“A Tree Full of Crows” is a story that made my mother blush–but she also chuckled as I read it to her. Have you ever had a bit too much wine with a bunch of women? If not, this will give you a taste of what happens at a 40+, ladies-only BBQ. 😉
“A Tree Full of Crows” was published in the December issue of Blank Spaces, one of the most visually appealing literary magazines I’ve seen. I might be a little biased, but I think they know how to pick stellar writers as well! Check out the latest issue of Blank Spaces.
(Note: You can now order Just Words: Volume 2. This anthology includes “A Tree Full of Crows” and many other lovely stories by Canadian writers.
A Tree Full of Crows
Jenn and her friends have had a bit too much to drink. She slops a little red wine onto the scarred hardwood floor and half-heartedly swipes at it with her sock-clad foot. She settles back into the worn armchair. Bits of stuffing fluff and cat hair define the chair’s perimeters. Jenn curls up on the chair, drawing an oversized corduroy shirt tightly across her abdomen. The living room feels like a gothic cavern.
I think of my sunny space—the yellows and oranges quietly balanced by peacock blue accents. I already wish I were at home, assembling bits of coloured glass.
“This morning,” Jenn tells us, “My cats were at the window, staring intently. Their tails thumped so hard I couldn’t concentrate on pretending I was dead. So, I dragged myself off the couch and peered out with them.” She scrambles out of the chair, drops on all fours and crawls to the window. “At first I couldn’t see anything, but the cats urged me to look a while longer. I crouched down to their level,” she says as she cocks her head much like a cat would, “I looked out the window from their point of view and presto! There it was looming above me—my tree, full of crows.”
Silence. Neither Susan nor I know how to respond appropriately.
“So, I took it as a good omen.” Jenn grins widely. “I know I’ll be okay.”
Susan smiles and high-fives Jenn. I have a lot to learn about how middle-aged women interact. Maybe it was a mistake to come.
The others have gone to the backyard. I dial Elmer’s number. Nothing, not even his monotone message on the answering machine. I sigh and slump against the wall. I don’t think I’m ready to converse with these women I hardly know. I need a distraction.
“From the cats’ perspective,” I whisper, grinning at myself.
When Susan suggested I come to the ladies-only BBQ, my first instinct was to say no, but Elmer has made it clear that I need to pick between him and other men. He’s even got my mother on his side. It’s all either of them talks about these days. Somehow, after all these years, he’s grown uncomfortable with me hanging out with other men. So, I agreed to go—to show I was making an effort to change.
“Really, Marie. A woman your age? You shouldn’t be gallivanting with men who aren’t your husband! No wonder Elmer’s got low self-esteem. Put him on the line, would you?” And the click of my mother’s dentures is all I need to feel guilty for the rest of the day. She talks to Elmer as though she is his mother, not mine. It isn’t fair.
***
I’ve met Jenn once before, but I don’t really know her. I assumed that she would be a lot like Susan, who moved to my neighbourhood about a year ago. Susan is tidy and fashionable—the kind of woman who reads Chatelaine. I met Susan when she came to the art show Elmer and Jud put on for me after I’d finished a dozen or so stained glass pieces. They hung the pieces on the chain-linked fence that surrounds our cozy patio. Elmer even made an assortment of crustless sandwiches and poured glasses of champagne. Susan had been impressed and commissioned some work from me.
It took me at least an hour to choose an outfit this afternoon. Then, I worried about the salad I’d made. Maybe they wouldn’t like feta or olives. I mean, women can be so judgmental, and they’ll just talk about it behind your back. At least men are straight with you about what they like.
I was expecting something different. Less clutter and more colour. Something more like Susan’s poetic bungalow.
***
When we got here, I chided myself for having worried at all. Jenn was half-drunk on a bottle of Merlot, and her mascara was smudged. I’d had to skirt a hissing Persian cat as soon as I was in the door.
“Rosco will get friendlier,” Jenn said, restraining the cat. “He’s feeling competitive, what with all the changes happening. He was Sam’s cat. Charles is mine.” I nodded, hoping it couldn’t smell my fear.
As I carried my salad to the kitchen, I spotted a charcoal sketch of a crow, its ugly beak hanging open and glistening crimson. I shuddered a little and assumed Jenn had put it there for her husband to collect. It made me thankful for Elmer’s good taste. He’s always left the decorating up to me.
Now that I know it is Jenn’s, I am no longer as repulsed by it, yet I can’t find the significance of the piece. I crouch down on all fours and cock my head to the side.
