Authors: Christopher Hebert
“Where are you going?” Michael Boni said as Darius rose from the table.
“Home.”
April was sliding toward the end of the bench, making way.
“You can’t leave,” Michael Boni said.
But of course he could. It was just a matter of will, of following through. And Darius had been practicing. Not for this moment in particular, but it seemed to him now the skill was transferable. If he could just squeeze out of the booth and then allow his feet to carry him out of the restaurant, he thought, he’d be okay. He’d go home, wake Sylvia up, tell her what he’d done. She might forgive him; she might not. Either way, it would be over.
“You’re a fucking coward,” Michael Boni said as Darius reached the door. “I always knew it.”
“I’m going, too,” April said.
McGee’s frown sharpened. “What do you mean?”
April shifted in her seat, slid the phone back into her pocket. “I’m going home.”
“You just got here,” McGee said. “You came all this way.”
“Let her go,” Michael Boni said. “We don’t need them.”
April rose, and McGee did, too.
April was so much taller, she had to bend low, scooping her friend in her arms, almost like a child. “I’m glad I came.”
“I need your help.” McGee’s voice was muffled in April’s shoulder.
“No, you don’t. You never really have.”
McGee said, “I told my parents you’re coming.”
“It’s you they want to see, not me.”
“I can’t do it alone.”
April shook her head, smiling sadly. “They’re your parents.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell them the truth.”
McGee stepped back, laughing without a trace of humor.
“If you’re so sure you’re doing the right thing,” April said, “tell them the truth.”
McGee kept drifting backward, collapsing against the corner of the booth. “Everyone’s gone.”
Were those tears in her eyes?
“You can go, too,” April said. “There’s nothing stopping you.”
“Everything we ever did was a failure.”
“Go to Portland,” April said softly. “Find Myles.”
McGee looked almost disappointed. “Portland doesn’t need me.”
April looked as if she were about to say something more, but even from across the room, Darius could see it wouldn’t do any good.
“Please be careful,” April said, folding McGee one last time in her arms. And then she was coming toward him, and Darius stepped aside, holding open the door.
They are asleep.
At this hour, as if they might be doing something else.
How little a tree changes, even over years.
Always one dog barks and then another.
Never alone.
And did I leave footprints across the lawn?
Mother, father.
And yet my tree, still.
Mom, Dad.
Otherwise, how incredibly silent.
Cold.
A winter carnival, a carny, and Myles picking his prize, a fluorescent green dog.
The random things one thinks of at the randomest times.
And what did I expect to find?
I should have brought another sweater.
Maybe to find the curtains drawn, something, anything, blocking the view.
Music, they say, for some reason being a trigger for memory.
Instead, an open window, the moon like a faint spotlight on their bed.
Familiar smells and tastes, too.
If I trust my memory.
As if I had anything else to trust.
The things one finds oneself wondering.
Knots and limbs, stabbing through the seat of my pants.
How something so large must have appeared to someone so small.
Thirty, forty feet tall to a girl two, three times shorter than the lowest branches.
Someone
, as if I weren’t thinking of myself.
And Myles grinning in the frigid air, as if that green dog were the answer.
To think I used to climb up here in shorts.
What was the question?
Nothing between me and them now but a window screen, a few branches and leaves.
Certain sensations you can never return to, never experience again.
Comfort, to a child, an insignificant thing.
If you’re not careful up there, darling, you’ll break your etc. etc. Quote unquote.
What did Myles think it meant, the dog’s green fur, so bright it hurt to look?
The temptation to tweet and caw and wake them up.
The afternoon Mother brought home the mechanic, the song that was playing on her car stereo.
When you sit up in the tree staring, we wonder what you see. Quote unquote.
The ache in my back.
When we got back from Seattle, silently stuffing that green dog in the bottom of my duffel bag.
Like the world is a movie playing inside your head. Quote unquote.
And Myles never knowing I kept it.
In the driveway the mechanic raising the hood, and Mother leaving the engine running, the radio playing.
Before the tree itself, before I could climb, my fascination with the seedcases covering the ground.
And what was the name of that girl down the street who remembered events by the outfits she’d been wearing?
For me the place of memory always outdoors.
A summer day with the car stereo playing, and everything a little too bright, the sun, the blue and whites of the sky.
And in my head.
Propellers, were they called, the way they spun and twisted to the ground?
Wings?
No expectation of being able to see them at all.
The same duffel bag where I kept the poems Myles wrote, all those slanting, skidding rhymes.
Darling, what do you mean you don’t want a tree house? Quote unquote.
Even after Mother and the mechanic went in the house together, the engine, the radio, still going.
A chorus repeating
baby, baby
.
Along with the CD mixes of songs Myles thought I’d like.
The girl down the street remembered what everyone else was wearing, too.
The mechanic Dad said he didn’t trust.
Seedcases the first things I ever dissected.
A summer day, the engine running, and Mother walking into the bedroom and closing the blinds.
Our daughter the squirrel tamer. Quote unquote.
As if I would ever tame anything.
And it was the middle of the afternoon.
The brittle hulls, and inside the case the seed itself, slightly wet and bitter.
The yellow shorts the neighbor girl wore the day Dad ran over her dog.
His brown suit, her dead dog.
Dad rolls onto his other side, moonlit blanket rippling like a wave.
And where was I supposed to be that summer day?
A friend’s?
A neighbor’s?
When I was ten, I vowed I would never again cut my hair.
Was I supposed to be anywhere?
Along with the necklace Myles gave me for our first anniversary, a pendant of tarnished brass watch gears—which I told him I lost.
In her sleep, Mother scratches her cheek.
And for some reason they decided I should go to music camp.
