the table in the kitchen and tell me you’ve fallen in love. When I ask you to tell me about whoever it is, you look at me, reproachful.
Not with
someone
, you say.
Then you tell me you’re in love with a tree.
You don’t look at all well. You are pale. I think maybe you have a fever or are incubating a cold. You toy with the matting under the toaster. I pretend calm. I don’t look angry or upset at all. I scan the line of old crumbs beneath the matting, still there from god knows how many of our breakfasts. I think to myself that you must be lying for a good reason because you never usually lie, it’s very unlike you to. But then recently, it’s true, you have been very unlike yourself. You have been defiant-looking, worried-looking and clear-faced as a child by turns; you have been sneaking out of bed and leaving the house as soon as you think I’m asleep, and you keep telling me odd facts about seed dispersal and reforestation. Last night you told me how it takes the energy of fifty leaves for a tree to make one apple, how one tree can produce millions of leaves, how there are two kinds of wood in the trunk of a tree, heartwood and sapwood, and that heartwood is where the tree packs away its waste products, and how trees in woods or groves that get less sunlight because they grow beneath other trees are called understory trees.
I fell in love with a tree. I couldn’t not
. I am perfectly within my right to be angry. Instead, I keep things smooth. There’s a way to do this. I try to think of the right thing to say.
Like in the myth? I say.
It’s not a myth, you say. What myth? It’s really real.
Okay, I say. I say it soothingly. I nod.
Do you believe me? you say.
I do, I say. I sound as if I mean it.
It takes a little while before I do actually believe that it’s all about a tree and of course, when I do allow myself to, I’m relieved. More, I’m delighted. All these years we’ve been together and my only real rival in all this time doesn’t even have genitals. I go around for quite a while smiling at my good luck. A tree, for goodness sake, I laugh to myself as I pay for a bag of apples in the supermarket or pull the stick out of a cherry, flick the stick away, toss the cherry in the air and catch it in my mouth, pleased with myself, hoping someone saw.
I am such an innocent. I have no idea.
This is what it takes to make me believe it. I come home from work a couple of days later and find you gouging up the laminate in the middle of the front room with a hammer and a screwdriver. The laminate cost us a fortune to put down. We both know it did. I sit on the couch. I put my head in my hands. You look up brightly. Then you see my face.
I just want to see what’s underneath, you say.
Concrete, I say. Remember when we moved in and before there was a floor there was the concrete, and it was horrible, and that’s why we put the flooring down?
Yes, but I wanted to know what was under the concrete, you say. I needed to check.
And how are you going to get through the concrete? I say. You’ll never do it with a screwdriver.
I’m going to get a drill from Homebase, you say. We need a drill anyway.
You sit beside me on the couch and you tell me you are planning to move the tree into our house.
You can’t keep a tree in a house, I say.
Yes, you can, you say. I’ve looked into it. All you have to do is make sure that you give it enough water and that bees can pollinate it. We would need to keep some bees as well. Would that be okay?
What about light? I say. Trees need light. And what about its roots? That’s why people cut trees down, because the roots of them get under the foundations of houses and are dangerous and pull them up. It’s crazy to actually go out of your way to pull up the foundations of the house you’re living in. No?
You scowl beside me.
And what kind of a tree is it? I ask.
Don’t what kind of tree me, you say. I’ve told you, it’s irrelevant.
I haven’t actually
Not with
someone
, you say.
Then you tell me you’re in love with a tree.
You don’t look at all well. You are pale. I think maybe you have a fever or are incubating a cold. You toy with the matting under the toaster. I pretend calm. I don’t look angry or upset at all. I scan the line of old crumbs beneath the matting, still there from god knows how many of our breakfasts. I think to myself that you must be lying for a good reason because you never usually lie, it’s very unlike you to. But then recently, it’s true, you have been very unlike yourself. You have been defiant-looking, worried-looking and clear-faced as a child by turns; you have been sneaking out of bed and leaving the house as soon as you think I’m asleep, and you keep telling me odd facts about seed dispersal and reforestation. Last night you told me how it takes the energy of fifty leaves for a tree to make one apple, how one tree can produce millions of leaves, how there are two kinds of wood in the trunk of a tree, heartwood and sapwood, and that heartwood is where the tree packs away its waste products, and how trees in woods or groves that get less sunlight because they grow beneath other trees are called understory trees.
I fell in love with a tree. I couldn’t not
. I am perfectly within my right to be angry. Instead, I keep things smooth. There’s a way to do this. I try to think of the right thing to say.
Like in the myth? I say.
It’s not a myth, you say. What myth? It’s really real.
Okay, I say. I say it soothingly. I nod.
Do you believe me? you say.
I do, I say. I sound as if I mean it.
It takes a little while before I do actually believe that it’s all about a tree and of course, when I do allow myself to, I’m relieved. More, I’m delighted. All these years we’ve been together and my only real rival in all this time doesn’t even have genitals. I go around for quite a while smiling at my good luck. A tree, for goodness sake, I laugh to myself as I pay for a bag of apples in the supermarket or pull the stick out of a cherry, flick the stick away, toss the cherry in the air and catch it in my mouth, pleased with myself, hoping someone saw.
I am such an innocent. I have no idea.
This is what it takes to make me believe it. I come home from work a couple of days later and find you gouging up the laminate in the middle of the front room with a hammer and a screwdriver. The laminate cost us a fortune to put down. We both know it did. I sit on the couch. I put my head in my hands. You look up brightly. Then you see my face.
I just want to see what’s underneath, you say.
Concrete, I say. Remember when we moved in and before there was a floor there was the concrete, and it was horrible, and that’s why we put the flooring down?
Yes, but I wanted to know what was under the concrete, you say. I needed to check.
And how are you going to get through the concrete? I say. You’ll never do it with a screwdriver.
I’m going to get a drill from Homebase, you say. We need a drill anyway.
You sit beside me on the couch and you tell me you are planning to move the tree into our house.
You can’t keep a tree in a house, I say.
Yes, you can, you say. I’ve looked into it. All you have to do is make sure that you give it enough water and that bees can pollinate it. We would need to keep some bees as well. Would that be okay?
What about light? I say. Trees need light. And what about its roots? That’s why people cut trees down, because the roots of them get under the foundations of houses and are dangerous and pull them up. It’s crazy to actually go out of your way to pull up the foundations of the house you’re living in. No?
You scowl beside me.
And what kind of a tree is it? I ask.
Don’t what kind of tree me, you say. I’ve told you, it’s irrelevant.
I haven’t actually
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