The Tree

It’s the afternoon at the cottage. Brianna lies on the grass in the shade of the maple, lording it over the backyard. There are five days left to climb the tree before she turns thirteen. She doesn’t want to become a teenager knowing that her younger sister, Stéphanie, has climbed the tree, but she hasn’t. Brianna is taller and stronger than Stéphanie but less daring.

Brianna spends the afternoon staring at the pale undersides of the waving leaves and the kaleidoscopic patches of sky peeking out between them. She had a kaleidoscope once, but the tube was made of cardboard. Stéphanie left it out in the rain. When Brianna found it on the porch, it looked OK, but when she picked it up it collapsed in her hands, except for the glass part, where the light comes in.

Brianna plans her route up the tree. She needs to get to the big branch to be as high as Stéphanie climbed. Two Pileated Woodpeckers pecked out a hole nest above it this spring. The Woody Woodpecker birds, noisy and gaudy with red crests, were easy to spot, unlike some other birds her mother expected her to recognize. They had two baby birds and by June they were gone.

Brianna tires of thinking about the long stretch from the lower branch to the big upper one. She opens her book. It’s about an orphaned girl whose parents died in India. Her favourite stories contain sad orphans trapped in icy orphanages where coughing skinny girls spray droplets of blood as they die. Sometimes she wishes she was an orphan, but it makes her teary when she imagines her parents dying.

She’d also be sad if Stéphanie died. Brianna is a good big sister. Last summer, when she was ten, Stéphanie fell out of the tree and broke her arm. Brianna scratched under Stéphanie’s cast with the metal barbecue skewer and spent hours playing checkers with her when she couldn’t go swimming.

This morning at breakfast, her parents had another fight over the barbecue. Last week’s fight was Stéphanie’s fault because she hadn’t waited a whole week before asking again about going to Disney World. Dad was for and her mom was against. Brianna changed the topic of conversation to the new Black American president to stop them from arguing. Her grandmother, Nan, taught her how to do that.

After breakfast, while Stéphanie was canoeing with Dad–she always sits in front and never dips her paddle properly into the water–Mom insisted that Brianna sit down at the kitchen table for a talk.

“It’s time to explain menstruation,” she said, arranging samples of napkins and tampons on the kitchen table like it was science class. Brianna already knew that stuff from school. Most of her friends were allowed private computer time and knew tons of things. Her mom skipped the important stuff, the stuff they talked about at school—cramping, forgetting supplies and accidents. The girls monitored each other’s bums in case there was a leak on someone’s pants or skirt. Anyone carrying a purse always had extra supplies. Her mom finished her lecture with “Don’t tell Stéphanie. She’s too young.”

Where was Brianna meant to hide those boxes of pastel-coloured items wrapped in their noisy crinkly plastic? Stéphanie would find them for sure. And why shouldn’t she find them?

The next morning at breakfast, Mom is talking with her mouth full of cereal.

“Bricks and cement all over the place. You don’t have a clue what you’re doing. Go and buy a barbeque.”

Dad says nothing.

Brianna gets up from the table and hugs her mom. “It’s OK Mom. I can help him.”

She spends the morning helping him stack the red bricks into shapes like the diagrams of the barbeques in the library book. The bricks are heavy and scratchy, so she quits. She’ll be more interested when Dad gets to the cementing part. He says cement will hold the bricks together into a barbeque that will last forever, but Brianna knows that nothing lasts forever.

It’s the afternoon now and Mom and Stéphanie are reading on the dock. Brianna’s inside the cottage rummaging in Stéphanie’s dresser drawer looking for her new stretchy leggings. There they are—blue and shiny like a superhero’s outfit. Stéphanie won’t know she’s borrowing them if Brianna’s careful not to snag them. She squeezes her feet into her ratty sneakers. She’ll have to persuade her mom to get her some Nikes for back to school.

She stows her book, a baggie of Goldfish crackers, and a juice box in her backpack. It’s hotter than yesterday so she gulps some water from the kitchen tap and then pees. She doesn’t want to have to pee during her climb. The screen door slams behind her as she springs off the kitchen porch. Her legs flash with metallic blue as she tears across the back lawn.

But now she is stuck—rigid and sweaty, straddling the second largest limb and clutching the tree trunk. The leaves grab at her face and the smaller branches tug at her arms. Everything is difficult. She can’t go up and she can’t go down and worse, she’s not as high as Stéphanie was last year before she fell and broke her arm.

At first, Brianna didn’t believe she was stuck. She tried a few moves but was too scared to stretch the bit to reach the big branch below the woodpecker nest. The soles of her dangling feet tingle. What if she falls? She imagines the thud of her body landing on the grass and wonders if she’d break an arm or a leg. Maybe she’d need an operation or a wheelchair. She’d want her parents to wheel her around, but she wouldn’t want to be paralyzed. That would be too much.

She turns her gaze toward the woods. The sun has moved across the sky and is hanging above the hills where the gravel road winds its way to the store. The horrible feeling in her feet is growing. She’s hot and her mouth is dry but worse, she has to pee.

