Boomerang by Helene Dunbar

Author:Helene Dunbar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2018-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

My mother had a horrible artificial Christmas tree. I understood all of the ecological reasons why someone might get one, as well as all of the economic ones. Had either of those been her excuse, I would have done nothing more than look the other way every time I came in the house. But she told me that she’d bought the tree a few years before, in case I returned around Christmas. It depressed her too much to go “all out” with a live tree, but she felt like she had to do something festive. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I never remembered her going “all out” when I was a kid. I barely remembered us even celebrating holidays.

Since I didn’t know what to get her and since, having lived on the edge of a state forest for five years, I was used to being surrounded by nature, I recruited Rory to help me surprise her with a real tree.

On the first day of break, he picked me up and we went from lot to lot examining overpriced locally grown spruce, evergreens, and firs.

Rory reminded me of Charlie Brown, choosing trees that were slightly lopsided and looked like they needed a home.

I hadn’t set out to find the perfect tree, but I couldn’t seem to settle on anything. In Barlowe, Maggie, Wilson, and I had decorated live trees out in the back of the house and strung lit garlands off every surface inside. These trees, however fresh, just seemed dead to me with their needles dropping everywhere. And the screaming children running around the lot made my head hurt.

“Do you know someplace we could just chop one down?” I finally asked Rory.

“You mean with an ax?” he asked, looking confused.

I laughed and finally settled on a tree at the lot, but the whole interaction answered a question I’d never been able to answer with any certainty. I was never sure if maybe Trip and I had only gotten so close out of mutual isolation. He was the only one my age that I’d had anything to do with for all that time, and I wondered if I would have gotten attached to anyone else in the same situation.

But the thing is, Trip would never have considered buying a tree from a lot. Instead, we’d have driven recklessly down roads that were barely roads, traipsing through muddy fields until we found a tree that he would have deemed suitable. It would have taken hours. Then, whether it was legal or not, Trip would have felled it without a thought, while I stood guard against park rangers and pissed-off farmers, watching the muscles in his back pull with each swing.

Although I had the urge to insist that Rory and I at least give it a try, I knew we’d fail. Neither of us were cut out for physical labor, and I missed the possibility of it. I missed Trip.

I missed him more when Rory and I went to a small craft market so I could look for gifts for Emery and Jenny.

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