“Look, I know what happens,” Leila said flatly, as she peeled away some of the bark on the ends of the sticks, revealing the green, cutting an inch or so from the bottom of each small branch.
“Happens?” Jon asked while she worked.
“Yes, to the tree.” Leila nodded up towards the window without actually looking out it. She started to fill the mason jars up with just a bit with water, a few inches or so. She placed one down in the sink with a satisfying clink and looked back up at Jon.
“It’s damaged,” Leila said, curtly. “And now you and Liz are going to get rid of it.”
A confused look washed over Jon’s face, a mixture of puzzlement and worry, and he peered out the window, and then back at her.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Leila,” he said, his eyes back on the tree. “You know how much your . . . how much Lizzie and I care about, well, stuff like this.” He looked down at the jars, and then back at Leila, as she pretended not to notice the almost slip-up. “And we know you’re really into the environment. Up all night on those message boards. I hope you’re being careful with who you’re talking to—”
Leila flashed him an exhausted look and yawned.
“Ha, okay, okay,” Jon said, conceding. “Look, we’ll remove the dead limb over there on the lawn and prune away the other bits. Half the tree could still be fine! I don’t think we’d rip it out just because it’s damaged.”
“Pronouns. Because she’s damaged,” Leila corrected, smirking.
“She’s damaged,” Jon amended. Leila looked up at him, at his warm smile. Years of late-night corporate lawyering had clearly taken its toll on him, carving deep-set wrinkles around his eyes when he laughed or squinted just a little. His new career as an environmental journalist certainly suited him better, even if he wasn’t exactly great at taking care of anything green around him.
The less-stressful gig had come too late, though, as his dark-brown hair now had bits of white and gray peppered through it. There were frequent “should I dye it or shouldn’t I?” conversations over dinner, and generally they all ended the same, with Lisabeth’s exasperated sighs and sideways glances at Leila.
Leila raised an eyebrow at Jon and returned her attention to the jars.
“Look how deep that lightning hit it. There’s no way it didn’t kill the roots.” She picked up the jars and placed them up on the countertop, checking to make sure enough water was above each trimmed stem.
“Ah. I see what you’re up to,” he said. “I guess we’ll see if any of them stick.”
Leila smirked.
“Get it? Stick? Because they’re sticks and you’re putting them in the jars to—”
“Oh my God, yes, Jon, I get it,” Leila said, shaking her head. He might make things awkward with his frequent dad and mom references, but his dad-like jokes were at least amusing in their badness.
He stepped up towards the sink, looked out the window towards the tree, and let out a loud sigh.
“I totally forgot to cover the garden,” he muttered, shaking his head. “As if I didn’t put those poor plants through enough hell this year, they get decimated by this.”
“Aw, Jon,” Leila said. She tentatively offered up a consoling hand on his shoulder. It was the kind of gesture that should come naturally, but she forced it out of herself.
“Poor things,” he said. “After we finish your project, care to help me out with all of that? Maybe search for survivors before the rest of the storm comes through?”
Leila looked outside towards the garden. In addition to the vegetables Lisabeth brought home from the CSA, there was also Jon’s miniature farm to deal with. Cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, peppers. All vegetables that didn’t really need a lot of time and care, and could mostly grow on their own with enough sun and rain. The little bit of work they did need, Leila happily provided. In her first week with the Kline family, she had quickly discovered Jon’s well-intentioned but disastrous gardening skills, when he poured piping-hot leftover coffee on a head of lettuce.
“They say coffee is good for gardens and the soil, did you know that?” he’d explained, holding the mug in his hand while Leila looked on, horrified.
“Coffee grounds, Jon. Grounds,” Leila said, watching as the lettuce wilted in front of them.
Despite everything Jon managed to throw at the garden, it had been pretty resilient. But not even those tough plants could hold up in this weather, meeting doom in their battle against the tropical storm and the adult caretaker that forgot to cover them.
“Sure,” Leila said, smiling. “I’m sure there’s some stuff worth saving.”
“Maybe,” Jon said, disappointed. “We’ll probably just have to uproot all of them and toss them out. Might be less wasteful to turn them into mulch, though, or put them in Lizzie’s composter by the shed.” Something about what he said struck a rough chord with Leila, and she winced, her chest heavy. For a moment, she felt as though she heard another whisper, and shook it off, the ghost of a sound vanishing as quickly as it appeared.
“Yeah, yeah sure,” Leila said, wrestling with the feeling. Jon turned back to her, and evidently noticed.
“Something wrong?” he asked. He nodded at the jars. “Besides all this, that is.”
“No, no,” Leila said, shaking her head and grabbing a jar, studying the end of one of the sticks inside. “It’s fine, I’m fine. This one looks like it needs a little more trimming though.”
“Hey, fun fact—” Jon started.
“Oh God, not right now, Jon, seriously,” Leila groaned. Jon wrote both locally, in the Philadelphia region, and abroad for news outlets such as Slate, Farm & Agriculture, The New York Times, and Grid. Back when she was in the group home, Leila regularly read those kinds of websites on her beat-up, donated tablet or on trips to the library. She dreamed of one day making a difference, quite literally, in the outside world. She was pretty sure she’d read an article or two of Jon’s in the past few years, but she wasn’t about to let him know that. He also taught part-time at St. Joseph’s University, in their small environmental studies department.
The result of all his constant research and once-a-week lectures though, was this.
The “fun fact” tidbits.
And while Leila certainly appreciated Jon’s wealth of knowledge about nature and all, he always brought them up at the worst time, his poor attempt to neutralize tense and awkward situations.
“Fun fact,” Jon said again, stressing the fun in the sentence, which should have told him no part of this was actually fun. He picked up one of the mason jars, clinking it with the ring on his finger. “They call this cloning. Technically, these sticks, if they bloom into new trees, are really just the same exact tree.”
Leila gave him a look.
“Yeah I should have figured you knew that one,” Jon said, shaking his head and placing the jar back down with a light plink. “Still, cloning. It’s like we’re mad scientists in here.”
“Sure, Jon,” Leila said, shaking her head with a smile. “Sure. Think Liz will be okay with me putting these up along the windowsill? I’d like to make sure they get some sun and have a chance to grow a few roots. They need to take root before—”
“Yes, yes,” Jon said. “Before it gets too cold and the trees go to sleep.”
“It’s called dorman—” Leila started.
“Dormancy,” Jon said. “Yes, I know. It’s like hibernation, only for trees. Everything slows down. Abscisic acid in deciduous trees signals the leaves to fall, suspends the tree’s growth, stops cells from dividing . . .” He grinned as he faded off. Leila stared at him. “You do remember me being a journalist and professor of all this, yes?”
“I do,” Leila said with a smirk.
“Let’s wrap these up before Lizzie gets down here with her questions,” Jon said with a wink. Leila shook her head and focused on the jars, moving them from the sink to the window.
But with each small movement the voices came back, and they whispered.