The Mother Tree | Georgene Smith Goodin
On heat-burdened afternoons, Mama spread a woven blanket under the cottonwood suckling the breast of Lanker’s Hill, the spongy wood of its boughs drooping towards the creek. I napped there, the gurgling water and rustling curtain of leaves more somniferous than any lullaby. After Joseph was born, he napped there, too, until Mama’s strength waned too much to climb that gentle slope.
Daddy planted four suckers from that cottonwood in our yard to capture the roof run-off – how those thirsty trees could drink – but they were really for Mama, an arboreal family echoing ours. They grew ten feet a year, and I balanced across my favorite’s fragile limbs, spreading my weight so as not to split them.
During the years-long drought, Mama saved those trees even though watering was forbidden. At dusk, she dragged out the bright green hose, set it to slowly drip all night. She insisted on doing it herself and I followed her, carrying her IV bag because its pole couldn’t glide across the mat of dead grass our backyard had become. That watering was the closest she got to prayer.
Thunder announced the drought’s end while I stirred the thin soup that was all Mama could stomach. My father raced outside when we heard the crack, mud sucking at his bare feet. I went to tell Mama our trees hadn’t taken the hit but her dry, papery skin was cool, her warmth having slipped away while I stood sentry at the stove.
I went to Lanker’s Hill at dawn, walked along the now thrumming creek. The cottonwood’s crown was in disarray, branches downed and scattered by wind. The bark on the trunk curled back in a diamond-shaped gash but the soft, virgin wood beneath was undamaged. I laid my hand there and swore I felt a pulse.
About the Author:
Georgene Smith Goodin’s work has appeared in numerous publications and has won the “Mash Stories” flash fiction competition. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, the cartoonist Robert Goodin, and their four children. Follow her on Bluesky, @gsmithgoodin.bsky.social.