She looks out over the shingled roof of the cottage towards the lake. Stéphanie is sprawled on the dock, reading comic books. She doesn’t care if they get wet and wrinkled and must be thrown out.

Each weekend when they drive up from Montreal, Dad always stops at the village store and lets them choose new ones. The lady there is nice with a big smile. She gives them gummies. But even though she’s young and pretty, she wears an old-lady perfume that makes Brianna sneeze.

On the dock, Mom, wearing her swim goggles and her saggy old suit, is set for her afternoon swim to the island. Stéphanie isn’t wearing her sunhat like she’s supposed to. Her curly red hair is blowing about her face. Mom doesn’t make Brianna stay on the dock to watch Stéphanie. Her swimming is stronger this year, so Mom doesn’t care.

No, Brianna won’t call her mom for help. If she calls her mom, she’ll get that harsh what-do-you-think-you-are-doing look. Brianna will have to say she’s checking out the woodpecker nest. Then, she’ll have to listen to a lecture on woodpecker nest holes, even more boring than yesterday’s period talk. Nope, she won’t ask her mom for help. She’ll wait for Dad to return from the store. He won’t panic. She mustn’t panic.

When he left, she was resting on the lower big branch. She saw the quarter-sized bald patch on his head that she’d never noticed before. He was wearing his favourite T-shirt, black with Tragically Hip printed on it. Once, he told her the T-shirt was older than her and, because he likes the T-shirt, she likes it too. Her mom hates the T-shirt. She says an old girlfriend gave it to him.

Brianna hums “Michael Row the Boat Ashore” to distract herself, but she can’t get enough breath to finish the chorus. She’s going to burst.

By the time she sees the ribbon of dust from the road expanding above the trees, she’s wet her pants. She’d leaked a bit as she squirmed about on the branch. And then with a warm wetness, everything gushed out all at once. The liquid shadow crept over her crotch and her thigh and pee dripped from her calf into her right runner. She hasn’t wet herself in years. It’s Stéphanie who sometimes wets the bed.

Brianna hears the car crunching on the gravel, the engine stopping and the door slamming.

“Dad, up here,” she calls.

He shoots her a crinkly smile and Brianna wonders if he knew she was stuck up here before he left. Well, she hadn’t asked for help then.

“That’s high up,” he says, pulling his fingers through his hair and brushing the tip of his nose.

“I’m stuck.”

“I see that,” he says, placing the sack of milk on the grass and resting his hands on his hips.

This is what Brianna expected. Dad doesn’t panic. And even though her belly is churning and her feet tingling, she won’t panic either. But she’s cold, her butt is soaked, and she smells of pee.

“Let me put the milk away and I’ll get the ladder.”

Brianna doesn’t trust the ancient wooden ladder. It’s been in the shed forever, from before the cottage was theirs. What if it breaks? What if she slips? Dad drags the long ladder to the tree, leaving deep gouges on the lawn. Mom’ll be mad about that. He extends the top bit and props it against the tree trunk. His hands rest on the sides of it. She focuses on his bald patch.

“One foot, Bree. One foot on the top rung.” His voice is calm and smooth.

He isn’t going to come up and get her. She’ll have to get down by herself. Her whole body tingles. Gripping the trunk with her sore arms, she scrapes her belly down the ridges of bark. For sure, she’s wrecked the leggings. Her foot gropes the air until it finds the solid surface of the top rung.

“That’s it. Now the other foot.”

Her foot lands on the rung. Her arms soften.

“Don’t look down.”

Dad’s voice is soothing. “I won’t.” She loosens her grip on the trunk a bit more.

“Nice and easy.”

Her runner squelches as she lands on the grass. She leaps up and wraps her legs around his waist, hugging him.

“Brianna, you’re soaking wet,” he says, pulling back.

“I peed myself, Dad.” Her voice is all choky.

“Let me go. You’re wrecking my T-shirt.”

He pushes her but Brianna doesn’t let go. Not yet. She burrows her nose into the skin behind his ear and breathes in. But it’s wrong—not like he should smell. It smells like sushi and she doesn’t like sushi. Her dad stiffens. She looks at his face. His eyes flicker with a fierceness that doesn’t match his smile. It’s a look she hasn’t seen before.

“Won’t tell Mom if you don’t,” he says in his sing-song voice. 

Brianna needs to run, to get away from her dad, away from the smell and his smile. She peels her sticky body off his chest and without looking back, races toward the kitchen door. Crazy energy flows through her body. There’s a tightness in her chest. She races up the steps and flings open the screen door. It bangs behind her. She runs through the cottage and out the front door. She skips down the steps and across the grass to the dock, towards Stéphanie. Brianna cannonballs off the dock into the lake, yelling like a Samurai in battle. She splashes about in the water, her clothing dragging at her arms and legs. The frantic feeling washes away.

