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The tree is gone, like the spark.
Meg sees the tree the same time I do. Or rather, doesn‘t see it. The big box elder that has been in our front yard for five years, but alive for closer to a hundred, in a green field before this became a subdivision, is somehow, inexplicably, gone. A short stump near the ground remains. It looks as though the tree has just somehow been cleanly snapped off at the base and clandestinely removed by some tree worshiping cult which is very careful about their activities. There are no signs of cutting, fire, or traffic accident. No tracks, splinters, sawdust, stray limbs or leaves. Somehow, it is just gone.
Sticky eyes, sticky nylon, polyester, cotton-clothes, sticky car seat; ninety degree hazy Sunday morning, two hours after a sleepless night on the red-eye from Memphis, another thirty minutes from the airport in Meg‘s Z-28 convertible, with the top down. The fact that the tree is gone is unreal. Memphis is unreal. So is thinking about the spark.
We look at each other on that muggy morning, our clothes clinging to us like wet silk, and we look a resigned shrug at each other. Meg punches the garage door opener, and pulls the Z in, expertly angling to miss the Lawnboy. She shuts off the ignition and asks innocently, “What’s going on?”
“It was time for the tree to go,” I say.
