Strings

There’s a string that clings to one of my branches; a string from the cap of a boy who taught me how to love. I hold my breath, willing it to hold on. Sometimes I wish I could close my fingers around it, tuck it away somewhere like Sam might have done, but I can’t will my withered limbs to grow. So I stand fast, as I always have, wondering where a tree keeps its heart and how mine can hurt so badly, wherever it is.

I look anywhere, everywhere but Grace’s window, where a pair of dark eyes stare back at me through the web of white flakes. The same memories that are written on her face are etched in mine.

~~~

“Hey! Wait for me!” she hollered as she skipped out into the bitter air, slamming the front door behind her. Tiny hands and feet stuck out of a solid mass of pale-pink snowsuit. She ran as I imagined a starfish would, with a pointy, purple hat completing the costume.

“What are we gonna do?” she asked Sam, skipping alongside him.

“I’m going to climb to the top of this old tree,” he said. “It’s about time somebody does.”

“Nuh uh,” Grace answered, eyeing her brother’s puffy pants and clunky snow boots. “You look like a big ugly muffin. You’ll never make it up there.”

Sam flinched, a bit disappointed.

“Yeah?” he said. “You just watch. I never said you had to join me. Some adventures are better left for the experts.” And he turned up his nose as he turned on his heel toward me.

“I don’t want to watch,” Grace yelled back. “Either you’ll fall out of the tree and die or you’ll rip your snowsuit and I’ll have to see your stupid Kermit the Frog underwear!”

Sam ignored the low blow—an obvious attempt to stop him from going ahead with the climb—and marched right at me. He threw off his mittens and shook out his already-frozen fingers, jumping up and grabbing onto one of my lower limbs. A pair of deeply treaded boots wedged into my trunk and made their way one above the other, one above the other. He reached up to his right, then to his left; I could feel his strength and confidence as he pulled himself up with ease, his slippery snow pants rustling against my rippled bark. Warm breath puffed out in clouds around him, thawing my frozen shell as he rose. He rested as he reached my shoulder, only a few more feet and he would have nowhere left to climb. Small piles of snowflakes settled on his knit cap as the flimsy limbs above him shook.

There was no sound but that of Sam’s breathing and the occasional car sliding through street slush a few blocks down. The house, covered in dark blue wooden shingles, let out stack after stack of white smoke with each exhale. Thick icicles lined the gutters, reaching all the way down to the bushes below. The street sat empty at the edge of the yard, aged and drizzled with tar in the places where years of freezing and thawing had fractured the asphalt. Parked cars in drive ways sagged under the weight of rooftop snowfall.

Sam sat with his back against one of my steadier branches, his legs swinging through the empty air beneath him. For a few minutes I held up my friend, trying to explain what it was like to be a tree. Trying to tell him that in a single moment I could see the house and the street and the sky and the ground all at once; that I knew things about people, and stars, and far away places without knowing how or why. But he couldn’t have known how much I had seen, and heard, and felt. He couldn’t have known that I longed to be like him; to move, and sing, and arm-wrestle the way he could.

I envied his flexibility, the way he was made—every joint allowing him to reach, to bend, to jump, to swing, to flee. And the way he could walk through the front door and let the steam from a cup of hot chocolate thaw his bright red nose. I’d watch through the window as he and Grace settled in a pile of blankets by the fire while I surrendered to the tireless rhythm of xylem and phloem and dirt and sun. Though I was thirty feet tall, I looked up to him.

 

I’d known Sam his whole life, all ten years of it. His parents moved here before he was born. Before them I watched over an old woman named Marge; back then I was just a lonely red maple, listening to her hum as she shuffled through the garden. I was content to let the years melt by, my trunk thickening one ring at a time. But then Sam came, and everything was new. By the time he was a year old, Mrs. Shale made a habit of setting up a blanket on the grass below; she trusted me to shade her son as he looked up at my colors and sang to me as only a little one could.

In the lingering silence Sam ran his hand along a limb, then patted the sturdy branch beneath him. For a moment, my steady arm the only thing keeping him suspended, Sam depended on me. I willed him to know that my stiff skeleton was no reflection of my soft and sappy core. If you were to fall, I would reach out and catch you… I thought it because I couldn’t say it, but I hoped it was true.

“Urmph!” A groan from below broke the stillness of the moment. Grace had seen enough of her brother’s triumph. She took a running start and leapt at me in an attempt to get both arms and both legs latched around my trunk. She failed to secure herself and slid down to the bed of snow beneath her. Something like a smile bloomed from my innermost rings. I wished I could bare my teeth and laugh with her as she fell back, arms and legs extended in every direction, just a few flaps away from forming a snow angel.

