Loneliness is the human condition.

Claire still sleeping when Astrid woke up. She got up, careful not to disturb her, and went out to the kitchen. She poured herself some cereal. It was very bright, quiet, a pure crystalline light, and she was glad Ron was gone. If he were here, there would have been phone calls, the whine of the coffee grinder, Claire might be up making breakfast with her smile painted on. Astrid decided to stay in her silk pajamas a while longer. She got her new paints out and painted the way the light looked on the bare wood floor, the yellow tray of sunlight, the way it climbed the curtains. She loved when it was like this, recalling days just like this when she was young, playing in a patch of sunlight while her mother slept in. A laundry basket over her head, squares of light. She remembered exactly how the sun looked and felt on the back of her hand.

( The Keeper of Butterflies. Content Warning/spoilers for death/overdose/suicide and subsequent dramatics. )

Instead, Astrid dialed Ron’s pager, added the 999 that meant emergency. Then she sat back down and waited.

[[with apologies for bringing in the morose on a Sunday morning. From Chapter 21 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch, with minor edits, and we're just about nearly done. NFB, NFI, so on and so forth ]]

Claire waited for Ron to come home again, so they could all buy the tree together, like a real family, and they went after Astrid got out from school. In the car, she described just what she wanted. Symmetrical, soft-needled, six feet at least. The tree man tried to help but gave up after pulling out and untwining dozens of trees.

“I don’t get any of this,” Ron said, watching Claire’s desperate search. “Jesus grew up in Bethlehem. High desert. We should be buying an olive, a date palm. A frigging Jerusalem artichoke.”

Astrid walked along the side with the spray-painted trees, some in white like a starched chemical snowfall, others painted gold, pink, red, even black. The black tree, about three feet high, looked like it had been burnt. Astrid wondered who would want a black tree, but she knew maybe a few people who would.

There was no limit to the ways in which people could be strange. Someone would buy it as a joke, a belated Halloween, to decorate with plastic skulls and tiny guillotines. Or it would become someone’s Yuletide political statement. Or someone would take it just for the pleasure of making their kids cry.

Astrid joined Claire, where she was agonizing over a tree that was almost right, except for a bit of a gap in the branches on one side. She pointed it out with anxious hands, and Astrid assured her she could keep it to the wall, nobody would ever notice it.

“That’s not the point,” she said. “If something is wrong, you can’t just turn it to the wall.”

Astrid knew what she meant, but convinced her to take it anyway.

At home, Claire instructed Ron in the hanging of lights. Originally she wanted candles, but Ron drew the line there. They wound strings of chilies and popcorn round and around, while Ron watched a big soccer game on TV. Mexico playing Argentina. He wouldn’t turn it off so Claire could have Christmas carols. A man’s world. He could barely pull himself away long enough to put the gold angel on top.

Claire turned out the room lights and they sat and watched the tree in the dark, while Mexico overran South America.


[[ one last little glimmer before the light on this goes out. Taken from Chapter 20 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch. NFB, but open if anyone'd like ]]

True to his promise, Ron rented a cabin in down in Mexico, for them to get away for the long holiday weekend, since Astrid had time off from school. No phone, no electricity, he even left his computer at home. In the rivers and lakes around Guadalupe, they fished in high green rubber boots to their waists. Ron showed her the fly reel, how to cast like a delicate spell, the glistening steelhead trout like secrets you could pluck from the water. Claire pored over bird books, wildflower guides, intent on naming, as if the names gave life to the forms. When she identified one, she was as proud as if she herself created them herself. Or they’d sit in the big patio around the firepit, while Ron played cowboy songs on his harmonica, “Red River Valley” and “Yellow Rose of Texas.”

( Astrid felt at home there, the silence, the spectrum of green and yellow under a resonant sky. )

“Astrid, don’t.” Claire looked at her with her tenderest wild-flower expression.

Astrid took the hammer and whacked the fish in the head. Claire turned away. Astrid knew what she was thinking, that she was siding with Ron, with the world and its harshness. But she wanted that fish. She took out the hook and held it up, and Ron took a picture of her like that. Claire wouldn’t talk to Astrid for the rest of the afternoon, but she felt like a real kid for once and she didn't want to feel guilty about it.

[[ NFB/NFI on this one, modified a little from Chapter 20 of White Oleander by Janet Fitch to fit my adjusted timeline, blah blah blah ]]