But the sun was warm on her back and the tree felt strong against her chest like David holding her. The quiet forest soaked into her, and she found the calm that had touched her earlier. Maureen could wait. Mom wasn't going anywhere, wasn't dying, nothing urgent there. Even Dad could wait. He couldn't touch Jo any more. She'd broken his power. David was the urgent one.
"I should ask David to forgive me, right? That's my penance? And go and sin no more? But I'm no good at that. I've never had to learn, never found a man I couldn't stand to lose. Maybe I'd better learn?"
She hugged the oak, or rather pressed against it because it was far too thick to wrap her arms around. Then she turned and wrinkled her nose at the thought of wading back to the car. Not a fun way to travel.
But . . .
She stepped to the edge of the snow and set one boot on the surface. Okay, babe, you will support me. She visualized a hundred tiny snowmen under the sole, raising their stick arms over their heads and lifting. She thought of dandelion fluff drifting from her breath and of soap bubbles blown iridescent from a plastic ring. And then she moved her other foot and danced out onto the snow. It held her.
It held her all the way back to the car. Anyone who followed her tracks, expecting firm footing, was going to get a bit of a surprise.
The nursing home sat a block or so off the route back to her apartment. Maybe she could bring some of that serenity and understanding back to Mom, pass some of it in to her where she hid inside that shell.
Jo pulled into the parking lot and stared at the place, reluctant to move, to get out of the car, to do that hospital thing again. Long and low, wood-shingled walls, with broad eaves and wide windows, it did its best to look like a home rather than a warehouse for discarded people. And it was new, with bright colors inside and carpet instead of tile on the floor, and smelled clean, and the nurses seemed to smile a lot. Mom could have ended up in a lot worse places. Too bad it didn't really matter.
But the shift nurses recognized Jo and waved at her. They seemed to care. That meant as much to the families as it did to the patients.
Then she stood at Mom's door again, with the same gut-wrenching scene waiting on the other side. Jo found that there were limits to her new-found serenity.
She swallowed and pushed through the door as quietly as possible. Mom's roommate had been asleep, seemed to be asleep every time Jo visited. And the doors were new and silent. But the old Naskeag was sitting up in one of the chairs, seamed brown face and sightless eyes turned toward the door. Mary Thomas, her name was on the door, knitting away with strong gnarled hands criss-crossed by tiny scars. Jo wondered if she had been a basket maker -- those were the cuts and scratches and scrapes of a lifetime's craft. Apparently the old woman didn't need to see in order to knit.
"I swear, Alice Haskell again. Don't you have better things to do than to visit an old lady two days in a row?"
Jo stopped short. "I'm sorry, I should have knocked."
"Oh, mercy. You're that nice girl comes in to visit her mother. I thought you were a friend of mine. Can't see too good no more."
"If you're expecting a visitor, I'll leave. Mom won't know if I'm here, anyway."
"She knows, child. She knows." The old lady kept knitting, needles clicking along like quiet castanets. Jo noticed that she was making a scarf, two colors of yarn in a complex pattern. Must be counting stitches and have a hell of a memory.
"No, you stay. Don't worry 'bout me." The old woman shook her head, waving towards the chair across from Mom's bed. "Lordy, I'm not expecting nobody. Felt you coming down the hall, child, that's all. That's why I got confused. You felt like Alice."
"Felt me?" Peculiar choice of words.
"You glow, child. Aunt Alice, she's our witch. What's that whitefolk word she uses, sha-man? We just say witch. You got witch power falling off you like summer rain."
She cocked her head and stared at Jo, as if she could see Jo's face and feel the shock of her words. "Nothing to be ashamed of, child. Nothing bad. Just how you use it, that's all that matters."
She talks about it like she was discussing whether anchovies were good or bad on pizza.
"I'm just a crazy old Indian, girl. Don't mind me. I've got scarves to knit. Ten grandchildren with cold necks, and their mommas all want different patterns so's they can tell the little scamps apart without unwrapping 'em. You go and try to help your mommy."
Jo felt like a cartoon light-bulb had lit up in her head. "You've been awake, those times I came in before?"
"Child, any fool could see you needed to be alone with her. Best thing I could do was close my eyes. Now do what you need to do." She made a shooing motion and then ran her fingers along the full needle, counting stitches and tracing each thread of yarn back to its skein. The old woman nodded to herself and started another row.
Jo did as she was told. The Naskeag woman seemed to bring a feeling of solid Maine granite into the room, rooting it in life and generations and the comfort of an old house. She knew where she stood in the world and knew it was a good place to stand. Jo envied her family.
And then Dad was there, oozing around the door like the slime he was, and the feeling vanished. He looked startled for an instant, glanced at
