The tree sitter - Part I [draft]

The first installment of a fiction project

Crystal walked the neighborhood every morning to crank up the old metabolism. These days, she tries not to think of herself as old. Somewhere along the line, there was an accounting error. She was the youngest to move back to Spring Street in recent history. A majority of her neighbors were her parents’ age. In so many ways, the season was revving up, and yet, Crystal wanted to press pause.

It was the day after her 41st birthday. She was hungover, having too many sips of cherry wine in Carl’s garage; it was a bootstrapped operation and truthfully, diabolical. Crystal had known Carl since she was six; a forever neighbor and now an avuncular figure, having been her dad’s best friend for decades.

This batch was named Cherry Crystal 1.4: “After you, of course,” Carl said, “Happy Birthday — if only your dad and my Caroline were here with us.” At that moment, she had never felt lonelier in her hometown of Menasah, Wisconsin. It came unexpectedly now, the grief, and always in inconvenient times. “I know,” was all she could muster in the moment as her throat tightened. They clinked their small crystal wine glasses, relics of Carl’s thirty-year marriage. “I can’t believe you made three batches before this one. It’s terrible.” They laughed and got drunk.

Crystal’s two best friends picked her up to take her to Burger Republic, where she ate for free, and the table shared a complimentary appetizer of avocado egg rolls.

That next morning, Crystal felt sick while tying up her shoelaces. She thought about the hot avocado that left a green skid mark on her plate and the aftertaste of 1.4, like pennies soaked in maraschino cherries. “I think this is the year Crystal finds the love of her life,” her friend Alyssa had affectionately said in the booth. Beth agreed enthusiastically, pushing Crystal the last egg roll. “Well, get to it,” Crystal looked up at the ceiling of Burger Republic. “Who are the single men in Menasah, again?”

Crystal knew many good men; she loved men, she said to herself that night, often as a way to convince herself to have some hope. But she was night-eating again — Was this a good life?, she asked herself in her mother’s pantry, scooping a handful of dry Chex cereal into her mouth, so tired. She could hear the hum from the electrical plugs if she held her breath. So tired of the sameness.

During her walks, Crystal took different routes through the quiet neighborhood, crossing manicured lawns and tree-lined paths that led to the banks of the Fox River. This was a ritual that tethered her mind to her new life, and in her, Crystal knew that she needed something different to happen. She was painfully bored. She couldn’t read anything else. She couldn’t watch television anymore — the electrical humming, she heard it underneath everything. But there was one relief to how she was feeling: tracking the Sandhill Cranes every morning, a new, yet unrecognized hobby.

Two years had passed since she moved back in with Barbara, her mother, and returned to the same bedroom she grew up in. She redecorated, but she couldn’t shake the feeling she was retreating.

At the time, it made a lot of sense. Her father had passed away, and the grief drowned them both. There is an inevitability of life, Crystal knew, but they both felt desperate, unable to breathe in the shallow waters, like the edges of the Fox River lapped the muddy banks. Her mother needed company. Crystal needed company. And Minneapolis was beginning to feel too far away.

Crystal had lived in the city for nearly twenty years, having attended the university and then stayed after graduation, working for an accounting firm. There was this unspoken understanding that Alyssa and Beth would move back to Menasha, contingent on their love lives. Crystal watched the winnowing of her friend group in slow motion. Like clockwork, a friend would meet her husband, date for two to three years, get married, and spend one last year in the city before they started looking at real estate in Menasha, where they’d start trying. Crystal grew tired of roommates and decided to get her own palace in The North Loop.

If she had to admit it, it was freeing; somewhere along the line, she fell off this conveyor belt. But that fact didn’t necessarily stop this unnamed desire, an invisible, chronic gnawing that was quiet enough to ignore, unless she was in her luteal phase. And if her insomnia tore the night green, she used those vacant hours, lay-up in the middle of her bed, thinking about all the lost men in Minneapolis.

For the past decade, Crystal remained somewhat single but followed an unconscious pattern. She hadn’t become a nun, more like an alley cat, only interested in sex in heat. Every six months, Crystal found someone she tolerated enough to date for another three to six months, in exchange for kind company and competent sex. She then found herself single again, losing all interest, only to become interested again when the Minnesota chill began to thaw.

“Not everything is a conscious choice,” she told her mother over the phone one evening, when her dad was still alive.

