Where The Willow Tree Is Maura Byrne My earliest memory is death. I was only two years old and my daycare had forgotten to turn the television off before our nap. I asked what movie they had on, amazed by the special effects, as a plane flew into a building that crashed to the ground on screen. They didn’t answer and the television was switched off immediately. Parents trickled in all day until I was the only toddler left. My mom was stuck at work – teaching. She was giving math lectures to students whose parents’ deaths I had just unknowingly witnessed. Junior year of high school, my Spanish teacher told us he could figure out our learning style based on the category our first memory fell into. He had us write it down on a piece of paper ripped from our fresh notebooks – is it about family or a specific place? I told him my earliest memory was 9/11. Mr. Navarro informed me that this simply wasn’t possible – that we cannot remember that far back – as if he was an expert on my mind. He said this in a matter of fact tone, scrunching his nose enough to raise the mustache that sat just a bit too low on his upper lip. I paused a minute, debating if this was worth a reply. And when I spoke I did so in the kind of tone that says you are only slightly confidant in what you have to say. I droned on about the psychology of it – explaining that trauma interacts with our brain unlike other types of event. That it allows us to retain memories that we would otherwise be too young to remember. As I spoke, my throat tightened under the anxiety of confronting a teacher. This little speech did not do well with him and Jonah Daniels, curly haired, chuckled from his desk behind me. When my teacher walked away, Jonah informed me that I could have just lied and told a story of my mother taking me to the local park to feed the geese. When I was young we used to pack a picnic and make our way to the pond at the end of our street. My mother always made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – one for me and one for her – with the crust cut off. We’d sit under the willow tree that stood where the dirt met the pond, tossing our crust at the water’s edge for the geese to feast upon. This tradition continued until Hurricane Sandy knocked that old tree down. We held a wake, planting sunflowers in its place. Those sunflowers didn’t last long either. I think back on that willow tree, keeping track in my head – a list of everything and everyone who’s ever died near me. It’s
a tally of dead friends, acquaintances, the lady who jumped from her balcony as I was passing by at 14. I tally all those now with the willow tree – adding Jonah to the list. I have an article open on my laptop that I’m peering at, hunched over, with my elbows digging into the corner of my desk. It’s about an 18-year-old boy who was murdered in my town the prior day. The headline is numb, telling only the facts, as if his family and friends where not breaking as they skim the piece – as if I’m not breaking, reading Jonah’s name. Jonah always called me a pessimist – the kind of person who tallies death while paying no attention to life. I say I’m a realist. It was an ongoing debate that started when our 6th grade social studies teacher taught us the term. The one thing we agreed on was that he was an optimist. He was the one person I ever knew to enjoy middle school. He befriended the tough kids who buzzed their hair and stole sips of their parent’s white wine, and ones who never failed to bring a graphing calculator everywhere they went. I befriended the librarian – and him. His ability to talk to anyone and everyone never rubbed off on me. When in 8th grade, two girls who used to give me smirks in the hallway threw my binder out the second-floor window into the trash, Jonah mediated before our guidance counselors could get involved. People always seemed to listen to him, when they showed no reason with me. The girls would retrieve my binder from the dumpster that sat against the chipped brick of Lincoln Middle School and apologize. I would not, as Jonah put it, spend the next week balling and whining to my mother about a small incident. He insisted that bad people do cruel things and reminded me that May Freedman’s parents were going through a divorce. At least he admitted that Elizabeth McCormick really is just a bitch. According to the article, three boys, two 18 and one 20, were in the park where the willow tree used to stand. They were “causing a disturbance” when the gun was pulled. My eyes scan the article, searching for further detail. I cling to its every word as if reading this – picturing it in my head – will somehow transfer me there so I could save his life. I clench my fists, digging my nails into my palms, imagining the feeling of his body against my hands as I push him out of the way, missing the bullet. For a moment I am content, then reality hits and I am alone in my dorm room and he is oneday deceased. So, I crack my wrists a bit too hard because I know pushing him out of the way would hurt and I crave a realistic sensation.
spring 2018
61