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THE TREES
They used to climb this tree together. It is huge still, bent like a
broken leg, spreading over the road and the lawn. Around it other
limbs lean and splinter away: this one, their tree, was the only one
worth climbing, and from it they could see the buckles and rises of
roots underneath, the wide lawn, the lost tennis balls that had rolled
down their church's roof and now rested in its gutters, and then
beyond that the hills of the cemetery. Behind the tree was the
street, fat and shimmering in the summer heat when they played.
The youth pastor let them out at ten-thirty and from then until twelve, when their parents' services ended, all the kids were free to explore the property. They ran across the graveyard, lifting their knees carefully and quickly over the broken stones, or sat on the steps, clapped hands, and watched the gravel pop under the tires of cars swinging in and out of the parking lot. Later one of them found a space under the trees where the branches had grown together to form a dome, and the ground was covered in yellow leaves, and this became their throne room, and they gave each other the names of Egyptian gods and bowed and ran errands for Osiris when he asked. But before any of this, before the fort-building and the fairs each October, they had their summers, and the tree.
Amy remembers when she fell. Her hands were just too small then to hold some of those branches, so black and knotted and giant, and inevitably she made missteps, she slipped down. She reached and fell and hit some limb, she flew toward the trunk and grabbed for it. One of her hands caught and she quick pulled herself close to the tree. The side of her face smashed against the bark. She slipped down again, caught herself again, held onto the trunk and gasped. Dry leaves rustled and swarmed around her. Her face had slid against the tree. Her face burned.
The older boy climbed down next to her in a minute. All the while he was calling her name. He watched her while she tried to catch her breath.
"Your eye," he said. He reached out to lay fingers on her lid where the bark had caught. It was hot and cold. His hands were so thin. When they bent his knuckles protruded impossibly. He said, "Your eye," again, and withdrew his fingers, and showed her a spattering of pink.
"Oh," Amy said. She pushed her face against her shoulder.
He put his hand on her back, two of his fingers brushed against and then slid under the edge of her shirt, and he said, "Climb down. I'll watch for you." He tested all the branches. Underneath them the cars swished by, and she could hear shouts from the other kids floating in the breeze over the hills. They got to the last branch but even this one was high, four feet off the ground at least. He didn't jump down from there this time. Instead he straddled the branch and leaned his back against the trunk. She looked down through her legs and there he was.
"Here," he said. He lifted his arms. The light through the leaves dappled his skin and made the fine hairs shine. He was here to help her. He could be her brother. She came down.
He held her by the armpits. She twisted a little and sat facing him from him on the branch. It was so big she could sit cross-legged, so she did. He reached for her face, he said, "It's okay," he held her jaw with his huge hands. He looked at her.
Inside the church their parents drank coffee and talked together about summer camps and job openings and weekend retreats. Some of the kids ran silently across the lawn. Amy shivered.
He looked at her so tenderly. He brought his mouth close to her face, he circled her eye socket with his lips. She thought suddenly of putting her hand too close to a light bulb. His breath steamed against the raw skin.
When the kids played outside, later, in the throne room, he was always Osiris, because he was the oldest, and she was always his queen. These were the rules of the games he made. He would send the others for stones and cups of water, and when they had gone, and the trees had hushed and fallen back into green and glowing barriers, he would wind fingers around her thighs. His knuckles plunged. Amy always shivered. She couldn't help it.
She remembers she was eight years old clinging to that trunk, that first summer day, her skin scraped and hot. Could she have been more careful? Climbed up instead of followed him? But he was underneath her. He said he would watch as she came down. He did that. He put his hands on her and watched her.
Julia Phillipsis a student at Barnard College in New York City. (September 2009)
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