“The love of your life is out there,” she heard her dad say, eavesdropping on the conversation over the speaker phone.

“Sure, I want to meet the love of my life,” Crystal said loud enough for her dad to hear, “But at this point, I’m not certain he wants to meet me.” The three of them laughed, not knowing then that a small moment like this would become an illuminated memory.

Since Crystal moved back home, she found no one very interesting because they were all so familiar.

Crystal went to the mailbox to discover a letter that was misdelivered:

Benito ℅ Henry McCallister, 444 Spring Street

“Is the house at the end of the cul-de-sac 444? The modern-looking one,” Crystal asked her mother after one of her morning walks.

“444? I think his name is Henry. Very quiet. He moved here about five years ago. Bought the property over asking price only to bring it down to the studs and build back that monstrosity.” Barbara said all this while staring blankly into the vanity, her mouth open as she swiped another layer of mascara onto each eyelid.

“The mailman put one of his letters in our mail box,” Crystal said.

“Drop it off for him then. I don’t think he gets out much.”

“The style of the house is actually kind of cool. It’s just in Wisconsin,” Crystal said.

But what was strange was the way the house ate up most of the lot, leaving three feet of yard space until the curb’s edge. This made Crystal think that the exterior was protecting an internal atrium. From a distance, you could see a giant Redwood tree emerge from the center of the property.

“And the tree,” Crystal asked. “How did he get that here?”

“He got a crane? Honestly, I don’t know. That time was a complete blur,” Barbara said. But Crystal understood.

Barbara’s husband, Crystal’s dad, Mike, had died that very week. It was a heart attack during one of his morning jogs. Barbara was still asleep, but he made it back to the front lawn before he could even reach their red front door. When Barbara found him, lying face-first in the green grass, she let out a soundless scream. His trimmed silver hair matched the pallor of his cheeks.

The week her dad passed away was the week he moved in. It was a week that was erased from their memory.

Maybe it was because she was ovulating, but Crystal was feeling hopeful a week after her birthday. She had left the river that morning and returned to Spring Street. She had more energy left in the tank, went back home to pick up the letter addressed to “Benito ℅ Henry McCallister.” She headed toward the cul-de-sac to drop off the misdelivered mail at the Henry House.

Up close, the house looked like an elegant compound; the stone walls were a matte gray with an acid wash finish. There were two windows beside the wooden front door. Through a rock garden, she walked down a short path. When she reached the door, she discovered there was no bell, only an iron knocker that hung beneath the ornate spyhole. At first, Crystal knocked lightly. And waited a minute. Then, she knocked again, holding her breath, thinking it improved her hearing. Crystal knocked a third time. Who was Henry? Who was Benito?

Suddenly, she heard a man’s feet shuffling against wooden floorboards.

“Mr. McCallister, it’s your neighbor, Crystal,” she said loudly. “I have your mail. The letter was dropped off at the wrong house?”

From the other side, Crystal heard something hit the bottom of the door. Then, some muttering.

“Hello.” Mr. McCallister croaked, revealing himself through the iron spyhole. His large mouth spread across his face as his nose began to widen in his smile. His grey eyes narrowed. “You brought me a letter?”

“Oh, yes, hi there, Mr. McCallister. And yes,” Crystal lifted the letter as evidence. “It’s addressed to ‘Benito’ care of, well, you.”

“Call me Henry,” he said. And then he disappeared for a moment. Crystal saw him drop a foot down. A wooden step stool was pressed against the door to reach the lookout. Henry cracked the door ajar.

“Benito. He’s like a son to me,” he said, reaching for the letter from Crystal’s hand. “Thank you.”

Henry McCallister was a head shorter than Crystal, making him no taller than 5 feet. The front door slightly ajar, Crystal saw what was just behind him. It confirmed one thing she suspected: beyond the exterior walls was an open atrium. The rock garden extended into the wall garden, where the sun illuminated a coy pond. The sidewalls were lined with six sconces lit by white candles, leading to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

“You must be the newest chicken to Spring Street.”

She wanted to groan. “Not exactly,” Crystal lightly chuckled. “I grew up here, lived in Minneapolis for years, and moved back to be closer to my mom after my dad passed died.”

“Oh, what a shame,” Henry said slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. It’s already been two years.”

“Time is a sieve,” Henry replied. It was then that Crystal noticed Henry hadn’t blinked once.

