by Jon Cohen
Immediately after finishing with Wolf, Harry called McWilliams, Torrey & Conwell. In eight days, Toland said, the law firm would receive a check for seven million dollars from Carlisle Demolition Company, then deposit it into the firm’s escrow account. After processing suit and attorney fees—this would take four days—they would electronically transfer approximately four million dollars to Harry’s money market account at Vanguard. Harry’s current balance was $11,431.21.
Toland burbled on, still in the alpha afterglow of victory. Harry held the phone away from his ear, waited for the noise to subside and then said, “Thank you,” and hung up.
Next, he put in a call to Sally Baker, the real estate agent who had sold them the house five years ago. Sally had been at Beth’s memorial service.
“Not a problem, Harry. What you’re asking for is called property management. We have several properties in Waverly. Rentals. But you’re not renting, right?”
No. Not selling, he told her, not renting, haven’t made a decision. On a hiatus.
For three hundred dollars a month, her agency would handle everything. Lawn service, cleaning service that would empty the refrigerator, turn down the heat—everything domestic from A to Z. Sally would do a walk-through once every two weeks to make sure everything was in tip-top shape. They set up a plan for tax and mortgage payments.
Harry said, “My brother may be lurking around. We don’t get along. We’re in the middle of a family thing. Not a big deal, just don’t let him in the house, please. He can be...persuasive.”
Sally understood. She said she’d alert the police for the occasional drive-by. “We see it all in the real estate business, Harry. Families and property—it can get intense.”
She added, “So, how are you, Harry?”
Harry was ready for this. “Well, Sally, with grieving—you know how they always say the first year is so disorienting? I feel like I’m coming out of a fog. It’s been a process. And this is part of it.”
This was the notion he wanted to plant in Sally, for surely she would gossip. It’s what real estate agents do. She’d say, Harry is off somewhere getting it together. He’s on an emotional journey. Perfectly reasonable. Everybody has their own way of dealing.
“Oh, Harry, one more thing,” she said. “I’ll need a key.”
Sally chuckled when he told her where the spare key was hidden: in the knothole of the dogwood to the right of the garden shed. “Of course,” she said. “Where else would someone in the Forest Service hide a key?”
Formerly of the Forest Service. That was Harry’s next bit of business. By email, he contacted his boss, Irv Mickler, and resigned, effective immediately. Harry had a jillion sick days and vacation days coming to him. He wouldn’t be coming back in.
And this was a little vindictive, but what the hell. Harry ended the email with: Just a thought, Irv. Bob Jackson can handle the RP initiatives, SOPA reports, NFS studies, FSI summaries and the process predicament reviews. Bob loves to get down in the weeds. He’s an absolute workhorse.
And that was the end of Harry’s career in bureaucratic forestry.
12
And the beginning of life in a real forest. He stared at Oriana. The word forest was no longer a simple word. Just thinking it, he could feel this young girl’s pull. I’m trying to get to Harry’s Trees, he thought, but to get there I will have to travel through Oriana’s Forest.
“What is that thing?” she said. She scanned a lumpy duffel bag with her flashlight. They stood at the base of the tree house. The moon had come out from behind a cloud.
Harry removed a strange folded contraption from the bag. “Voilà. A camp commode.”
“A what?”
“A camping toilet.”
“You brought your own toilet? Ew. Weird.”
Harry gave her a look. “I’m sorry. You don’t have a toilet in your house?”
“This is outdoors. Outdoors, you just go.”
“Well, I do things differently.”
She unfolded the contraption. It was a three-legged stool, with a plastic fabric sling seat that had a circular hole in the center. She sat on it and grinned. “This is the dumbest thing I ever saw.”
Harry crossed his arms and waited. “Had your fun? Can we go up now? Actually, you need to go home. It’s late. It’s the woods. It’s night. Go away.”
“You bring anything else good?”
She rummaged around in the duffel bag and pulled out an old green-and-white cap with an official Forest Service logo on the front.
Harry said, “It was in the trunk of my car.”
She put it on her head. “What else do you have?” She started rummaging again.
He stopped her and zipped up the bag. “Just provisions.”
“What are ‘provisions’?”
