Outskirts Press, INC.

Heart of the Oak Tree

It is 1967. In the Midwestern university city where Lyra lives, the culture is still predominantly the conservative, conformist culture of the fifties. But on the coasts, changes are stirring-in consciousness, gender roles, spirituality-and the ripples of these changes are beginning to touch the Heartland.

Lyra has given up the promise of a brilliant dance career for marriage and children. Heartbroken and crazed over the deterioration of her marriage and the loss of her art, tormented by inner voices, she runs from her house on an evening in May to a nearby wood. There she finds a strange, luminous path that leads her to a glade deep in the heart of the wood, where a magnificent oak tree stands in the curve of a stream. The oak tree speaks to her with love, and under its boughs she finds peace.

After her psychiatrist recommends a temporary separation, her husband leaves for the summer to do research at Harvard. Peggy, a warm-hearted, young graduate student, moves in to help with the children, giving Lyra more freedom than she's had since her first child was born.

As Lyra unravels the mystery of the oak tree in the months that follow, profound changes transform her inner and outer worlds, bringing her soaring joy and devastating grief.

The morning was the quintessence of May, warm and sunny, with new leaves unfurling on the trees, flowers bright in the gardens they passed. They pro-ceeded slowly down the two long blocks to the wood, the children running ahead and back again, exclaiming over a flower, finding a special stone to carry, an ant to watch.



When they came to the wood, Lyra felt her anticipation mount. They followed their usual path to the stream. There was the willow and the big root she’d tripped over the night before. Holding her breath, she parted the branches. Thick undergrowth grew right up to the willow. There was no path. Lyra stared at the thicket, stunned. She pushed some of the branches apart to look beyond them. There was no path. “But it was right here!” she protested.



“What was?” Katy asked, then, without waiting for an answer, said, “Look, Mommy, it’s like a curtain!” as she swung the willow branches back and forth.



“Mommy, Mommy, look!” Toby pulled at her skirt. “I found a caterpillar!”



Lyra didn’t hear them. She couldn’t, wouldn’t believe the path wasn’t there. It had been so clear the night before, and led to such beauty and peace. She parted the veil of willow boughs again, then, in stubborn desperation, pushed into the undergrowth, thrashing around, leaving the children behind her under the willow. The tangled thicket resisted her, but she pushed in further, searching from side to side. There was no path.



“Mommy, where are you going?” Katy tried to follow her. Toby, left behind, began to howl.



Lyra had to give it up. Scratched and sweaty, trembling, she turned back, picked up Katy, brought her back to the willow, soothed Toby, and said, “Let’s go find the stream.”