“Your eyes. What a green,” he continued. “Your husband must think you’re the most entrancing woman in Wisconsin.”

Crystal tugged at her sweat-wicking workout shirt, pulling it further down her lower stomach. “I’m not married, but I’ll take your words as a compliment,” Crystal said politely, hating that this was somewhat of a refrain she’s had to practice in Menasha.

“They don’t grow that green on trees,” Henry chortled, nearly choking on his own words. He recovered. “But you must get that compliment all the time.” Crystal never knew what to say to a statement like that. How could she get out of here?

“Well, what a nice thing to hear.” She smiled into a transition. She then realized that both she and Henry were closer than she realized, both holding onto the letter. Crystal relinquished and stepped back.

“I’m glad we finally got to meet Mr. McCallister. Henry.”

“Next time, when Benito visits — I’d like to introduce you to Benito — Benito, he’s like a son to me.”

“Well, that just sounds great,” Crystal said matter-of-factly, slowly backing away from the door, her hands pressed together politely. “Have a good day, Henry.”

“Thank you for dropping off the letter,” Henry said, his gaze like mercury, never lifting away from Crystal. She turned around and reached the edge of the property. She heard the door finally close. Her heart fluttered as she dropped down from the rock garden to the pavement. She was breathless when she finally reached the front door.

“How was your jog?” Her mother asked.

The summer months are always slow for work. After moving back to Menasha, Crystal now worked remotely for the same accounting firm. She worked from her father’s home office. It was strange to sit at his desk, but it was such a heavy desk that neither she nor Barbara didn’t have the will or strength to try to get rid of it. After the tax season let up, most of her colleagues took advantage of the slow season. Everyone kept up with high-priority clients and more strategic accounts, but the accounting firm was, by and large, on summer break. Email slowed to a glacial pace. Her partners retreated to their opulent summer homes near Lake Minnetonka, whereas Crystal was just a few short miles from Lake Winnebago, where she spent some long weekends at Allysa and Beth’s family houses. Barbara decided to rent out their small cabin for additional income. Barbara was never fond of the cabin; it was mostly a man cave for Mike and Carl.

Crystal decided this was the summer she was going to exhale. She bought a new swimsuit so it actually fit, versus the ones taking up space in her drawers. The three of them — Alyssa, Beth, and Crystal — were going to Alyssa’s cabin up north on Rowley’s Bay for a girls’ weekend, no kids.

It was a two-hour drive to reach the scalloped shorelines where the three friends spent most of their summers. Alyssa’s family house faced the restless push of Lake Michigan, with comically large white Adirondack chairs facing the shore. The lawn stretched from the grass into the rocky beginnings of the lake.

When they rolled into the gravel driveway, Beth screamed with delight. The air was bright and crisp. The sunlight pierces through the sentinels like stained glass in a cathedral of their childhood.

“Let it out, girlfriend,” Alyssa said that way, as her charm bracelet — with three miniature figures, her husband, two boys, and Matthew, their golden retriever — clinked together.

“Two nights of sleep. Two nights of sleep,” Beth chanted like a frat boy. Crystal joined in with a few claps to be a supportive friend.

They unloaded their bags and groceries for the long weekend. Random items that didn’t make a cohesive anything — six bottles of Whispering Angel, a bag of ice, those parmesan crisps from Costco since Alyssa was keto sometimes, pre-made turkey burgers, Bibb lettuce, spinach dip, baby carrots, pepperoncini kettle chips, those massive Blueberry muffins the size of their heads. They were ambitious.

When they entered the side kitchen door, they dropped everything, threw the ice in the freezer, and raced outside. The three of them pulled their shirts off, with pit stains forming, and pushed their jeans down their legs. They had to swim as soon as possible, and this weekend was a chance to finally collapse into summer.

Crystal was the last to get in past her waist; her nude minimizer bra changed pink to mauve like a mood ring in the lake’s water. She dunked her head under, as a Catholic converted, the pressure in her chest releasing.

The three formed a triad as they dog-paddled further out and floated into conversation.

“I needed this so badly.”

For Crystal, the electric humming had stopped. She turned over onto her back. The Northern sun warmed her face. “I could die happy,” she said.

“The trees look so good,” Beth said, dreamily. “Blue and green, blue and green.”

This is the end of Part I of “The tree sitter,” a fiction project [draft mode] by Christine Deakers. Subscribe to read the next installments coming soon.