3. 

 

     Nate woke up on the ceiling the next morning. His head was crushing his mind, and in a mirror he saw that he had maybe broken the side of his face. He took four ibuprofens to curb the pain, but his empty stomach forced them back up. He spent the first part of the day checking and rechecking the rooms, and the garage, and the other houses as if his children were his keys and he was late for work. 

     Climbing to the garage again he felt the wind from the elm tree hit him as he passed by. “Hello!” he called in through the roots.

     “Hello. Hello. Hello,” the empty space called back.

     “Michael!” he called.

     “Michael. Michael. Michael.” 

     “Bea!” 

     “Bea. Bea. Bea.”

     He thought about climbing in, but knew he wouldn’t. That place wasn’t for him. Instead he climbed down to the tire swing and sat quietly. He’d never been in it, but now understood why his daughter loved it so. Hanging from a rope, you defied gravity. He pushed off the trunk with his foot and stared at the gnarled and rooted earth above. 

     “Once there was a boy and girl who lived in a world that was no longer meant for them,” he began as the swing swayed in a lazy circle. 

 

     One day, alone, the brother and sister were arguing when they were interrupted by the tree in their backyard. Was the tree magic? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it was magic but not unique. Maybe all trees are magic. But, that’s neither here nor there. The bottom line is that the tree had begun to sing to them…

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     Nate told himself the story when he returned to his house to eat, and he told it to himself as he gathered the pages of The Giving Tree and began taping them all back together, the way Michael had intended. 

     He told himself the story as he pulled the portrait of his parents down from the wall on a trip they had taken to Alaska. They were standing in front of a green lake, smiling, with arms around each other’s waists. Nate carefully cut their images out, then applied glue to the back and pasted them to the black construction paper that had been poked with tiny holes for stars. Nate did the same for Karen’s parents, and the same for Larry. He cried and said he’d see everyone soon, as he pasted them in and scratched “X’s” over their eyes with Larry’s wood handled pocketknife.

 

     The sister easily slid up inside the roots, but the brother was bigger and had more trouble of it. He squeezed and she pulled, and he finally made it in, but not before he tore his clothes and scraped his skin. At first it was dark but as they ascended deeper into the earth it began to brighten, different chambers glowing blue, orange, or purple…

 

     He had to find just the right photo of Karen. Her portrait had to be perfect. The one with her in the hospital bed when Bea was born would never do, she looked too tired, and she’d kill him if he used it. Same with the shot of her and baby Michael. Sure, Karen was beautiful in their wedding portrait, but that was not who she really was in her white lace dress and crown of flowers. She was too young in the photo of them taken at the base of Mount LaRue, before the climb he had instructed her on. It was the first shot of them together, and they weren’t even a couple yet when the picture had been taken, but they were a few hours later. She’d teased him later that he was some sort of a prostitute because he had still taken her money. 

     Nate laughed when he thought of that. She had always been able to make him laugh when she wanted to. She stopped trying at the end. She’d didn’t care if he laughed anymore or not.   He studied their twenty-five year old selves and willed a different outcome. Oh well, this world just didn’t have any nice surprises left. 

     Nate settled on a photo of Karen working in the garden while pregnant with Beatrix, wearing cut off jeans and a red bandana over her brown hair. He chose the photo because she was wearing sunglasses and we couldn’t bear “X’ing” out her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said pasting on her picture. “I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job taking care of our kids.” 

 

     The brother and sister spent the day playing the games with the children of the roots. But then the day came to an end, and the Root Queen said, “You must now decide if you are to stay in this realm, or if will return to the realm from which you came.” The brother and sister looked to each other for an answer, but neither could find one in the other’s face…

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     Michael had been seven and Beatrix had been three at The Flip, and the only available pictures were now pretty dated. Nate settled on a shot of them playing in the backyard together. On the last page of the book where the tree hung alone, Nate expanded the roots outs with a pen to mirror the new reality, and then glued his children there.

     For his own photo, he cut out his twenty-five year old self from the base of Mount LaRue. “Might as well be remembered at my best.”

     “Where are you going to go?” The picture of three-year old Beatrix asked.

     “I’m going into space,” Nate said.

     “I’ll miss you though,” she said.

     “I’ll miss you too, sweetheart, but it’ll be ok.”

     “What are you gonna do up there?” Seven-year old Michael asked.

     “I’m gonna find mom,” Nate said turning the page back to the black construction paper. “I’m going to find her and then we’ll both look up at you from space.”

     Then Beatrix said, “What happened to your face, Daddy?” and she touched the cut on the side of his head, knocking him out of the chair and onto the floor. Nate looked up at his children, both faces covered in dirt and worry. He reached out to see if they were real.

     “Are you ok dad?” Michael asked.

     “You’re real,” Nate said.

     Michael and Beatrix looked at each other, confused. Then Nate grabbed them both, kissing their dirty faces over and over. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

     Michael said “We’re sorry we left, dad, but…” 

     “Never mind!” he said. “We’re moving to the Super Foods!” 

     “We are?” Beatrix said.

     “Yes!” Nate said. “There’s other people! I saw them!”

     “We know,” Michael said.

     He pinched them to see if they were real again. He pinched himself. “It’ll be different. I’ll be different. I’ll be a good dad,” he wept.

     “You are a good daddy,” Beatrix said.

     He shook his head, but said, “I’ve got it all worked out. We’re leaving here today”

     “But dad…” Michael said.

     “We gotta pull apart…” Nate said.

     “Daddy!” they said.

     “…all of our track.”

     “Dad!”

     “Then we’ll…”

     “Will you shut up and listen to your kids for a second?” the long thought gone voice called from outside.

     Nate shut up, stood, and staggered to the back door.

     “Can’t you see they’re trying to tell you something?” Hanging from the roots of the tree, Karen looked more annoyed than excited. Nate wondered what the kids had been telling her. He reached out for the rope to climb out and greet her as his cutout slipped from his fingers, caught a gust of wind, and flew down the street until it gently lifted off the ground. It sailed off into the atmosphere, then the stratosphere, soaring past the debris belt and the moon. 

     He was glad no one had “X’d” out his eyes, because from up here, it all looked pretty good.

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