A House Among the Trees

Are you sure you want to permanently erase the items in the Trash? You cannot undo this action.

Erase, she instructs whatever invisible gnome runs the transfer station inside the computer. Morty told her they were called homunculi, the little people one likes to imagine inside the television set, the washing machine, the dashboard of the car—all the appliances that seem to have a mind of their own.

Morty was the clever one. That was no secret. But was it because of his cleverness that Tommy rarely minded his demands? It was invigorating to be indispensable to a man like Morty; at times it was a source of pride—even vanity. But equally vain was her notion that to meet his expectations would permit her to know him inside and out; to know, as the filmmakers believe they do, the inner Lear.

Does it matter that mysteries remain? Don’t they always?





Fifteen


THE FOLLOWING YEAR

It’s a school day, and the sprinklers are dry, but the playground is far more crowded than she expected, riotous with children and adults savoring with equal joy the lingering aftertaste of summer. She stops short just inside the gate, unsure which way to go, how to navigate the sea of toddlers, unsteady on their feet, careening around and then into one another, shrieking with glee. Two small boys are taking turns filling bright plastic buckets with water from the drinking fountain, then dousing each other. They are almost polite in this ritual; one fills while the other waits—and then they squeal and run.

Is he here yet? He might not even show up.

A stroller bumps into her calves from behind. “Excuse me, but this isn’t the place to stand,” an exasperated nanny tells her.

And then she sees a waving figure rise from a shaded bench beside the sandbox, beyond the dormant sprinklers and a trio of knee-high picnic tables. Though unidentifiable from here, the figure is definitely waving at Tommy. And, as usual, he arrived early.

No matter how many times she passes it, the playground will always look smaller than her memory insists, but now that she stands inside for the first time in ages, it feels weirdly vast. She cannot recall ever having been here with so many other children. She has overheard people complaining that too many families are staying in the city rather than moving out, that the schools cannot handle the enrollment, and that the sidewalks everywhere, even in the business districts, are gridlocked with baby carriages, scooters, and roving assemblies of teens. (Tommy has noticed, with amusement and alarm, how the teenagers seem to enjoy walking heedlessly backward while engaged in conversation or, alone, dancing to the music wired straight into their ears.) Her apartment overlooks the entrance to a private school, but it’s a sublet, just a temporary foothold; she’s too grateful to mind the shrill commotion that interrupts her concentration two or three times a day.

“I had no idea this place would be such a circus,” Tommy says when she finally reaches him. She doesn’t know if she should hug him; he doesn’t offer the gesture. He sits down and pats the bench beside him.

“Oh, I like a good circus,” he says. “And your directions were flawless.” He removes his sunglasses but not the cap. Is he really a Yankees fan? Well, of course not.

A thin, studious-looking girl sits on his opposite side. She wears a flowered sundress and white, unscuffed sandals. She holds a book in her lap.

“May I present my niece, Fiona,” he says. “Fiona, Ms. Daulair.”

“Tommy. I’m just Tommy,” she says, shaking the girl’s hand.

“Are you going to talk?” Fiona says to her uncle.

“We are—but then I’ll take you to the shops to meet your mum. Do you want to queue up for the swings?”

Fiona nods and hands her book to Nick. She heads toward the swings with an air of dignified purpose. (How is it that so many British children look like adults-in-training?)

“Thanks for being my cover.” Tommy points at the sign declaring that only adults accompanied by children are permitted inside the playground.

“For you, Tomasina, anything.” He smiles steadily at her, as if expecting something.

As she feared, Tommy has forgotten how to feel comfortable in this man’s company. Once again, especially since the night of the screening, where she watched him navigate an avenue of frenzied photographers—“Nick!” “Nick!” “Look left, Nick!”—he is the actor, the star. (And what is she, now? No longer Morty’s proxy or protector, she sometimes feels the way one does in dreams of being naked in public. The uniform was invisible, but it was hers.)

Knowing how painfully predictable it sounds, she says, “First, I just have to say, it really, really was amazing. And I cried so hard at the end.”

“Thank you. If you mean it, really mean it, that matters to me more than a thousand critics’ praise.”

“And that’s what you’re getting. I went online—”

“Except for the sniping about pedophilia given ‘cartoon treatment.’?”

“That was absurd. That was one review.”

“And there will be others. Of all stripes.” He looks over at the swings to check on his niece. Suddenly he smiles up at the trees. “But here! It was here? The place of origin, the ground zero of Colorquake. Here?”

“I met Morty there.” She points to a spot farther down the long line of benches on which they’re seated, where a mother is nursing a baby beneath a tentlike blouse. “Though I’m sure they’ve replaced the benches. And we never had a sandbox this grand—or slides made out of this space-age rubbery stuff. We had an iron jungle gym, metal swings, a seesaw. Seesaws are a thing of the past. They’re considered too dangerous now.”

“How old were you then?” asks Nick.

“Twelve,” she tells him.

She hears a small intake of breath, as if she’s just given him a coveted password or made a confession. “Twelve?” he says. “Oh, twelve.”

“A painful age,” she says.

“Yes,” he says. “But rather an extraordinary age. A crossroads.”

Tommy isn’t sure how to answer. Other than her meeting Morty—something she might no longer recall if she had never met him again—the few things she remembers from seventh grade are uniformly difficult to think about. She was trying so hard to forge a deliberate identity; in retrospect, her efforts did little more than isolate her from others. She wanted to be like no one else, and as a result, almost no one else found her easy to befriend.

They scan the playground in unison. Nick has replaced his sunglasses.

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