Sam left his perch on my shoulder, but not before a single string from his cap caught on a shoot and snagged him back. He brushed the top of his head, leaving the string behind, and started to work his way down through my tangle of branches. As he reached my lowermost arm, he extended one of his down to Grace. She stood, took his hand with both of hers, and let him pull her up as she scurried along my trunk. She leaned back to look up at me and her hat sailed off, swallowed by the white ocean below.

“Ahh!” she squealed, turning her head to watch it fall. She looked back at Sam with wagon wheel eyes as a mop of dark mahogany hat-hair unfolded behind her. Letting out a sigh of relief, she finally perched beside him. I could tell she had worked hard—although her brother had done most of the heavy lifting—from the line of sweat that traced her face and the slick little curls that popped up around her forehead in every direction. Sam settled down next to her, and they sat quietly. After a few moments he took off his knit cap and pulled it down over her exposed ears so far she could no longer see.

“Hey!” she grumbled as she straightened the hat out and gave him a shove. Sam pitched back and Grace and I watched with wide eyes as his arms beat the air. He stabled himself and laughed, though I thought I felt him grip me a bit tighter.

The next year, Sam sat reading, wedged in a small hollow at the base of my trunk. My leaves were beginning to turn red and rigid, and a few had already gathered at his feet. Grace hunched close by, poking at potato bugs. With a sudden gust the breeze lifted her heavy hair off her shoulders as she picked up a thin book and scanned the familiar cover.

The image was of a brown, fuzzy, brother and sister dressed as pirate and princess, towing bags of Halloween candy behind them. A black bat flew beneath the title, Trick or Treat, Little Critter while a white hound howled in the distance. The first time they read it—back when Sam could barely read and I was just learning that I could—was in my shade on a purple blanket that doubled as a rowboat. Every now and then one would tumble off into the grass while the other screamed, “Man overboard!”

Grace slid the book silently across the space between them. Sam’s eyes left his own story and followed the Little Critters as they inched towards him. He tried to conceal a smirk as he picked up the book and began.

“Halloween was coming, and we had a lot to do to get ready.”

Sam read, his voice fading to a distant place as I gazed across the street. There sat a fellow tree with two wide eyes, a crooked nose, and a bushy moustache hammered into him. He had been that way for many Halloweens, the people that lived there never bothering to take the spooky face down between seasons.

I felt bad for him. Young families would walk by and cringe—I would cringe if I could. A few years ago I got sick of staring at a nameless face, so I took to calling him Eugene, after the old mailman who had a similar mustache and walked with a sad limp.

I tuned back in as Sam finished and silence followed the story. Grace’s eyes were closed, her head resting against me.

“I’m going to marry Frankie Furlow,” she said.

Sam’s brow wrinkled. “You’re in first grade, Grace. People don’t do that until at least fifteenth grade, right?”

“I know,” she said without turning to look at him. “But he always stares at me with googly eyes during class. And at the Halloween party today he tried to hold my hand.”

Sam’s eyes widened.

Grace continued, “Maybe he was extra brave today because he was wearing a ninja turtles costume. But he did it. He touched my hand and next he’ll ask me to marry him.”

“I’ll show him ‘extra brave!’” Sam yelled. “No stinking ninja turtle is going to marry my little sister!”

Grace glared at him and yelled back, “Fine!”

“Good,” Sam said. He returned to his book, the issue settled.

Grace sat with her arms crossed for a moment, smart enough not to argue with him. Instead she strode over to the flowerbed and pulled up a small, pointed rock. I could see her wheels turning as she tested the sharp end with her pointer finger. Tripping over a faded blue watering can on the way, she skipped back to me with adventure in her eyes. She settled out of Sam’s line of sight, her knobby knees nestled in the spaces between my roots. Sticking her tongue out to the side, she went to work.

Fragments of my coarse outer shell fell away as tiny, searing scrapes merged into the crooked letters G and F with a sagging heart between them. An unexpected sort of throbbing began to spread from the place where she carved, and the fresh air felt strange on the pieces of me that had been buried under layers of bark. I glanced over at Eugene as she was breaking me open. I wondered if he wanted to help, to pick up his roots and shoo her away. But he stayed put, staring just as he always had. I couldn’t call out, or bend low to alert Sam. I could only watch, heart splintering, as my face was forever changed by a first-grade fling.

 

