Last summer, my mother, who had struggled to keep her grasp on the present for what seemed my entire adult life, was finally diagnosed with dementia. It was also the year my father’s birch tree died. My mother sat shiva for it, removing the couch cushions and covering the mirrors, as if mourning her husband a second time. My sister Ora believed this was yet another sign of mental prolapse, but to me, at least, it was understandable, if somewhat excessive. After all, the tree had come from Poland in one of our father’s coat pockets after the war. That such a place could still produce something living was in itself remarkable. There was history in that tree. History and memory—two things that could not be allowed to die with it. So, after consulting one another, Ora and I, who were both teachers and had summers off, agreed it couldn’t hurt to take a short vacation from the children (one for her and three for me, all boys, all incorrigible) and help our mother around the house during her week of mourning.
Barefoot and silent, the three of us sat on my mother’s cushionless couch and ate the casserole Ora had brought with her, the plates balanced awkwardly on our knees, a capitulation to the low seating. Outside the living room’s large bay window, the tree stood, its leaves hanging, limp and brown in the depths of June, its silver trunk marred by a hole that burrowed deep into the heartwood. Was it heart rot, some...
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