottish air healed nothing: not my loneliness, not my fears for the future, and certainly not my mother.

As I sat on the bed that still felt unfamiliar, I stared at the weird white tree for a long time. It stood stark white against a crisp blue sky. It wasn’t romantic like a willow tree or as mighty as an oak. Its chalky bark was riddled with dark knots of varying sizes, which should have made it ugly. But I found beauty in its oddness. It was tall and skinny and pale. Like Mom. The thought was comforting. If Mom had to be buried anywhere, the tree that strangely resembled her was a perfect spot. My eyes drifted to the mound of dirt that lay neatly beneath the tree.

After the conversation with Dad, my emotional void had returned. Anger seemed like an appropriate response right now, especially given how cavalier he seemed about the whole thing. But the longer I stared at the tree, the more peaceful I became. Mom was no longer in pain, and I wasn’t entirely sure that she was dead either.

Coming soon!