“What’ya do that for,” Stéphanie screams. “I’m drowned.” She holds up a soggy comic book. “I wasn’t finished this.”

“Jump in,” says Brianna. “Let’s swim.”

Stéphanie cannonballs into the water beside her.

Twenty minutes later, Brianna, naked underneath an orange beach towel, lies on her stomach beside Stéphanie on the dock. Her clothes are in a dripping heap beside her. The pressure in her chest has lifted.

“I climbed the tree and didn’t break my arm,” she says.

Stéphanie is trailing her fingers in the water, sending circular ripples from the dock.

“You climbed the tree?” She lifts her head and looks at Brianna. “How high?”

“To the big limb below the woodpecker hole. But I wrecked your new blue leggings.” Brianna pushes her hand through the tear in the butt.

“Leggings, smeggings. I don’t even like those anymore. I want the pink tie-dye pair I saw at Simons last week.”

Stéphanie points towards the island. Their mother swims towards them, smooth stroke after stroke like a mechanical toy. She pulls herself onto the dock in a single strong movement and shakes like a wet dog. Scattering droplets make mini-rainbows in the afternoon sun.

“Is your father back yet?” she asks and without waiting for an answer, she strides away toward the cottage.

“Do you ever wonder about Mom and Dad?” Brianna whispers.

“What do you mean? Why are you whispering?” Stéphanie rolls off her stomach, sits up and looks at Brianna. Her hair hangs in dripping ropes around her shoulders.

“Whether they still love each other?” Brianna says softly, twisting the corner of the beach towel between her thumb and forefinger.

“Why do you think that?”

“They don’t tell each other everything.”

“Mom sure was straight with him about Disneyland. And the barbeque.” Stéphanie takes her hair in her hands and wrings out the remaining water.

Maybe Stéphanie’s right, there’s nothing to worry about. A few minutes later, Brianna hears her mother’s voice, tinny and fast, shouting at her father from the cottage.

“Three hours. Long time to be gone for milk. You didn’t have your cell phone?”

Her father’s reply is a low rumble of words she can’t make out.

“Then why do we even have them,” her mother says.

Does she mean the cellphones or us, Brianna wonders.

“I know what you’re doing, Michael.”

And then silence.

Ten minutes later her dad walks down the stone path to the dock in his flamingo bathing trunks. He’s carrying a brown paper bag.

“Brought you guys a treat from the store,” he says, holding up the bag.

Stéphanie grabs the sack. “Yay. Two new Archies.” She pushes a fistful of candy toward Brianna. “And jelly babies. Want some?”

“Nah. Gotta get some clothes on,” she says pulling herself up from the warm planks of the dock and wraps the towel around her body. She’s cold and it feels wrong to have a treat from the store when Mom is so mad at Dad. When they’re at the store, Dad and the lady laugh too much at stuff that isn’t even funny.

“Gonna see if Mom needs help with dinner,” she says.

“I’ve already sorted it, Bree. Like I always do,” Dad says. “Lighten up. Have a jelly baby.” He holds one up between his thumb and forefinger. “A red one. Your fav.”

“Don’t want one. Stéph can have them.”

Brianna dawdles towards the cottage door. The tail of her towel drags in the dirt between the stones, but she can’t be bothered to pick it up.

Brianna’s parents mostly tell her the truth about stuff, but sometimes they lie. Sometimes, it’s a tiny lie. No biggy. Can’t hurt anyone. Might even be kind, like when Dad says you’re good at baseball, but you know you suck. Sometimes, lying to keep a secret is fun, like Nan’s surprise birthday party in June. Sometimes, lying to keep a secret is stupid, like hiding tampons and pads from Stéph or being rescued from the tree. But it doesn’t feel right not telling Mom about the sushi smell in Dad’s hair.

Brianna slides open the front door and blinks her eyes to adjust to the darkness. It’s cooler inside and she pulls her towel closely around her. Her mom, in her wet bathing suit, stands in front of the kitchen sink. Her hands grip the metal edge of the counter. She’s staring out the window at the tree. There is a fine quivering at the edge of her upper lip. Brianna wants to hug her mom, but her mom’s body is shouting “Go Away.” She waits shivering beside her. Their shoulders are almost at the same height. She wants to help her mom, to help rinse her anger away. 

After a few minutes, her mom speaks. “I’m worried.” She lifts an arm towards the tree, “Remember in the spring when those Pileated Woodpeckers nested up there.”

“Sure I do. See the hole, there above that big branch,” Brianna says, relieved that Mom is talking. She points at the branch above the one that Dad rescued her from.

“They only make nest holes in trees that are rotting.”

“Our big maple is secretly rotting?” Brianna asks.

“The tree looks healthy from the outside, while it rots from the inside. It’s so sad.” Mom sighs and lets her arm drop.

Brianna reaches over and wraps her mom in her arms. She feels smaller and bonier than when she hugged her this morning. They’re both shivering. “I know how much you love that tree, Mom. I do too. When it’s time, we’ll find another tree to love.”