“What are you doing down there?” Susan says, chuckling.
“Trying to see things from the cats’ point of view, I guess.” I grin and stand up again. The knees of my jeans are covered in cat hair.
“Not the kind of art you’d expect her to have, is it?”
“Not exactly,” I say, chortling, “I actually thought it was the husband’s.”
“Jenn’s been taking sketching classes. This is one of her famous crows. You see, the crow is Jenn’s spirit animal. She’s really into that kind of thing.”
Click. I’m starting to get what Jenn has been talking about.
***
The ladies marvel at my salad, but I notice that Jenn has picked out the onions and olives. I am thankful for the glasses of wine I’ve consumed. It is helping me loosen up a little. I am not worrying so much about saying the wrong things. Or about being judged.
Jenn tells us the story of the day she got an anonymous call that her husband was two-timing. How she had his bags packed and the deadbolts changed before he made it home to plead with her.
“I’d already sent the kids with my brother when he left. I thought about keeping the baby home because he’s not that great with changing diapers, but Hannah said she’d help out. I didn’t want the darlings to find out the truth about their father. Or his love of whores.” Jenn’s dark eyes flash. She takes off the corduroy shirt and sweeps her blue-black hair into a ponytail. The auburn roots surprise me, but explain Jenn’s freckled and pale complexion. She must dye her eyebrows to match. I didn’t even know that was possible.
“I’ve been wearing some of the clothes I missed when I tossed Sam’s stuff into the street. I’m pretending, on some level, that he’s died in a boating accident. Sam’s been eaten by hungry piranhas, and I get to be his young widow. I could only forgive him if he died.” Betrayal sucks, that’s for sure. I hang my head a little.
I wonder if Elmer is feeling the same way. I’d thought he’d get over it quickly. I excuse myself and return to the bathroom. This time, Elmer answers on the fourth ring. His voice is muffled, as though I’ve woken him.
“Hi, Hon. I tried calling earlier, but the machine didn’t even pick up…” I falter. The silence rings loudly in the air that’s grown heavy between us.
“I was just calling to see—“
“—Marie, I’ve told you. I’m not ready to talk.”
“Okay then,” I say in a falsely cheerful voice, “I am just out with the ladies. I left you a note saying so, but I’m not sure if you saw it. We’re actually at a BBQ, just a bunch of us old biddies. No men allowed.” I know he saw the note; I taped it to the locked door of the spare bedroom when he wouldn’t respond to my knocking, but I could hear him breathing inside.
“Goodbye, Marie.”
***
I stop in the kitchen for a refill. Susan catches the glib look in my eye. She puts her arm around my shoulder and fills my glass from a bottle of Bordeaux.
“Maybe I should just drink what I brought. This stuff looks really expensive.”
“I never used to drink wine at all. I was a maple whiskey kind of girl,” Jenn pipes up from across the island that separates the kitchen and dining areas, “but then I decided to deplete Sam’s liquor collection. I’ve gotten to most of the hard stuff, and by the time we go to court, there should only be a few bottles of cheap white wine left in his precious liquor cabinet.” She cackles wickedly.
I sip the wine. It is smooth and has an exotic woody taste to it. I am even starting to see the benefit of having a spirit animal. I wonder what mine would be. Maybe it’s a bunny rabbit—no, a cat. Susan’s back is turned to me, so I lick at the wine like a cat would.
Jenn pulls a salted caramel chocolate truffle tart out of the oven. I start to feel more hopeful about connecting with these women. We’ve found common ground: chocolate.
***
“I used to cut class all the time,” Jenn says, “We’d hang out in some teacher’s unlocked car and smoke cigarettes and make out. Sometimes one of us would sneak a flask full of from the liquor cabinet. It was always a mixture of booze so our parents wouldn’t notice.” She laughs wildly. “I don’t know how I ever made it through junior high. Or high school.”
Susan pipes up, “Hey Marie? Do you have many students like Jenn in your room? You’ve been teaching those dangerous critters for twenty-five years now, haven’t you?” The ladies laugh at the horrified expression on my face.
“I suppose there could’ve been a few…” I don’t know what more to say. But I smile, and they laugh again. They must think I’m such a prude.
The conversation turns to smoking pot, drinking wine and having affairs. I don’t have much to add. I twist at the rings that have been a constant for thirty-two years. I don’t meet anyone’s eyes when I say, “I’ve been with the same man for over thirty years. After dating throughout college and a two-year engagement, Elmer and I made love for the first time on our wedding night.” This has always been a point of pride between my mother and me.
