The White Oak

Mary didn't know which woke her first, the sound of shattering glass or the feel of cold rain on her face, but she was yanked from dream to reality so quickly that her brain wobbled. She kicked her legs out of bed and yanked the tangled sheets from her feet. 

“What the...?” She blinked her gummy eyes and looked at the offending window. A branch had fallen and hit the lower panes, dumping smatters of rain and frigid air into the bedroom. It dawned on Mary that it might be time to have the tree looked at. Damn… that was going to be expensive.

She put the largest pieces of glass into a paper bag and shook the slivers out of her covers. By the time she got her sheets in the wash and vacuumed the mattress and floor, it was daylight. She found a suitable piece of cardboard to cover the window, and then treated herself to a hot shower and a cup of coffee. That stupid tree was old as the house and ugly, but probably worth saving if it didn't have to be hacked down just yet.

At 9:00 she called her neighbor Mrs. Gross to ask for a recommendation for an arborist. After jotting down the name, Mary endured Mrs. Gross’s questions with as much good humor as she could conjure. 

“Is it the big white oak? Is it dead? Does it need to come down?” 

"No, I don't think the whole thing needs to come down. Just a few branches trimmed probably."

"Oh thank goodness! You know, we used to play in that tree when I was a young girl. Kids would come from all over the neighborhood to climb it!” 

"I know you like the tree. I’ll do my best to save it. Thank you for the recommendation, Mrs. Gross. I appreciate it." Mary hung up the phone before Mrs. Gross could start on more memories of the neighborhood. She had already spooked Mary once with a tale of some unlucky kid falling out of the tree back in the forties or fifties. Mary wasn’t keen to hear any other gory details that Mrs. Gross felt like sharing. 

Mildred Gross was a lovely neighbor most days, when she wasn't pestering Mary about the landscaping or her plans for driveway repaving, or any of the hundred other little details that Mary didn’t have the energy to think about. 

Mary tried to remind herself to be charitable. Mrs. Gross was getting old and she was invested in the neighborhood. She had grown up right next door and only moved away because she got married, following her husband from Army posting to Army posting and raising three kids on military bases until they had the opportunity to retire. Mary supposed she would have felt the same way if it were her. 

“You could probably get whiplash from looking at the same neighborhood through two different lenses,” thought Mary, “nostalgia and old age. Who knows, maybe I’ll feel that way myself in thirty years.” 

Mary picked up the receiver of the kitchen phone and dragged the long cord with her to the dining room table, lugging the phone book along. If she was going to make phone calls she may as well be comfortable. Ten minutes later she had the arborist headed out on Tuesday. Mary had gone out to inspect the damage before calling Mrs. Gross. Despite the rude awakening and the shattered window, it wasn't too bad. A branch the size of her arm had fallen, and in the bare exposed end she could see that it had been chewed or damaged somehow. 

“A tree expert I am not,” thought Mary, but even she could see that the branch was half dead, weakened to the breaking point by rain and wind. 

Other than smashing her window it had spared the house. Thank goodness, because most days Mary couldn't afford much except coffee, typewriter ribbons, and cigarettes. In an effort to boost her income, Mary had recently taken a contract with a publishing company to write chapter fiction aimed at teenage girls. The publisher mailed her the plot outlines and characters for a book, and Mary (and all of the other contract writers in the stable) would write on deadline and in the same style so that the book series would flow without hiccups. Mary had just received the specs for book #8 in a new cheerleader series, and she was curious to see how she would get Tammy together with Nick and help them navigate the drunk driving death of the captain of the football squad, all within 130 pages. Tough stuff. 

Mary headed back to the kitchen for a coffee refill and settled once again at the dining room table, this time making phone calls to glaziers. Another 15 minutes on the phone yielded a local guy who could come out Thursday. With a clear weather forecast and a solid piece of cardboard taped over the hole, Mary thought she could hold up until then. She leaned back to finish the second cigarette and gulped the last of her coffee. At least arranging service calls had provided some stress relief. Nothing to do now but write.

Her plans were interrupted by a knock at the door. Mary toyed with the idea of not answering, thinking that it might be Mrs. Gross checking on her tree trouble, but it was a package delivery. After signing for the box she hauled it to the kitchen counter and sliced the tape open. An envelope with her name scrawled in a familiar hand was on top. Aha! Tony. 

