Trees
So, Creative Writing Post #3. This one involved a gap of twenty years. The treehouse I describe is actually real. My grandparent's house in Napa had a huge gum tree behind some old dog pens. We had a tire swing, a board with a rope, and we nailed shelves up with abandoned tools and filled empty bottles up with the water from the creek. Dang, I miss that place. Melaine, the last line is for you.
Trees
It was always about the tree. The path that led into their secret place had low branches, warning anyone grown up size that this was no place for them. A dirt path was lined with rocks from the small creek, a result of yet another episode of playing house. Some kids had a tree house, a bunch of boards nailed together and placed in a tree, which Delilah always thought was strange. Houses don’t belong in trees. Hers was a treehouse, a roof created by the branches and leaves, seats and tables and beds found in the shape of the fat low limbs. The tree was a house, and though they used their limited carpentry skills to nail an abandoned board in the side of the trunk to use as a shelf, and made a swing out of a plank and a hanging rope, the tree was a house because it was a tree, not because of the house-like things put in it. Bryan had engineered a sink by placing rocks in a circle by the natural dam in the creek, and Delilah and the other girls loved to pretend to clean the empty bottles they found, and wash their hands in it. There were five of them, three girls and two boys that used the treehouse. Michael and Mary were from two houses down, blonde and blue eyed, Michael always pretending to hunt, while Mary made pictures with rocks. Delilah and her sisters, Hope and Keturah, loved to act like this was a jungle, and they were magical fairies and elves who thought humans were silly. Delilah was the oldest of her sisters, and second oldest of the group at seven years old. Bryan was nine, and did everything Delilah commanded him to with an easy smile. She came up with the ideas, and Bryan helped make them come true. Bryan had found this place first, and had shown it to her as a bribe to climb under the barbed wire and go into this strange place that had no houses, no paved roads, just hills and green grass. When he took her by the hand and led her down into the dry creek bed, then up onto a small bank, then under the low branches and she saw the giant tree with its low moss covered boughs and the open space shielded from the sun by a green ceiling, she grinned widely and shouted with joy.
“It’s perfect! It’ll be our house!”
“Our what?”
“House! This can be the bed, and this can be the kitchen, and we can climb up to the look out to see if anyone’s attacking us. It’s perfect!”
Bryan, who was concerned about cooties from doing girly stuff until she mentioned the lookout and ‘attacking’, grinned, shrugged, and went to help her find a rope for a swing. She giggled when he told her the tree talked to him.
“What does it talk about?”
Bryan shrugged, “Tree stuff. Standing, waiting, eating, drinking, breathing. It’s weird, but it’s tree stuff.”
And Delilah had laughed in her happy way, and promised to keep their treehouse a secret.
Well, Hope found out, and threatened to tell everyone unless she came, and they couldn’t leave Keturah alone, and then Hope told her best friend Mary anyway, who brought her brother, and soon they had all worked out a family order. Delilah and Bryan were the parents, who bossed everyone around, and taught them how to mash up leaves, and hide from dragons, which roared across the sky and landed at the airport over the hills. The girls brought dolls and food and pretended that they were frightened of the tigers, and Michael declared he’d fight them off with his plastic sword.
Twenty years later, a much older and more distressed Delilah crashed through the brush, hoping that if she ran fast enough, she would leave the news behind, that it wouldn’t catch up. She tripped once, mud staining her new jeans and the weeds stinging her hands, but she struggled back up and kept running, ignoring the wet spots on her knees, the pain in her hands, the words echoing in her head. Ducking under and pushing through the twigs and small branches, Delilah finally collapsed on the dirt floor of the treehouse. She couldn’t have said how long she stayed there, breath ragged, eyes bright with unshed tears, looking, remembering.
“Lilah?”
A quick turn of her head brought Bryan into view, brown hair mussed from the wind, his eyes full of a pity she did not want.
“He’ll come,” she told him in a shaking voice. “He’s going to come. We were going to meet, he was going to -”
“Lilah.”
