The Tin Can Tree

'Your father feels bad we couldn't make it to the funeral,' she was saying. 'He says it's only a sniffle he has, but I don't like the sound of it. Is there anything we can do for Lou?'

'Not that I can think of. The flowers were very nice -Uncle Roy said to tell you.'

'Well. We weren't quite sure. Some people have a dislike of gladioli.'

'No, they were fine,' said Joan.

"That's good. How's Simon?'

'He's all right, I guess.'

‘Tell him hello for us, now. Tell him -'

Her voice had grown almost as soft as it normally was. Joan could picture her, sitting on the edge of that rocker with the needlework seat, with Joan's father standing behind her and bending cautiously forward to hear what was going on. He was a little afraid of telephones himself; he treated them as though they might explode. She saw how her mother would be smoothing down that little crease between her eyebrows with her index finger, and then letting the crease come back the minute she dropped her hand. The thought of that made Joan miss her; she said suddenly, 'I'm tired.'

'What?'

'I'm just tired. I want to come home. I don't want to stay here any more.'

'Why, Joan -' her mother said, and then let her voice trail off. Finally she said, 'Don't you think you should be with Lou now?'

'I'm not helping,' said Joan. 'She just sits. Every place I look, Janie Rose is there, and I don't feel like staying here. Nothing is right.'

'Doesn't Simon need you?'

'Well -' Joan said, and then stopped because her father must have asked to know what was going on. The two of them murmured together a while, her mother's voice sounding faintly impatient. Joan's father was growing deaf; he had to be told twice. When her mother finally returned to Joan she was sighing, and her voice was loud again.

'You know we'd love to have you,' she said. 'As soon as you can come. When were you planning on?'

'I don't know. A day or two, maybe. By bus.'

'Or maybe James could drive you,' said her mother. 'We'd love to have him.'

'He won't be coming.'

'Your father's been asking about him.'

'He won't be coming,' Joan said firmly.

There was another pause, and then her mother said, 'Is something wrong?'

'What would be wrong?'

'Well, I don't know. Shall we expect you when we see you, then?'

'All right. Don't go to any trouble.'

'It'll be no trouble. Goodbye, now.'

'Goodbye. And thank you for calling.'

She hung up, but she stayed in the same position, her hand on the receiver. Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Simon. He was leaning against the frame of the kitchen door, eating another peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich. 'Hey,' she said, but he only bit off a hunk of sandwich and chewed steadily, keeping his eyes on her face. 'That was your Aunt Abby,' she told him.

'I know.'

'She called to see how everyone is.'

He straightened up from the doorframe and came over to her, planting his feet very carefully and straight in front of him. When he had reached her he said, 'I hear how you're going there,' and waited, with the sandwich raised halfway to his mouth.

'We'll see,' said Joan.

'You going by bus?'

'I might not go at all. I don't know yet.'

'How long would you go for?'

'Look,' said Joan. 'I don't know that I'm going. I just think it might be good to get away. So don't tell anyone, all right?'

'Well, all right.'

'Not even James.'

'All right,' said Simon. He was good at keeping secrets; it was an insult to suggest he might tell somebody. 'If you do go -' he said.

'I might not.'

'But if you do go, can I go with you?'

'Oh, Simon,' Joan began, and stopped there because she didn't know what else to say. 'Your parents need you here,' she said finally.

They won't notice.'

'Your daddy will. So will your mother, pretty soon.'

'No.'

'Yes. See, she's coming downtstairs now.'

He turned and looked toward the stairs. Mrs Pike was coming down of her own accord, taking each step uncertainly but not asking for help. She had pinned the abalone pin at the neck of her dress, and it was bunching up the material a little. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she looked from Joan to Simon and back again, as if she were expecting them to tell her what to do next. Joan went over to her.

'I could fix you a bite to eat,' she said.

'I came to sew.'

To sew?'

'I came to sew Connie's dress together.'

'Oh,' Joan said. She looked around at the sewing machine, and was glad to see that the dress still lay there. (Mrs Hammond had gone away all helter-skelter, talking to herself, leaving everything behind her.) 'It's all here,' Joan told her. 'Is there anything else you need?'

'No. I just want to sew.'

'Shall we sit here and keep you company?'

'I just want to sew.'

'All right,' said Joan, but she waited a minute anyway, and so did Simon. Mrs Pike didn't look their way again. She went over to the chair at the sewing machine and lowered herself stiffly into it, and then she picked up the material and began sewing on it. She did it just that suddenly, without examining what she was about to do first or even looking at it – just jammed two pieces of cloth beneath the needle of the sewing machine and stepped hard on the treadle. Finally Joan turned away, because there was nothing more she could do. 'Let's go to the kitchen,' she told Simon. She steered him gently by one shoulder and he went, but he kept looking back over his shoulder at his mother. When they reached the kitchen he said, 'See?' but she said, 'Hush,' without even asking what he meant. 'Maybe we could go for a walk,' she said.

'I found my ball.'

'What ball?'

"The one I lost. I found it.'

'Well, I'm glad to hear it,' said Joan. 'Is it all beat up?'

'It's fine. You want to play catch?'

'Not really.'

'Aw, come on, Joan.'

She frowned at him. 'We should have taken you to a barber,' she said finally.

'Just for fifteen minutes or so? I won't throw hard.'

'Oh, all right, 'she said.

Simon went over to the door and picked up the baseball that lay beside it. It was greyer than before, and grass-stained, but lying out in the field for two weeks hadn't hurt it any. He began throwing it up in the air and catching it, while he led the way through the kitchen and out the back door.

'If we had a big mowed lawn, we could play roll-a-bat,' Joan said.

‘Roll-a-bat's a baby game.'

They cut through the tall grass behind the house, parting the weeds ahead of them with swimming motions and advancing beyond the garbage cans and the rusted junk to a place where the grass was shorter. Janie Rose had set fire to this spot not a year ago, while trailing through here in her mother's treasured wedding dress and holding a lighted cigarette high in front of her with her little finger stuck out. James and Mr Pike and Mr Terry had had to fight the fire with their own shirts, their faces glistening with sweat and their voices hoarse from smoke, while Ansel leaned out the back window calling 'Shame! Shame!' and Janie Rose sat perched in the tin can tree, crying and cleaning her glasses with the lace hem of the wedding dress. Now the weeds had grown up again, but they were shorter and sparser, with black scorched earth showing around them, Joan and Simon took up their positions, one at each end of the burned patch, and Simon scraped a standing-place for himself by kicking down the brittle weeds and scuffing at the charred surface of the soil 'Here goes,' he said, and wound up his arm so hard that Joan raised both hands in front of her to ward it off before he had even let go of the ball. Simon stopped winding up and pounded the ball into the palm of his other hand.

'Hey, now,' he said. 'You going to play like a girl?' 'Not if you throw easy like you promised.' He squinted across at her a minute, and then nodded and raised his throwing arm again. This time the ball came without any windup, cutting in a straight clean arc through the blue of the sky. Joan caught it neatly, remembering not to close her eyes, and threw it back to him underhanded. 'Overhand,' said Simon. 'Sorry.'