Chapter 19

1989

HOW DID YOU EVER IDENTIFY HAPPINESS? Even though the Red Grove offered assistance of all kinds—babysitting, food, subsidized lodging for a while, a shared closet where you could find most things you'd need—Gloria was not interested in relying on handouts. Never be in debt, she knew. So she set up her business quickly. Una had made it clear that they wanted few outsiders coming into the Red Grove; there were no gates or guards, so obviously people occasionally came through, but most of the community lived off of small, twisted roads in the woods and hillsides, far from the main road, which had no signs alerting a passer-through that they were anywhere at all, no stores or cafés advertising to outsiders, nothing to stop for, and that was how they liked it. So when Gloria began inviting outsiders into her home as part of her business, it was one of her and Una's many points of contention. How would Gloria maintain her business, for which she used her tools—namely, her sister as conduit—if she could not have seekers come into her home? It was a time of great need for Gloria and her family, and like the ever-adapting redwood trees around them, Una said that the community would adapt in this one special case, for a short time, until they could come up with a better solution. But Gloria would need to make it clear to the seekers that her special abilities were not a ubiquitous gift in the community, they were unique to Gloria. It was the reason, Una said, that they'd been moved to this house at the top of the hill, deep within the Red Grove; the house in the belly of the community, down many winding roads, through redwoods, up a big golden hill, where they would be entirely safe, entirely cared for. The Red Grove would do its protective work.

But the short time stretched, as time does, and Gloria kept seekers coming to the house even as Roo chewed solids, began to walk, lost a tooth, even as Luce fell in love with dolphins, fell out of love with dolphins, became the guide through the darkness, even as it became clear that Gem seemed to be holding still in this everdreaming state and didn't need the kind of full-time attention they'd first thought. Together, they found the rhythm of this life, and it became, as it does, normal.

Did normal mean happiness? In those first years of living in the Red Grove, Gloria wouldn't have said that she was happy. There was always hardship. There were her two small children to care for, flus, colds, rampant head lice, the crusted gunk of pink eye to scrape, a rogue strain of whooping cough because of the few anti-vaccination families, and yes, there were more hands helping her as Red Grovers stopped by, but they were not the hands she most wanted, they were not Gem's. There was money stress when her business was new and then periodically when seekers dried up for a while, there was laundry and dishes, there was the wave that occasionally overtook her, even though both her parents had been long dead, of orphanhood, that fundamental loneliness that came mostly, she knew, from her sister's absence. Well, not absence absence. That was the hardest part.

So there was all that, which was decidedly not happiness, yet there was something else, too. It started the day after they arrived. The first visitor. Her name was Terry, she said, talking nonstop from the time Gloria answered the door to when Gloria finally ushered her out nearly an hour later. She'd been in the Red Grove three years, and she had four boys, who were grown and gone, and here was the tomato pie they loved so much, warm at 375 degrees for forty-five minutes, and how was Gloria feeling, it was a lot for most new women to take in and get adjusted to, took some time to sleep soundly for most, but now, Terry said, she slept like an old dog, not a baby, what a funny expression sleeping like a baby is, you've had babies so you know, they thrash and wake and stick one arm straight up, not good sleepers, no sireee, but if you've had an old dog, you get it, always sleepy, a sunny spot is nice, but any spot will do, just not afraid of a thing anymore.

The next person didn't knock at all, left a basket of jams and pickled veggies on the doorstep, and the next was a nurse, there because she'd heard there was someone who might need medical attention. She went right to where Gem lay and began checking her vitals, adjusting her posture in bed, talking to Gem with the assumption that she was still present inside, which was not something many of the nurses in the hospital had done. And Gloria thought this too, couldn't stop herself—maybe there was something about this place that could help heal her sister. Sure, the doctors had said there wasn't any chance of recovery, but there were also stories of miracles, weren't there, it was possible. And this was a place that traded in making the impossible possible.

And shortly thereafter was Una herself, there, she said, to watch the kids for a little while so Gloria could get settled in, unpack, or take a bath—or follow in the footsteps of many newcomers and find the Red Grove's boundary line, walk its low stone perimeter, run her hands along the red-yarn trees so that she could know, could feel, her own safety, and her proximity to the edge.

Baby Roo sat in his little bouncy chair and kicked his legs in joy, smiling at all the new people and babbling until they came close and let him gnaw on their fingers or made goofy faces until he cackled and clapped.

Luce mostly stayed in her bedroom, peeking out from the doorframe when a new person barged in. Gloria didn't blame her. The girl had been pulled from school and moved somewhere new, where strangers showed up on the doorstep in a constant rotation. When Luce did come out of her room, it was to creep into Gem's room, where Gloria would find her pressed against the wall, staring at the woman who had raised her. It would have broken Gloria's heart, if she had let it. She was getting to know this quiet, secretive daughter of hers. She needed to spend some quality solo time with Luce, to bond with her, learn about her, and she would, one day, once she had time and Roo was a little more independent and Gem was more settled, she would find the time soon.

It was a lot for Gloria to have all these people showing up at her house, too, right at first. She flinched when another fist knocked on the door. She jammed the first delivery of baked goods to the back of a cupboard where they'd never be seen again, not trusting that they were safe to eat. But the people kept coming. A bouquet of wildflowers. A bundle of turnips, still warm with soil. My god, Gloria had a lot on her plate, they said, and of course they would help her make it work however they could.

And they did. She relented, tasting the dilly beans someone brought by. The third time Una and the nurse came, Gloria let them stay with her sister and kids for an hour while she said she would go run errands, but instead she accepted the invitation of the neighbor, Juan, and showed up at his cabin to learn about mountain lions—there was an abundant population in the surrounding hills, she was told—but she quickly pulled him into bed to show him something else. She wanted to be sure that people fucked here. That a man could fuck. And boy, yeah, he could.

And so life unspooled and settled for them in the Red Grove. Seekers, children, sister, community dinners, raccoons in the garbage cans, rattlesnakes sunning on the rocks. And the place. The Red Grove itself. She'd been so hesitant, but it didn't take long before she felt it. She did not fear for her sister here. She didn't worry about Luce, let her daughter spend long, dark hours outside with her friends, catching herself before she spoke each time her impulse was to give Luce the don't-get-raped talk she'd been relentlessly given.

And so in the mornings, when she stepped out onto the deck and the fog made her shiver and she was wrapped in the chilled, gauzy cloak of these majestic trees, my god, who can even believe how enormous they are, how beautiful, the roughness of the red bark and their hush, she never thought she'd be one to fall in love with something as ridiculous as a tree—a tree!—but here she was, staring out at the trees whose tops she couldn't begin to see, touching them because the fog touched them both, feeling almost up in the sky herself, inside a cloud, as if she were a bird or maybe even a star. Inside, still tucked in their beds, were her wild boy and her quiet girl and her sister, her heart.

She would not have called it happiness; it felt like the on-ramp to the possibility of happiness. Like she might see it around some bend, not too distant. She'd never been as close to it. What she didn't realize until much later was that she was already there, in that moment. She was as close as anyone ever got; wrapped in morning fog on the deck, beside the trees she loved; her people safe, tucked in their beds; the cool blue wash running across her insides that knew, finally, she was starting to do something right.