Of course, I forgave her. And a few weeks later, Frankie came to play. They chased each other around the yard, skipping through piles of my fallen leaves. When they grew tired Grace settled in my shade—just below her masterpiece—and Frankie landed beside her. Neither said a word; they just sat catching their breath. Grace looked up and smiled as streams of warm light crept through the cracks in my shadowy armor, lighting up her face.

The sad heart caught Frankie’s eye. Keeping his thumb stuck to the dirt, he picked up the rest of his fingers and settled them on her soft hand. I couldn’t believe how much they had said in the silence, one small gesture taking the place of a thousand words. And I wondered if my gesture had been stillness, allowing Grace to carve into me, allowing the sun to shine on her through the spaces between my leaves. Allowing—

“Hey!” shouted a voice from above them, and my limbs shook violently as Sam dropped to the ground. He had been sitting quietly, waiting for his sister’s suitor to make a move.

Grace and Frankie both jumped to their feet, the innocent moment lost. Sam now stood in front of Frankie, pinning him up against me with the point of a foam pirate sword.

“Don’t touch my sister,” Sam said, with wild leaves and twig-pieces sticking out of his hair.

Frankie just whimpered, the fluffy gray blade preventing reply.

“Are you crazy?” Grace yelled. Not waiting for Sam’s answer she wound up and, with a furious swing, her knuckles met his chin. He stumbled back, holding his mouth and mumbling something I couldn’t understand. Frankie seized his chance and took flight, running down the street and around the same corner he had come from. Grace looked wide-eyed from her fist to her brother.

“What was that for?” he asked. “I was trying to protect you.”

Her expression softened.

“Sorry,” she said, and she let out a sigh that turned into a chuckle. Sam couldn’t help laughing himself as he rubbed his jaw.

And as they walked back into the blue house I had a greater understanding of what love really was: a gentle touch and a punch in the jaw all at once. I wished I could have given them a silent sign that I had seen, and that I knew, and that I had felt it too.

 

Some years later, Grace and Sam sat at my base covered in a thick purple blanket. It wasn’t cold out, but on the night before Sam left for school they wanted to be warm and close. I thanked them soundlessly for choosing this spot, their warmth spreading through me like a budding rose.

“You’re going to have to take my place under this old tree,” Sam said.

“I will,” Grace said.

Ever since the Little Critters story, reading joined climbing and chasing Grace as one of Sam’s favored pass times. I thought of all of the books he had enjoyed in my shade, all of the places we had gone as I read over his shoulder. Some days I found myself on a mountainside, one tree in a million as families drove by to meet each other at weddings and reunions. Other days I was framing a woodland trail, my branches mingling to form a shady canopy for creatures that didn’t exist in our world.

But this time Sam was going without me. The familiar sound of hounds barking in the distance filled the darkness and the evening shadows gave Eugene’s glare an eerie glow. The two leaned against me in the quiet. Tears ran down Grace’s cheeks, a glossy moon reflected in their tracks, and I wished it would rain, so I could cry too.

As the family left to take Sam early the next morning, I waited for the wind to catch me and stretch me in an effort to wave goodbye.

But my goodbye was not for long.

Less than a year later, Sam came home, and all of his belongings came with him. He carried nothing, but something heavy was weighing him down.

Sam. I wanted to say his name, to call him over and pull him close, but I stood quietly, watching him curve up the front walk.

Grace opened the front door to greet him; the bright purple Easter wreath clashed with her sad eyes. She led her pale brother inside and into her arms as the door behind them.

Sam was sick. He stayed in most of the time while white smoke wheezed out of the chimney, a fire forever burning in the fireplace to keep him warm. But every few weeks he would emerge to go to this or that doctor, this or that appointment. He lost his hair and I lost his smile.

Soon families—some I knew, others I’d never seen before—began stopping by, coming with warm dinners and leaving with wet eyes.

It went on like that for months. May turned to June, and June to July, and the smoke rose, a thick cloud forever hanging over the Shale house. I breathed it in, and my roots soaked it up, and the same dust that covered all of them covered me. As the woodpile wasted away I offered my own branches to keep Sam warm, but there was no reply.

One summer day, a dark blue car rolled up the drive carrying a small woman with big red hair. Just as she stepped out of her car, Mrs. Shale was there to greet her.

“You must be Beth Ann,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am,” the woman replied. She had a kind face, a stethoscope, and a sober seriousness about her. I wondered how long she had been doing a job as sad as this. “I’m sorry to hear about your son, Mrs. Shale.”

“Please, call me Sarah. We’ve got him set up in the living room. I’ll take you in. My husband will get those bags for you.”

And Beth Ann joined the smoke-cloud as a household staple.