Don’t you think it’ll be nice for you to make some friends, darling? Quote unquote.
Because mechanics are not to be trusted. Quote unquote.
Meaning what, precisely, by
not trust
?
Not to be trusted with one’s car?
At seven? eight? nine? climbing the tree for the first time and discovering the seedcases in the tree were green and elastic, compared to the brown and brittle ones spread across the lawn.
Not to be trusted with one’s wife?
You have a wonderful ear for music. Quote unquote.
This key, that key, whatever sounded nice.
And what sort of trust does that imply for one’s wife?
From the tree, watching the blinds blow in, hearing them smack against the sill in the breeze.
A wonderful ear for music?
To this day I don’t know what that means.
For a mechanic, I can admit a certain allure.
The blinds, which they’ve since replaced with curtains.
Or was that the squeaking of bedsprings, not the blinds at all?
There being a distinction between an ear for something and an actual skill.
An awe for anyone who can take something apart.
And my never having heard of such a thing as music camp.
And then put it back together, of course.
You’ll love it; the cover of the brochure shows lots of trees. Quote unquote.
Sarcasm being amusing only coming from someone you don’t loathe.
Did she know I was watching?
The curtains now, perfectly still.
Did she simply not care?
Her monogrammed suitcase I could have curled up in.
Stored everything I owned in.
Along with the black T-shirt Myles wore the night we played pool, which I stole from his floor the next morning.
As if there could be degrees of stillness, different degrees of not moving.
We simply wonder what you do up there all day. Quote unquote.
And I, for my part, wonder what you do in there.
Everything in their bedroom in shades of blue, the bedspread, the area rug, the lamp, etc. etc.
The suitcase is real leather and extremely valuable, so take care of it. Quote unquote.
Wondered then, wonder still.
The feeling of independence that comes from being able to do for yourself.
An enormous leather suitcase for a single pair of denim shorts, two red T-shirts, two pairs of socks, one pair of canvas sandals.
Blue pillowcases.
Blue molding.
Sitting on one of the upper branches the day they painted the bedroom walls.
Don’t drop it, don’t scratch it, don’t let it get wet, don’t etc. etc. Quote unquote.
The paint fumes in the leaves, as high as I could climb.
And then returning from camp a week later to find a tiny house in the crotch of my tree.
Not needing to depend on someone else to do for you.
Blue picture frames and a blue dust ruffle.
How could anyone live surrounded by only one color?
We wanted to surprise you. Quote unquote.
You always have a choice in colors. You might as well make them match. Quote unquote.
Along with the books Myles lent me that I never returned.
Even after I’d told them, insisted, I didn’t want a tree house.
On the car stereo, a countdown of some sort—Top Twenty.
We thought a house would be more comfortable. Quote unquote.
Than a branch, arguably.
Along with a copy of the first flyer Myles ever made, Xeroxed until it looked like it was drawn with charcoal.
Children love tree houses, darling. Quote unquote.
The beginning pulses of a headache.
Probably the same children who play with dolls and laugh at clowns.
The dark, the strain on my eyes.
You could do whatever you wanted with it. Quote unquote.
Complete dependency.
My objections to playing piano.
Keys made of ivory?
A tree house with wood that was clean and new.
But a tree house is your own personal space. Quote unquote.
And me taking a stance against the poaching of elephants.
And yet there being no line waiting to get into the tree.
His chest rising, falling, rising.
Falling.
And in their bathroom, hand towels and washcloths, also blue.
Some of the wood weather-treated green.
And for weeks, me standing among the roots staring up at the tree.
And fourteen-year-olds with actual skill.
At the house in the tree.
Green wood!
Refusing to climb up.
And me not an exclamatory child.
I should have brought a thermos.
Coffee, black.
Blue bathmat.
The car stereo not loud, but loud enough the neighbors must have noticed.
And wondered.
You just have to give it a chance. Quote unquote.
An empty car, its hood raised, the engine running, the car stereo playing.
Along with the disk, Myles’s video.
The Big Dipper pointing north.
To think, at one time, that meant something to someone.
Sailors, and sea captains, in any case.
Safe in the duffel bag with all the rest.
Stars, whose names I’ve forgotten.
Ornamental soap dish, also blue.
A greasy rag draped over the raised hood, slipping, slipping, as the engine idled and the hood vibrated.
A chill growing, a dew forming.
The yellow nightgown she was sleeping in the night her brother’s joint set the den of her house on fire.
The pink nightgown I was supposed to have been wearing when they pulled back the sheets to put her into bed with me.
Further details of which I have forgotten.
A lake with cobwebbed canoes.
Infested with earwigs.
That video, the one thing Myles noticed missing.
And who ever heard of making a tree house from anything but scrap?
Leaves lightly brushing the outer walls in the breeze.
A man in your father’s club drew up the plans. Quote unquote.
And of course, their self-satisfied smiles.
Blue toothbrush holder.
Around the trunk, the grass yellow and matted.
A blue blanket folded up at the end of the bed.
My tree, spoiled.
Even in their sleep, slight smiles lingering.
Myles tearing apart the apartment, looking everywhere for that disk.
Even in the moonlight being able to tell she still pretends her hair’s not gray.
So stiff and uncomfortable.
Feeling myself grasping for something.
Making it all the way to the second most popular song in America.
Who ever heard of an architect planning a tree house?
Some number in the teens having been playing when Mother and the mechanic pulled up.
Myles searching and searching, and me silent, the duffel bag slumped in the corner.
A few dropped nails in the dirt, among the roots.
Nails that would grow fat with rust after months in snow.
Circling impressions of ladder legs.
The day at the camp, in the middle of the lake, I let both oars slip into the water.