The Pear Tree

The pear tree was a fixture in the front yard of my childhood home. First, the flowers would bloom, then the pears would grow as the petals fell into the yard. I loved catching a petal and rubbing its soft surface between my fingers.

Dad always knew when the pears were ready. Starting sometime in late summer we would eat pears every day. He kept the pear trees pruned and perfectly shaped. Cutting off any wayward branches that didn’t fit into his perfect design. The three of us laughed together while eating mouthful of juicy pears.

There were always too many for us to eat so mom would pack them up in baskets and bring them to all the neighbours.

When the strength left my hands, mom would mash them up and feed them to me with a spoon.

When I was ten things changed. A heaviness fell over the house casting everything in a dull grey light. The most prominent thing to change was the pear tree. It grew twisted branches, rebelling against its forced shape. Dad and mom started fighting; dad slipped away into the basement, where he sat and drank from a dark bottle. The sickness has left my cold body and crawled into my home. It lives on inside the walls.

Mom was wispy and thin. The consequences of my cancer eating away at her body without growing inside of her. I followed her around, afraid she would crumble into dust. One time I caught her staring out at the pear tree, a dish in her hand. Frozen in time.

“I wish time would stop moving forward.” She whispered as the dish slipped from her hand into the sink. A tear slipped from her eye, rolled down her cheek. Afterward, she left the sink full of water, and she slipped upstairs. I followed behind her and wished she would hold me like she did when I was small.

One day dad packed his things and left. Leaving behind my mother crying on the front step. I wrapped my arms around her, and we watched him pack his suitcases into the car. He stopped in the driveway and gazed at the pear tree. The thing that he had cherished most. It had become long overgrown. The pears are now left to fall in the yard and rot away. Food now for the bugs and birds.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he yelled. We watched as he backed the car out of the driveway, and his taillights disappeared down the street.

“It is just the two of us now,” Mom whispered, her eyes on the pear tree.

She picked herself up and went back inside, crawled into my bed and wept. Her whole body shaking as she spilled out her sadness. I rubbed her back.

That night she sat and stared at a razor, rubbed the edge softly against her skin. Pain filled my chest. I tried to pull it away from her, but it was fruitless. She had forgotten what my fingers felt like long ago.

“I have nothing left to live for.” She whispered. Still, she put away the razor blade.

Her stomach began to grow. A small light in the heaviness of the house. She went back to work. I sat at home and wandered around the house. The spare room transformed into a nursery. Mom had put it together by herself, and I had cheered her on. For the first time in a long time, she smiled.

“Is it ok for me to be happy?” she asked one night while sitting on the foot of my bed. My room had grown cold and unchanged.

I sat beside her and rested my head on her shoulder, “Yes, “I whispered and hoped she could hear me.

One day, before the baby was born, a man came. Pruned the pear tree. Cleaning up the edges.

Mom gave birth to a little boy. He waved his tiny fists in the air. I made silly faces making him laugh. And rubbed his back when he cried. Finally, the heaviness of the house had lifted. I left my mom with a kiss on the forehead as she cried and packed my things.

She left me behind beneath the pear tree.