The ladies are either in awe or are too polite to comment.
***
From the conversation, I gather that Jenn and Sam got married because she was pregnant. That she transformed him from a bumbling, jobless political science major who was mediocre in bed to a successful chartered accountant who was still a boring lover. She’d sacrificed her promising career as a lawyer for him and stayed home to have his babies even though she thought she was too old. He’d wanted a big family. And then he slept with his secretary while she was at home breast-feeding the baby. Jenn plans on having lots of “hot sex” after the stubborn twenty pounds of baby weight, now topped up by the liquid weight from Sam’s cabinet, is lost.
“About a year before I met Sam, I ditched Hannah at Mom and Dad’s—she was about 3 at the time—and I called up my girlfriend who ditched her kids with her parents. We decided to be wild, to relive the good-old-days. We got all dolled up and went out looking for pot. In the end we each bought a mickey of JD and a 2-litre of Coke.”
I smile politely. I can’t imagine leaving my baby to go drink or do drugs. I can’t even imagine being wild.
“I can’t remember his name, but I ended up having sex with this bad-ass biker—I think he might have been part of the Hell’s Angels. My girlfriend ditched me there. I was miffed because I’d promised my parents I’d be back in time for church. Mom and Dad had warned us we’d better make it to the service on time.” She makes the sign of the cross, presses her lips against her forefinger and thumb and tosses the kiss towards the ceiling.
“So I tell the Hell’s Angel my predicament. ‘No problem,’ he says and I go to the can to swish my mouth with Scope.”
“Ha!” Susan laughs, “I bet there wasn’t a facecloth in sight either!” I have no idea why this is so funny.
“Not a one! I had to use my panties to scrape off my caked mascara.” Everyone laughs again. I can see why it’s funny, but I’m a little grossed out at the thought.
“We step over a bunch of people passed out in the living room, out into the dazzling sunlight, and I don’t see any vehicles except an old dirt bike that looks as though it’s only held together by dust and rust. He grins and holds up the key someone’s left in the ignition and tells me and my hot pink heels, ‘Hop on.’ There are no helmets, so I hang on for dear life. I am furious with my girlfriend for leaving without me.”
“A lady’s gotta do what a lady’s gotta do.” Susan winks at me. She must see the shock written on my face. Never in my wildest…
“Just outside of town, he curses at these dirty old sheep lying on the road,” Jenn continues, “He asks me to help him herd them back into the enclosure. That’s when I realize I’ve just had sex with a sheep farmer. Says he must not have closed the gate properly the night before. He’d had a few too many Pilsner and too many hash brownies before making his way to that damned house party I met him at.
“There I am chasing sheep across a gravel road in my heels. My hair’s a mass of dirty, tangled knots. But I get to church just as my parents are just arriving with Hannah, dressed in their Sunday best. This Hell’s-Angel-sheep-farmer stops at the front steps, and, as I get off the bike, stumble on my heels.”
“A grand old entrance. Probably gave some old fart a heart attack.” Susan chortles.
“The whole congregation sees that I’m not wearing any underpants because, as I trip, my slinky dress rides up. My parents are transfixed, their jaws hanging, staring at me standing next to the minister in my dress of shame. After that, I smartened up and stopped being wild unless Hannah was with her father.”
I laugh. I’ve never met anyone with a story like this. I would have been standing with the congregation… Jenn must have done quite a number on her poor old parents. I think of my boys and their straight-and-narrow ways.
Jenn winks. “At least after that fiasco, my parents stopped forcing me to come to church.” She beams as though victorious. A crow screeches on the other side of the window.
Though we all laugh wildly, my heart isn’t in it—I can’t stop thinking of Jenn’s poor parents or her little daughter. My mother would have fainted right there, on the front steps. It was bad enough when Elmer and I told her we weren’t having the boys christened.
Susan disappears to fetch another bottle of wine from the liquor cabinet moments before there is an eerie scratching sound at the front door. One of the ladies—Bernice or Bernadette—walks towards the door, still chuckling about Jenn’s story.
“I’d better check their mouths.” Jenn looks me squarely in the eyes and explains, “Rosco and Charles are competing. So far, Charles is winning, and Rosco isn’t displaying the teensiest bit of sportsmanship!” Her dark eyes twinkle. I can’t help but wonder if her black eyebrows have roots too.
The cats race to Jenn’s chair. Rosco deposits a fat mouse on one armrest and Charles drops a sparrow onto the worn seat. A tissue in each hand, Jenn gathers the “gifts” by their tails.