His voice evidenced his concern, his worry, and the truth that Delilah refused to accept.
“He’s going to come!” She stood up and shouted at him. It helped to shout, to be angry. If she was angry, she couldn’t be sad.
“He’s not, Lilah.” Bryan’s voice was almost a whisper, too gently insistent to deny.
“Shut up! Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!” Just glaring at him didn’t seem enough to make him unsay it, so Delilah found herself running up to him and pounding his chest with her fist. “Mike will come! He said he would!” Each word followed a punch to Bryan’s chest, covered in a navy blue V-neck, which felt soft under her clenched hands. The blows started to slow down, to lose their strength as she whispered, tears finally forming in her eyes, “He said he would. He said,” she finally looked up at Bryan, who was looking at her with sympathy and understanding and something else that she had always pretended wasn’t there. “He said it was an anniversary present,” Delilah told him, her anger fading away completely, replaced by all the sorrow that finally caught up with her. Her fists opened, and she buried her head in Bryan’s cashmere sweater, holding onto him as an anchor to weather the storm of emptiness and heartbreak and sadness.
And Bryan just stood there, holding her as she realized that the accident was real, that Michael was gone, that the fantastically expensive anniversary ring supposed to be on her finger was lost somewhere on the highway. Bryan stood there, just as he always did. He stood there in sorrow like the day he moved away, watching his four friends wave at his parents’ car; in shock like the day he saw her walking across his college campus, grown-up and even more beautiful; in disbelief like the day Michael announced their engagement, Delilah glowing and showing off her ring; in stifled love like the day of their wedding, where she stole Bryan’s breath, and had eyes for no one else but Mike; in empathy like today, when he heard of the crash, of his friend’s death and Delilah’s rushed exit.
He wishes that he could do more than stand there. He wants to do more than stand there, but knows that she doesn’t need that now. She needs a warm cashmere pillow and arms around her to help it hurt less. And Bryan had spent his life trying to be what she needed. Wait, breathes the tree. Be still and wait. Breathe, drink, eat, stand, and wait. And so Bryan stood and waited, his arms around the woman he loved, listening to advice from a tree.
Trees
It was always about the tree. The path that led into their secret place had low branches, warning anyone grown up size that this was no place for them. A dirt path was lined with rocks from the small creek, a result of yet another episode of playing house. Some kids had a tree house, a bunch of boards nailed together and placed in a tree, which Delilah always thought was strange. Houses don’t belong in trees. Hers was a treehouse, a roof created by the branches and leaves, seats and tables and beds found in the shape of the fat low limbs. The tree was a house, and though they used their limited carpentry skills to nail an abandoned board in the side of the trunk to use as a shelf, and made a swing out of a plank and a hanging rope, the tree was a house because it was a tree, not because of the house-like things put in it. Bryan had engineered a sink by placing rocks in a circle by the natural dam in the creek, and Delilah and the other girls loved to pretend to clean the empty bottles they found, and wash their hands in it. There were five of them, three girls and two boys that used the treehouse. Michael and Mary were from two houses down, blonde and blue eyed, Michael always pretending to hunt, while Mary made pictures with rocks. Delilah and her sisters, Hope and Keturah, loved to act like this was a jungle, and they were magical fairies and elves who thought humans were silly. Delilah was the oldest of her sisters, and second oldest of the group at seven years old. Bryan was nine, and did everything Delilah commanded him to with an easy smile. She came up with the ideas, and Bryan helped make them come true. Bryan had found this place first, and had shown it to her as a bribe to climb under the barbed wire and go into this strange place that had no houses, no paved roads, just hills and green grass. When he took her by the hand and led her down into the dry creek bed, then up onto a small bank, then under the low branches and she saw the giant tree with its low moss covered boughs and the open space shielded from the sun by a green ceiling, she grinned widely and shouted with joy.
“It’s perfect! It’ll be our house!”
“Our what?”