Once upon a time, Mary’s ex-husband had been a cruddy partner, but five years of distance and divorce had turned him into a good friend. The card had a jaunty “Happy writing!” hastily scribbled, and the familiar big “T” followed by illegible loops. The large bubble-wrapped item on top turned out to be a bottle of white wine. Two cylinders in brown paper were cans of gourmet dark roast coffee. 

“A damn sight finer than my usual Folgers,” thought Mary. The final blessing in the bottom of the box turned out to be six new typewriter ribbons and two packets of Nat Sherman’s Fantasia cigarettes. Mary was instantly cheered up, giggling at the sheer frivolity of their brightly colored paper and gold tips. This was more luxury than she’d had in weeks! She made a mental note to call and thank him, and to tell him about her tree disaster.

Mary and Tony had been friends in college until the evening they transformed into lovers, thanks to the sorcery of Italian food and too much red wine. The spell lasted through the final year of university, two years of cohabitation, and nearly six years of marriage. After that the magic wore off, and the consequences of Tony’s drinking wore her out. Tony was a boisterous and charming drunk instead of a mean one, but he was neither capable of nor willing to hold up his end of the marriage. They signed the divorce papers (somewhat amicably) the week before Mary’s 30th birthday.  

Mary put the box aside and went to her office. The cozy room on the ground floor had been the “gentleman's study” for the previous owners. The dark walls were lined with sturdy wooden bookshelves, and Mary had splurged on a velvety Oriental rug for the center of the room. The large window above her desk looked out onto the white oak and beyond, to the banks of the creek. 

It was a fantastic perch for writing, providing lots of natural daylight and just the right amount of distraction. When Mary’s eyes grew gritty and her mind wandered, she could gaze out onto the tree and watch its branches sway in the wind. 

---

The little girl ran, skirt billowing behind her, socks rolling down to hit the tops of her Buster Browns.

"Mildred! Be careful!"

"I will Mommy!" Mildred, who preferred to be called Milly, had no such intention of ‘being careful.’ She liked wild things and unexplored places, adventures and dirt. Despite her mother’s constant nagging ("Be ladylike! A young lady does this, a young lady never does that.") Milly never listened much. When her mother started on a lecture Milly would escape into fantasies about climbing into an airplane and zipping around the sky, wearing red lipstick like her grown-up sister Agnes. 

Milly pumped her scabby knees faster, pigtails flying as she made for the Banks's yard next door. Her aim was the giant white oak. It had stood in the Banks's front yard forever, planted when the house was new. Now, 75 years later, it stood tall and wide and beckoned to her to come climb. 

Milly arrived at her destination. She ran up to the base of the tree, pausing to shout upwards into its branches.

"Yoo-hoo! Dennis!"

"Who's there?" Dennis was perched on the lowest branch, binoculars trained on the banks of the creek.

"It's me, Captain Milly!"

"Come on up!"

Milly grabbed the rope that dangled from the tree, bracing herself against the trunk with her feet. She climbed up and up, feeling her cares and worries recede, abandoned on the lawn below. When she reached the first branch she swung one leg over to straddle it and leaned back against the trunk. Dennis was more of a daredevil, sitting sideways on the branch out over open ground. 

“One lean too far back and he’ll be a goner,” thought Milly. She shuddered at the thought and put it out of her mind. 

"What'cha got in your sights?" 

Dennis handed her the binoculars. "See that hollow over by the creek? I think there's a family of rabbits living there." 

Milly held the binoculars up to her eyes and trained them on the creek banks. She held her breath, and her patience was rewarded with the magical sight of a mama bunny and two babies poking their heads out of the den. 

"Oh, so cute! Look at the little babies!" 

Dennis sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of one grubby wrist. "Don't tell Tommy they're there. He'll try to get 'em with his BB gun."

"I won't," said Milly. "Should we take them some food? I can get some carrots from the cellar." 

"Nah, just leave ‘em be. They'll be alright." Dennis cocked his head back and looked upward to the canopy. "Wanna climb up to the top? We might be able to see the ‘leven o’clock train from up there." 

"Oh, let's!" Milly handed Dennis the binoculars. He slung the strap over one shoulder and stood, holding his arms out for balance. 

"You go first," said Dennis. Milly nodded and grabbed the climbing rope. She braced her feet against the trunk and walked herself up to the fourth branch. 