“Well, that’s one more kill for each of them,” she sighs, “I’d better go fetch them each a treat before they start giving me the evil eye.”
The cats watch Jenn leave the room. As soon as she’s gone, they both jump for the highest perch on the cat tree. An interlude of hissing and back arching ensues.
“Why do you boys always fight behind our backs?” I hiss at the cats. I wish they would answer back, shed some light on what’s going on in Elmer’s head.
Both cats stare intently at my left hand, eyes focused on my glittery ring. A shudder runs through me, as I imagine them competing to see which can gnaw it off me first. As I watch the cats groom themselves, I think of Elmer’s new hair and the contact lenses.
Click. Maybe Elmer’s been trying to impress me.
***
Elmer and I were working side-by-side in the wood shop, when Elmer threw down his whittling knife and turned to me. He cleared his throat and said, “Marie, we need to talk about Jud.”
“Jud Priestly?” I’d asked, putting down the soldering iron. I was perplexed. Jud hardly came around now that he and Steph were finalizing their divorce.
“Well, the thing is, Marie. I just don’t want you seeing him anymore.” Elmer swooped down and retrieved the knife. He seemed to have second thoughts about the knife or couldn’t figure out what to say, so he jabbed it into the workbench and wordlessly stomped out.
A few days later, Elmer dyed his steel grey hair jet black. In Elmer’s younger days, his Elvis-like profile had made me swoon.
“You’re going to need to dig out your blue suede shoes,” I’d teased. Maybe he hadn’t seen the twinkle in my eyes from behind his scratched safety goggles.
“It’s a little darker than I thought it would be,” he’d said, sheepishly running his fingers through the pompadour.
“Well, I think it looks swell, Hon. Oh, and by the way, Jud asked me over to finish the project.”
“I thought we were clear, Marie. I don’t want you around that man anymore.” His voice grew still. “Steph called. Said part of their marital problems concerned Jud’s wandering eyes. And…she said his eyes have been wandering towards you lately.”
“Jud? But we’ve been working together for years, and I’ve never once felt uncomfortable, even for a moment. Are you sure she’s not just paranoid? Maybe she’s the one with designs on you.” I chuckled innocently at the thought.
Elmer walked out, saying. “Well, you’re going to have to decide for yourself, Marie. But I refuse to let my wife work with a man whose eyes may or may not be roaming all over the contours of her body! It’s me or him.”
I’d chosen to complete the project. The deadline was fast approaching. When I’d arrived home, Elmer’s clothing had disappeared from the bedroom, and I could hear soft sobs escaping from beneath the spare bedroom door. I’d tried the handle, but the door was locked.
The next morning I watched Elmer pull out of the driveway, shocked he could see where he was going without his thick glasses. I’d found contact solution in the guest bathroom but couldn’t picture Elmer poking lenses into his eyes.
***
The ladies return to the living room. Jenn plops back into her tattered chair. The cats immediately claim an armrest, growling and hissing at one another.
“God, why do I even bother? They need so much damned attention!” Jenn shoos them both off, rolling her eyes as they slink towards their perch at the window.
Click. Maybe I’d unintentionally shooed Elmer off. I’d made time for my studies in the beginning of our marriage, and, shortly afterwards, my career. Then, our boys had come, with their piano lessons and sports and summer months at the lake. I’d made time for students and work obligations. I’d made time for a hobby after the boys had gone off to university. Even after years of listening to me complain that there was no time left at the end of the day, Elmer had never grumbled that I hadn’t made time for him. But my mother sure had.
“Marie,” Mother said, pausing from the never-ending task of pitting cherries from the sturdy Evans tree, “you need to start paying more attention to that sweet husband of yours. He doesn’t ask for much, but you don’t offer much either. There will come a time when you break his spirit. Men need to be admired, after all.”
Truthfully, I hadn’t paid her much heed, but she’d been right. I had carried on with my cherry pitting. I’d always thought he had plenty of me. I slurp at my wine and reposition my wedding band, engagement and twenty-fifth anniversary rings until they line up neatly. Elmer has given me so much and has asked for so little in return.
I excuse myself and return to the alcove.
“Hon? Sorry to wake you… Please, I need to come home. I choose you. I’ve always chosen you, but I haven’t always been good at letting you know…”
***
When the headlights appear, I am already waiting at the entrance to Jenn’s U-shaped driveway. From here, I can still see Rosco and Charles watching the tree full of crows at the middle of the U. The cats have been grooming themselves steadily, their eyes on the prize. They are plotting revenge as they stalk the crows watching over Jenn.
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