The Courage Tree

Not far from the house, but hidden behind a shield of brambles and vines, was an outhouse. It tilted to one side, giving her vertigo when she sat inside it. The outhouse had smelled nearly as fresh as the forest when she’d first arrived, a testimony to how long it had been since anyone had called this place home.

When she’d first stepped inside the cabin, the floor had been covered with debris—branches and twigs and rotting leaves that had fallen or blown through the gaping holes in the roof. Mice skittered away from her broom, and she remembered reading something about mice droppings causing that flesh-eating virus, so she’d covered her nose and mouth with a kerchief, unsure if that would help. Unsure if it really mattered. She just needed to live long enough to save her daughter. After that, death could come anytime, and she truly wouldn’t mind.

Once she’d emptied the back room of its tree branches and leaves, she discovered four sleeping palettes on the floor, one in each corner. She’d brought two air mattresses with her, which she inflated on the palettes against the far wall. Then she tore one of the king-size sheets and made the palettes and mattresses up as best she could. She’d stepped back to look at them and was amazed at how much the simple sight of those two low beds, dressed in Egyptian cotton, pleased her. She was glad she’d thought to bring these lavender sheets; they were the only ones that did not remind her of Max, since he’d always hated the color and she had used them only on the guest beds. She hadn’t wanted to bring any tangible traces of her grief with her. Living here would be hard enough without adding mourning to her list of things to do. Once she’d left Malibu, once she’d pulled the car out of the driveway and headed for the mountains, she knew she was leaving Max behind forever. She was leaving everything behind—except her duty as a mother.

She’d been in the shanty for over a month now, but she’d been planning this trip, this new life, for weeks prior to her “suicide.” She’d been planning it ever since Marti had written her, telling her she was being transferred to the prison at Chowchilla. It had been unbearable to picture Marti in prison anywhere, but Chowchilla, with its reputation for abusive guards, toughened prisoners and intolerable living conditions, was out of the question. Zoe had lain awake all that night, Marti’s letter in her hand, a bizarre plot taking shape in her mind.

She’d gotten out of bed to walk downstairs to the study, a room she’d been avoiding ever since Max’s death. Sure enough, the Persian rug and the burgundy walls lined with books and awards still held his scent, that musky scent of cigars, as though he’d just left the room for a moment. Standing stock-still in the doorway of the room, she’d had to shut her eyes and remind herself that he was dead. This was the room where she’d found him, crumpled on the floor near the hearth, the way a blanket would crumple if you dropped it, limp and folded in on itself. She’d known instantly that he was dead, and yet she’d screamed his name over and over as if he could hear her. It had been his third and final heart attack. The cigars were to blame, she’d thought. Or maybe the pace he’d insisted on holding himself to. He’d been seventy years old and still producing a movie a year, still insisting on having his hand in every aspect of it, from the casting to the final cut. She did not, however, blame herself, except for not checking on him sooner when he hadn’t come up to bed that evening. She had been a good wife to him, and he had been the finest of husbands. A forty-year-old marriage in Hollywood was something to point to with pride. Yet, she’d hoped to see fifty years with him, and maybe more.

She could not be the single woman again, not at sixty. Not with the paparazzi following her every move, noting each new wrinkle, each gray root marking the birth of every dark-blond hair on her head. She’d been known for that long, thick, shimmery blond hair since she was a little girl, and she had not been able to let go of it. She’d had three surgeries on her face already, and she was sick of the doctors and the recovery time and the fact that she no longer looked like herself. And now the wrinkles were starting again and the tabloids were taunting her. They criticized the extra pounds she’d put on. Last year, one of them had described her as a mountain. A mountain! Only Max had still seemed to think she was beautiful and desirable and valuable, and when he died, there was no one to tell her the tabloids were simply wrong and mean-spirited. She’d been an actress and a singer since she was three years old, well-known enough to go by her first name alone, like Cher and Madonna and Ann-Margret. Only those women were aging far better than she was. Escape began to sound marvelous. She would not have to endure growing old in the unforgiving spotlight.

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