The previous summer, Dennis's dad had secured the rope to the sixth branch from the bottom, and had given them all strict instructions to never climb higher than the fifth.

"Like standing on the top step of a ladder," Mr. Banks had said. "It's safer to stay on the second to last step. Don't ever climb higher than where the rope is tied." They had nodded solemnly and pinky-sweared on it. Milly didn't mind following Mr. Banks's instructions because they made sense: he only wanted them to be safe. At least those rules still allowed her to partake of adventures, unlike her mother's constant droning instructions to stay clean and to chew with her mouth closed. 

Milly propped herself up against the trunk on the fourth branch, and Dennis climbed up to the fifth. From here, the view was much better, way higher up and with fewer leaves in the way. You could see all the way to the river, with the bridge for cars and the train trestles running next to it. On a really sunny day you could see clear across to the next town. 

Milly and Dennis waited, chattering back and forth about what to eat for lunch and where to adventure to afterward. Milly pulled two pieces of saltwater taffy from her pocket. She had taken them this morning from the precious stash under her bed. The taffy was a rare treat, especially now that sugar rationing was in full effect. 

The previous August, Agnes had brought Milly a delicate seashell necklace and a one-pound box of taffy as souvenirs from her honeymoon to Atlantic City. Milly made sure to eat only one piece a week, and saved the rest in a cigar box decorated with a crude skull and crossbones and the edict: "KEEP OUT!!!" The necklace was entirely forgotten, lost somewhere in the flotsam and jetsam of her closet. 

"D'you want peanut butter or peppermint?" 

"Peanut butter, please," said Dennis. 

They unwrapped the candy and tossed the wax paper wrappers to the ground below, chewing happily in silence, save for the rustling of the leaves. 

---

"Do we hafta take the tree down? I like it," Aaron's voice was high and reedy. He stood next to Mariah in the front yard, looking up at the oak tree that was as old as the house. 

"Stop whining, please. Yes, Mommy and Daddy have to take the tree down, but we'll build you a new swing set. I promise." Mariah knew her answer wouldn’t make Aaron feel any better. 

"The tree is really old, older than Grandpa even! And I don't think it will live for much longer. If we leave it up it might fall over and wreck the house."

"But I like it!!" Aaron wailed. "Daddy said he was going to build me and Jeremy a treehouse!" 

"That was before we found out the tree was really sick," said Mariah. She sighed and picked him up under his armpits, swinging him around to straddle her left hip. She rubbed her nose against his soft cheek and gently teased him, fingers finding the ticklish spot on his round belly.

The four-year-old grinned, dimples flashing. "Can I go play Xbox?" 

"Yes, just use your headphones please... and no fighting with your brother!" Mariah dropped him gently to the ground and watched him run into the house. She pulled her phone out and took pictures of the tree, capturing closeups of the rot and far shots for size reference. She texted the photos to the tree guy and hoped that it wouldn't be too much of a financial hit. Their first six months in this old house had already sucked up more of their savings than they had anticipated. The previous owner had lived in the house for nearly forty years, but she had postponed or half-assed so many repairs it was ludicrous.

Mariah’s husband joined her in the yard, slipping a warm hand around her waist and pressing a cold bottle of water into her hands. 

“Here, babe. You need to stay hydrated. Don’t get too stressed out with all the house stuff.” 

"It’s going to be expensive. We’ll have to hold off on getting the solar panels installed.” Mariah clenched her jaw. 

“It’ll be okay,” Sam cajoled her. 

“Damn these ancient New England houses," she muttered. "The previous owner should have cut this tree down back in the eighties." 

“I know, babe. Don’t worry. It’ll get done.”

Mariah shook her head at that. Of course it would ‘get done!’ She was the one getting it done; calling and making service appointments, budgeting around obstacles and paying the contractors. If she didn’t do all that, nothing would get done. She sighed, deciding that it probably wasn’t worth it to worry at that particular knot right now. 

Her phone trilled with a call from the tree guy. Mariah put it on speaker so they could both hear the diagnosis.

“Good news is only one or two big branches will have to come down and we can probably save the tree. Trimming will be less expensive than taking it down to the stump.” He gave her the estimate. 

Mariah thanked him and promised to call back shortly with their decision, then she disconnected the call. 

“See?” Sam grinned. “Told you it would work out.”

Mariah shook her head and went inside to make lunch for the boys.