Forever a Mayflower

 Grandma May carried her wide-eyed granddaughter to the old eucalyptus tree that stood proud behind the weatherboard house. There she placed the babbling one-year-old against the trunk and marked her height with a pen. 

After lunch, her daughter, Kathy, buckled a fussy Lilibeth into the car seat and kissed May goodbye, promising to bring the leftovers home to Joel. May returned to the tree, screwdriver in hand. 

Lunch dishes could wait a little longer, she thought while tracing the well-worn notches John had carved in the smooth trunk all those years ago. Grandma May was young then, as was Grandpa John; he was lithe and fit, too, back before cancer hitched a ride inside his lungs. Here they’d etched their love, months before their lips uttered the words. 

Her John was a man of many traditions: Christmas with roast pork, ten-dollar notes in every birthday card, Easter by the river, where only he could man the grill. John would’ve wanted May to keep their traditions alive.

“Look at how big she’s getting, Mayflower,” she imagined him saying. “Every date on this tree—it’s our history, ain’t it?” 

Using John’s trusty screwdriver, she notched her granddaughter's first mark, just the way she’d seen him do. 

Then she smiled. 

Six months later, Alric and Hadley arrived: naked and angry with the world, they screamed in tandem, their round faces splotched red as if it were an art form.

May imagined John would’ve chuckled and said, “Let ’em cry, May. To weep is to still carry breath.”

Their birthdates joined Lilibeth’s. And on the eve of their first birthday, their heights. 

Over the years, the eucalyptus tree acquired new scars, proudly bearing the Marcombe grandchildren’s history upon its trunk and boughs. One belonged to Alric, from when he tied a rope swing to a lower branch. By summer’s end, the coarse rope had left a shallow cradle in its wake.

Then there was golden-haired, adventure-seeking Lilibeth. She hammered rusted nails into the upper branches, determined to build a treehouse from where she could command her brothers, like reluctant servants.

“I want to build,” she declared mid Sunday lunch, hands on her hips. “Yes, I will be a builder when I’m grown.”

John would have chuckled and raised a beer in toast; May could picture it now.

Before long, the boys sprouted long legs, towering over Lilibeth, their marks inches above hers. Grandma May would wink as the boys wandered off.

“Don’t cry now, Lili. The tree measures height, not brains.”

That night, Grandma May took the screwdriver and added six words, right beside Lili’s rusted nail that jutted from the far-right branch like a splinter.

“The first of many to come,” she murmured, reading her handiwork.

When visitors came, however rare that was, May took them out the back, to the place where love first bloomed, the home of growth and memory. She did not mind that they weren’t as enamoured with it as she was. Their hands had not traced every number and letter as hers had.

When Kathy announced she’d filed for divorce, May stayed quiet, adding extra ice cream to the apple pie that Sunday lunch. Soon after, Kathy and the kids moved interstate. Eight hours away, and yet it felt like mourning a death all over again. May’s days grew long, her Sundays were too quiet.

The screwdriver remained unused in the receiving hall drawer. Each child seemed suspended in time. 

Grandma May still visited the tree, though now in the heat of the day. In the evening, her fingers curled in the cold, seized by an ache unlike any she had known before.

Kathy stopped calling. Apparently, people did not call anymore—they texted.

  May tried using the smartphone she sent, but the slim, glowing contraption gave her headaches. 

One morning, she woke late; the light hurt her eyes, and every word came out wrong. “Still sharp as a tack,” she’d told her concerned neighbour when words became right again.

They asked if Kathy knew. May lied. Her daughter’s attention was divided between her new husband and baby, the latter she’d only seen in mailed pictures. Pictures she displayed on the fridge, alongside Lilibeth’s childhood drawings and postcards from the twins from when they travelled South America. 

When her finger cooperated, May would pen them letters, though most went unanswered, only acknowledged when her daughter sent texts like:

“Hi Mum, miss you. Baby’s good, another kilo heavier. Kevin and the kids say hi. Talk soon xx”

Her grandchildren were teenagers now. Some days she forgot that fact and set the table, ready for the kids to arrive for Sunday lunch. And when she’d reach into her heavy pocket, fingers wrapping around something cold, and pull out John’s screwdriver, she’d wonder how it got there. 

In those moments, she was glad John was gone. She imagined how his face would have fallen. “Something's wrong, May,” he’d say. Then he would have set about trying to fix it. But May wasn’t a watch; her body didn’t have a dial to wind back time. 

“Call them,” the postman urged when he found her wandering out by the letterbox.

“I will, I will,” she’d muttered. 

She didn’t.

They did not need her anymore, not the way she needed them.

When news arrived that one twin was engaged—she couldn’t remember which—May brought her phone to her neighbour; though they were as old as each other, Greg had mastered the art of text.

  “What do you want to say?” he asked after enjoying a bickie and tea.

  May said, “Height. Ask them their height.”

Only Hadley replied. Three dots appeared from Alric’s contact.

“Strange thing,” she muttered at the sight. Greg said nothing. The dancing dots disappeared as quickly as they had come.

After finishing her tea, May unearthed the trusty screwdriver from the drawer and searched for the tape measure. Then she hobbled to the shed and fetched the stepladder.

Her legs felt heavy today, and moving the ladder left more bruises than when she’d tripped on the front steps months ago.

There was a moment of hesitation when the ladder swayed beneath her weight. The grass was still damp from the heavy rain the day before. She would not need to climb very high, though. These old bones could handle a step or two.

Another step, and a sharp ache shot through her hip, almost stealing her breath away. The ladder wobbled. Such a straightforward task, and yet every breath laboured; her hands trembled.

Then the world spun.

The screwdriver toppled to the ground.

Pain splintered through her leg as she fell, her foot twisted in the ladder. Snap. 

John would be along soon, she thought, and the pain wasn’t that bad anymore. 

Lilibeth returned first.

Everything in Grandma May’s house was the same, and yet different without her warmth filling the space. Lilibeth’s eyes watered, though not from the thin layer of dust that coated everything, and she made her way outside. 

Weeds had choked the garden, turning Grandma’s prized roses into skeletons.

The report said arthritis in both knees and hands, low blood pressure, and signs of an old stroke. Why hadn’t she told them?

Lilibeth stood before the eucalyptus tree. It felt like yesterday she was here, her brothers running through the long grass, berry juices staining their lips. Mum and Dad laughing; Alric playing pirates; Hadley balancing on a branch while reading The Hardy Boys.

The ladder still lay where it had fallen a week earlier.

Lilibeth moved to pick it up and felt something hard beneath her shoe.

The screwdriver.

A week ago, after receiving Grandma’s text, Lilibeth had asked her boyfriend to measure her. “Five foot five, shortie.” He joked before she playfully socked him.

Then her phone rang. Grandma's message became buried beneath Facebook notifications and TikTok comments.

Lilibeth clutched the screwdriver so hard she thought it might snap.

Standing with her back against the tree, she measured her height, and with her grandfather’s screwdriver, she made a notch. A small scar that seemed to say: I’m home.

She texted Alric and Hadley, adding their heights and the date of Alric’s wedding. 

One date was missing; she set it next to her Grandfather's. 

Forever a Mayflower.