Forgiveness
The tree never spoke. At least, he didn’t like to speak. He preferred to communicate in the crackling of limbs and grunts. At the breakfast table, the tree’s daughter would serve him eggs and toast to butter the words out of him before he grabbed his cap and left for work.
The tree liked his eggs cooked sunny side up in a cast iron skillet and his linen shirts ironed and placed neatly on the chair by his bed. Every Saturday morning he read the headlines, and then in the afternoon, crumpled up the poorly written articles and used them to polish his
wing-tipped shoes for church the next day. Planting beeswax candles into the sand, he remembered the trees that came before him.
The tree healed, that was his profession. He saw symptoms and prescribed herbs and cures. It was pure guesswork. If his medication cured his patient, then he saw it as a job well done. The hardest part of his job was telling the family that there was nothing else he could do.
The stoic faces of peasants, their red boots kicking the dirt, tears running down their high cheekbones.
He hated motorcycles for that reason. The rumbling frightened the cats who slept on his porch and spooked chickens roosting in the hay. The peasant boys whooped and cheered on Friday nights as they headed into the city. And then at 2am, the landline would ring, and the tree would head out on call. He had to scrape brains off the liquor-slick pavement.
So when the daughter began seeing a boy with a motorcycle, a storm came. The forest howled, branches impaled the round moon, roots trembled in the earth. Mushrooms sprang up in the thousands, and toads gathered in the reeds and marshes, croaking like a symphony lacking a conductor.
The tree grunted.
The daughter gnarled.
The tree moaned.
The daughter crackled.
The tree gnashed.
The daughter disappeared in a monstrous cloud of smoke. The stench of gasoline hung in the air. Thick and heavy. Guilt flooded the tree. And then rage. His raveled bark stood firm. His limbs fell to his sides, heavy.
Their fight carved hate into each other like how lovers often cement their passion through the violent act of knifing initials into a forest’s flesh. The scars dug deep into his soul. Even though it had since scabbed over, he felt the blood pouring out. Enough blood to water
the peasant’s crop this year. Yet the tree was expected to wake up each morning and eat his eggs and take his briefcase with him to work. He was expected to go to church and converse with the pastor and the pastor’s wife. The only time he felt real was when he went and repented his sins to a fakeGod. His brittle frame felt close to collapse.
He was one of the only well-respected doctors nearby, so the mayor decided to host a celebration in his honor. There were chandeliers and fancy china. He inspected the spirits in his crystal glass. He took a sip. Everyone talked. Men and their wives approached him, congratulating him. The scar stabbed with pain. The square room devolved into circles. He felt them spinning. The mayor’s wife shook his hand, he winced. He took another sip. He saw the pastor’s wife putting some chicken in a napkin and then into her purse. Loud laughter. Spin, spin. Geometry. He staggered. His heart felt near to burst. The chandelier exploding, the crystal
exploding. Blood, blood, pulsing. There would be a big harvest this year. No drought, no plague.
Only blood, blood.
​
Clean linen. The smell of ginger floating into his nostrils. Light streaming in through the
cotton curtains. Warmth.
Someone stood over the wood-burning stove, stirring with her ladle. Parsley, dill, onion boiling into the air.
He saw scar tissue wrapped around her frame, words, ugly words, the ones that she remembered from the fight, the ones she repeated to herself before falling asleep, like he did, a cruel ritual.
The tree mumbled.
The daughter turned, holding a bowl of soup.
The tree grumbled.
The daughter knelt on the bed by his knees and touched his stubbly face.
The tree moaned.
The daughter moaned.
Outside, the cats sleeping on the porch stretched out their backs as the day began to warm up. The hen led a parade of chicks around the farmhouse. The hay gently waves back and forth in the wind as the tree struggled to prop himself up against a pillow.
“Forgiveness,” the tree pleaded.
The daughter leaned forward and fed a spoonful of soup into his mouth.