Sorrow by Tiffanie DeBartolo

Author:Tiffanie DeBartolo [DeBartolo, Tiffanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Woodhall Press LLP
Published: 2020-10-19T18:30:00+00:00

Dear Joey—

Thought of you when I saw this in the bookstore.

Love you,

Mom

“Ha-ha,” October giggled. “Joey.”

“Just so you know, Ingrid is the only person on the planet who is allowed to call me that.”

She began paging through the book. I watched her eyes moving right to left, widening as they skimmed the words and looked at the pictures. Every so often she would shake her head and mumble, “Holy cow.”

As soon as I finished my breakfast, I said, “I forgot to tell you last night. I got your mushrooms.”

At first she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then she did. She leaned in and began to ramble nervously. “You have them? Wow. OK. You can’t just give them to me, though. You know that, right? I can’t do them alone. That doesn’t seem safe. Are mushrooms safe? Maybe we should film it. No. Probably not a good idea. No filming. Private is better, right?”

“Private is definitely better.” I saw Rae pull in and said, “Can we discuss this later? I don’t need Rae accusing me of being a drug pusher.”

October laughed and made a zipping motion across her mouth, and I quickly took my bowl to the sink in the back. All week long I’d been making sure I was nowhere near October when Rae arrived in the morning.

Rae came straight into the studio, presented October with a handful of bills, and asked her to sign some checks.

October set my book on the table with the page she was reading splayed face down. She scribbled her signature on the checks and then picked up the book again. Looking at Rae, she said, “The tallest tree in the entire world lives in a park in Northern California.”

Rae feigned interest, but I could tell she didn’t really comprehend what October was trying to tell her. I walked over to join the conversation and noticed Rae didn’t have any nuts and raisins with her. This meant she wasn’t staying long.

“Hyperion,” I said. Rae and October both looked at me. “That’s the name of the tree. It’s about 380 feet tall.”

“Three hundred and eighty feet?” October exclaimed. “That’s as tall as the Empire State Building!” She seemed to find this awe-inspiring. Rae acted like it was ordinary, but probably only because I said it.

“I camped in that park after Hyperion was discovered,” I told them. “It’s phenomenal.”

I turned to a photo of Hyperion and pointed it out to Rae. In the photo, a man was standing beside the tree. He was listed as being six feet eight inches tall, and that really showed the scale, because he looked like a tiny toy soldier that had been placed beside an upright bass.

Rae’s eyes finally widened, and she said, “Wow. That is big, yeah?”

I flipped back a few pages and pointed to Giant Tree. “This one’s my favorite. He’s not the biggest or the prettiest, but in person he really moves me.”

“He moves you?” Rae said, with a slightly comic tone.

“Where does he live?” October asked.

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