The Mulberry Tree

Matt didn’t answer, but got up and left the room.

Bailey gave a great sigh. Today seemed to be her day for offending people. She got up, cleared the table, and put the dishes in the dishwasher. When she was finished, she turned around, and Matt was standing there, a shoe box in his hand.

“Want to see some pictures?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, smiling in relief that he wasn’t angry as she followed him

into the living room.

He sat down on the couch, then motioned her to sit beside him. They had developed unwritten rules between them that said she took the couch while he took the big easy chair. But tonight they sat side by side, and Matt put the shoe box on the coffee table.

“I don’t have much about him,” Matt said as he lifted the lid. The box was old and worn; it was for a pair of children’s shoes, size eight. “My mother threw these photos away about a year after my father walked out on us. It was only by chance that I saw them and fished them out of the garbage.”

Matt didn’t say so, but she had a feeling that he’d never shown the contents of this box to anyone. His hand shook a bit as he lifted the lid. “I was crazy about my father. He was hardly ever at home, but when he was, he was the center of everything. He was . . . ” Matt hesitated. “He was . . . don’t laugh at me, but he was glorious. He could do anything. He read a lot, mostly nonfiction, while he was on the road, so he knew a lot about how the world worked. I was only five, but maybe because, for most of the time, I was ‘the man of the house,’ so to speak, I was an old kid, and I had a lot of questions. My father never brushed me off as I saw other fathers do.”

Matt reached into the box and pulled out a photo. It was one of those wallet-size heavily posed photos that fill high school yearbooks.

Bailey took the picture and looked into the eyes of a younger, slighter Matt. “I can see you in him. He’s a good-looking man.”

“Was. He’s dead now.”

Bailey wanted to ask questions, but she felt that if she was quiet, Matt would be more likely to tell her about himself. He handed her another photo. It was of six boys standing in front of a car with the round fenders of the 1950s.

“They’re—” he began.

“I can guess who they are, but let me see if I can guess who is who,” Bailey said, holding the photo closer to the bulb in the floor lamp. “This one in the letter sweater is your father, of course.”

“Right,” Matt said, smiling.

“And this one has to be Rodney . . . Roddy. Heavens! But he was beautiful.”

“Yeah. Right after high school he went out to Hollywood for a couple of years, but he couldn’t act. Or maybe he had too much competition. Whatever, he came back here.”

“Like Frank did,” Bailey said.

“Did you finally read that book on your bedside table? The one Violet gave you?”

“How—” She put up her hand. “No, don’t tell me how you know what’s in my bedroom and who gave me what. But, no, I haven’t read that book yet. I spent the afternoon in the Ridgeway library, reading the newspaper accounts.”

“Ah.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that you haven’t heard all the story, not if you’ve only read what was in the newspapers.” He nodded toward the photo in her hand. “So, go on, tell me who is who in that picture.”

“Frank must be the skinny one on the end. Is that a cigarette in his hand?”

“Unfiltered. But are you sure he isn’t Taddy?”

“No, Taddy is the tall one on the other end, the one who looks scared.”

“You’re not bad at this, are you?”

“And Burgess is the big one squatting down in front.” She lifted the photo higher and looked hard at the young man standing beside Kyle. Harper Kirkland was short, thin, and as cute as a cherub on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who. “What happened to them?”

Matt took the photo from her and put it on the table beside the other one. Inside the box were folded pieces of paper; he kept each photo in its own little envelope to prevent scratching.

“Burgess ran his father’s lumber business for years, went bankrupt, and died when the plane he was piloting crashed. I think it was 1982 or 1983. Rodney married a couple of times and had a lot of kids. Taddy taught science at Calburn High until it closed, then died of a heart attack two years later. He never married. Frank and my father, you know about.”