~~~

Now, Grace is perched by her window—the same window they used to run a string through, one can inside, up to Grace’s ear, and the other among my branches, up to Sam’s. Through her sad stare I can still see glimpses of the little girl that wrapped her arms around me in her youth.

Today the air is stale and the streets are full of snow again, keeping cars parked and families huddled indoors. The houses on Seventh Street are turning their porch lights on one by one as the dusk creeps in.

The living room shades are drawn, but there is a movement in the kitchen. Beth Ann enters first, Mrs. Shale behind her. Mr. Shale disappears down the hall and resurfaces in Grace’s room. She turns away from me and follows him. They all gather around the stained kitchen table, Mr. and Mrs. Shale holding hands. Beth Ann is telling them something. And they are all crying. Mrs. Shale covers her mouth, trying to silence sobs that I cannot hear. I can’t see Grace’s face either but she rocks back and forth, her shoulders keeping a steady, sorrowful beat.

I try to look away, staring down as the settling snow swallows my roots. To my right, a tiny, rusted rooster watches over the frosted garden. Next door a set of red and blue balloons is tangled in my neighbor’s empty branches.

But the distractions fade away as the front door begins to open. Back in the kitchen, Mr. and Mrs. Shale, Grace, and Beth Ann haven’t moved.

A pair of watery gray eyes settles on me, and Sam—not looking at all like my old friend—stands in the doorway, framed by a clear glass pane. He looks like a patchwork of broken puzzle pieces. Glossy eyes held up by hollow cheeks, held up by a drooping jawbone; nothing quite fitting together, nothing connecting the way it should. There is no hair on his head, and there is no light in him.

He scans the yard through the screen of silver flakes, and I wonder if he is just reminding himself of its once-familiar blueprint. Then, his fingers fasten around the door handle and a gust of icy air pushes him back as the door swings open. Dressed in an old blue nightshirt and gray cotton pants, his bare feet sink into the white sea between us.