“House! This can be the bed, and this can be the kitchen, and we can climb up to the look out to see if anyone’s attacking us. It’s perfect!”
Bryan, who was concerned about cooties from doing girly stuff until she mentioned the lookout and ‘attacking’, grinned, shrugged, and went to help her find a rope for a swing. She giggled when he told her the tree talked to him.
“What does it talk about?”
Bryan shrugged, “Tree stuff. Standing, waiting, eating, drinking, breathing. It’s weird, but it’s tree stuff.”
And Delilah had laughed in her happy way, and promised to keep their treehouse a secret.
Well, Hope found out, and threatened to tell everyone unless she came, and they couldn’t leave Keturah alone, and then Hope told her best friend Mary anyway, who brought her brother, and soon they had all worked out a family order. Delilah and Bryan were the parents, who bossed everyone around, and taught them how to mash up leaves, and hide from dragons, which roared across the sky and landed at the airport over the hills. The girls brought dolls and food and pretended that they were frightened of the tigers, and Michael declared he’d fight them off with his plastic sword.
Twenty years later, a much older and more distressed Delilah crashed through the brush, hoping that if she ran fast enough, she would leave the news behind, that it wouldn’t catch up. She tripped once, mud staining her new jeans and the weeds stinging her hands, but she struggled back up and kept running, ignoring the wet spots on her knees, the pain in her hands, the words echoing in her head. Ducking under and pushing through the twigs and small branches, Delilah finally collapsed on the dirt floor of the treehouse. She couldn’t have said how long she stayed there, breath ragged, eyes bright with unshed tears, looking, remembering.
“Lilah?”
A quick turn of her head brought Bryan into view, brown hair mussed from the wind, his eyes full of a pity she did not want.
“He’ll come,” she told him in a shaking voice. “He’s going to come. We were going to meet, he was going to -”
“Lilah.”
His voice evidenced his concern, his worry, and the truth that Delilah refused to accept.
“He’s going to come!” She stood up and shouted at him. It helped to shout, to be angry. If she was angry, she couldn’t be sad.
“He’s not, Lilah.” Bryan’s voice was almost a whisper, too gently insistent to deny.
“Shut up! Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!” Just glaring at him didn’t seem enough to make him unsay it, so Delilah found herself running up to him and pounding his chest with her fist. “Mike will come! He said he would!” Each word followed a punch to Bryan’s chest, covered in a navy blue V-neck, which felt soft under her clenched hands. The blows started to slow down, to lose their strength as she whispered, tears finally forming in her eyes, “He said he would. He said,” she finally looked up at Bryan, who was looking at her with sympathy and understanding and something else that she had always pretended wasn’t there. “He said it was an anniversary present,” Delilah told him, her anger fading away completely, replaced by all the sorrow that finally caught up with her. Her fists opened, and she buried her head in Bryan’s cashmere sweater, holding onto him as an anchor to weather the storm of emptiness and heartbreak and sadness.
And Bryan just stood there, holding her as she realized that the accident was real, that Michael was gone, that the fantastically expensive anniversary ring supposed to be on her finger was lost somewhere on the highway. Bryan stood there, just as he always did. He stood there in sorrow like the day he moved away, watching his four friends wave at his parents’ car; in shock like the day he saw her walking across his college campus, grown-up and even more beautiful; in disbelief like the day Michael announced their engagement, Delilah glowing and showing off her ring; in stifled love like the day of their wedding, where she stole Bryan’s breath, and had eyes for no one else but Mike; in empathy like today, when he heard of the crash, of his friend’s death and Delilah’s rushed exit.
He wishes that he could do more than stand there. He wants to do more than stand there, but knows that she doesn’t need that now. She needs a warm cashmere pillow and arms around her to help it hurt less. And Bryan had spent his life trying to be what she needed. Wait, breathes the tree. Be still and wait. Breathe, drink, eat, stand, and wait. And so Bryan stood and waited, his arms around the woman he loved, listening to advice from a tree.