Sam, no. You can’t be out here, I want to say. But I open my arms to receive him, though they have been fixed this way forever.

He reaches out to me, resting a withered hand on my trunk. He is shaking and his fingers don’t feel strong like they used to. They are flesh and bone, but they are not Sam’s. His skin is almost translucent, fading into the chalky atmosphere. But a shadow of that old confidence is cast across his face and I realize that he needs to stretch, to breathe. He has been stuck in the house all this time, unable to grow.

He glances over his shoulder at his family, then looks up to my topmost branches—maybe remembering how easily he used to settle himself among them. How different it must seem now, his breath escaping short and labored.

Nevertheless, he reaches up to that same old anchor branch and he hangs, feet just inches off the ground. I can feel the last bits of energy draining from him as his bare feet ram up against my side. Slowly, one above the other, they inch up my stem; he is grunting and graceless. As his feet reach the intersection of my trunk and lowest branches, he takes a moment to rest. If he tilted his head back to gaze at the upside-down house, he might look like a kid on the monkey bars of a snowy playground. But his arms and legs are shaking with cold infirmity, and there is no youth in his desperate clinging.

At last he reaches to his left, grabbing another branch for support as he pulls himself upright and takes a seat.

Please let this be enough, I plead. He is still, and we are together, and I wish he would go back to the hearth, where it is warm and safe. But it isn’t enough, and soon he is grabbing for another, higher branch. One by one he climbs, cold sweat dripping down his nose.

Finally he reaches that same spot, right at my shoulder. The street and its surroundings are so still, and he is so light—a wisp of air, a piece of thread.

As we sit together in perfect silence, Sam swings his feet and I try to imagine his thoughts. We are not as different as we seem.

Sam turns to follow the sound as a green car churns up the street. A gust of wind rustles a balloon free from the tree next door and he watches it rise up and over his right shoulder. As he stares into the empty gray sky, something catches his eye.

The string.

I try to tell him that I remember the day he left it, that I have tried my best to keep it safe all these years. I think maybe he does know, maybe he does remember, because he doesn’t just look at it, he reaches out into space for it. A trembling hand grasps at the air between Sam and the branch that clutches the string.

Soon enough, two feet perch themselves on a slippery limb and he is standing. And I wish I could let go of it, let it drop right down into his lap. But it stays put, just out of his reach.

Don’t, I say.

He creaks as he uncurls, extending an arm as far as it will go. Now he is on his tiptoes; his fingertips are just inches away. I hold my breath as his left foot leaves the branch in one final strain. He covers the distance, seizing the string between his middle and pointer fingers.

For a moment he balances, staring down at a memory. Staring into the past, at a time when Grace might have been swinging her feet, singing just below him.

Instead she bursts through the front door, the rest following in a frigid panic.

“Sam! What are you doing? What are you, crazy?” Grace shrieks.

But he doesn’t hear her.

“Come on down, Bud,” Mr. Shale pleads, his voice cracking.

But Sam is drifting to a place only he can see.

He is smiling, dreaming, happy.

And he is falling.

Grace’s mouth drops open—she is screaming and I cannot hear her.

Up folds over down, and time folds around the two, and for a moment I’ve lost one hundred years of footing. I am branches and roots, bending, reaching, moving, closing these arms that have been open for so long.

But my sweeping isn’t sweeping, and my reaching isn’t reaching, and my cries escape in loud cracks and heavy thuds. Everything is slow, and my heart breaks as, one by one, my limbs snap loose with the weight of my fading friend.

In an instant it is over. He is quiet, resting in the snow, the severed pieces of me resting with him.

His parents rush over, shaking him, holding him, but he is gone. Grace staggers. Lost in the place she calls home, she stretches out a cold hand to steady herself. She rests her head gently against me and her frozen tears gather at my feet. She slides down to take Sam’s old spot at the base of my trunk. And I do not move, and I do not speak. I hold her.