“Provisions. Things. Food. Clothes.”
“I know most words. Just not the ones you use sometimes. I’m really smart, you know.”
“Believe me, I know.”
She considered him. “You really don’t have kids?”
“No.”
“But you’re married.” Her light went to his wedding band. The gold flashed, undeniably.
Harry didn’t meet her eyes. Which, even though it was dark, he knew were lasered in on him. He gripped one handle of the cooler. “If you’re going to hang around, then help. Grab the other end,” he said.
They struggled up the spiral stairs. Oriana was small but mighty. Strength gained from rustic living. Harry doubted the kids on his suburban block would be able to do this.
The Grum’s Ledger sat on the triangular wooden table in the corner, waiting. Oriana had taken it out of the pillowcase earlier in the day, when she had come looking for Harry. The light of the kerosene lamp, which Harry had lit a few minutes earlier when he’d gone up to the tree house with the first of his supplies, played over the ledger’s wrinkled and faded cover.
Harry averted his eyes.
“You were supposed to read it, but you didn’t,” Oriana said.
“Oh yeah? And how would you know that?”
She opened the book and pointed to the tiny bit of woodpecker fluff on page four. “Still there.” She pursed her lips and blew it into the air.
“Sneaky girl,” Harry said.
Oriana nodded approvingly. “I stay on my toes,” she said.
“Where did you get the book?”
“From the secret place. Where fairy tales come from.”
“Ah, of course, the secret fairy tale place. The land of Snow White and magic lottery tickets and hawks and unicorns and ogres.”
“Not ogres. Grums.”
Harry sighed. “Let’s do something sensible, shall we?” He thrust a box of crackers at her. “Help me put my stuff away.”
Oriana helped store his food in the two cabinets on either side of the tiny kitchen sink. She showed him how the sink worked. “You pull up on the handle then give it three pumps. It uses rainwater so it’s just for washing dishes.” A fifty-gallon oak rain barrel was fixed to the roof of the tree house. She told him he was supposed to use only organic soap. The sink drained down a long hose hidden under the spiral stairs and into the ground. The tree house was as tight and perfectly appointed as the captain’s quarters in an old sailing ship.
“You guys thought of everything.”
“For drinking water, there’s a spring. I’ll show you where tomorrow. It’s kind of hidden.” She opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a plastic jug. “This is to carry the water.”
“You need to go home. You’re tired.”
“I can’t fall asleep until I’ve had a bedtime story.” She eyed him.
Harry turned to the window. The moon was bright now. They stood at the largest window in the tree house, which faced west, and looked out onto the moon-silvered treetops.
“Beautiful,” Harry said. “I love that this copse—fancy word for a cluster of trees—is quaking aspen. Know why this beech tree is right in the middle of all these aspens?”
She shook her head.
“Because aspen leaves are very acidic, and beech trees thrive in acidic soil.” He filled the room with facts. “And it goes both ways. They help each other.” He patted one of the smooth, silver-gray branches, thick as an elephant’s leg, that went up through the middle of the tree house. “A beech tree is very tall and gives mixed shade. That’s what aspens require. Not too much sun or too much shade.”
“You’re stalling,” she said. And placed The Grum’s Ledger in his hands.
He put it back on the table.
Oriana considered him. “Are you an aspen or a beech?”
“An aspen, definitely. I quake a lot. I’m just one of a crowd. I bend in the wind.”
“I’m definitely a beech tree.”
“Why?”
“Because my dad was a giant.” She patted a thick branch. “So I’m going to be like this. Giant and strong.”
They stared out the window for a while longer without speaking. Did she mean a real giant? Probably. Her father a giant and her mother, in Harry’s mind, an Amazon warrior queen. This kid’s imagination was contagious. He looked into the forest, expecting to see Amanda Jeffers just behind a distant tree trunk, Amazonian, with an immense bow, reaching into her quiver for an arrow with his name on it, taking aim. Hurry up and read my daughter the book, it’s late, she has school in the morning. Don’t be such a quaking aspen.
Oriana, beside him, was nodding to herself, deciding on something important. “Okay. In bed last night, I was thinking. You’re right.” She gestured to the moonlit woodland out the window. “This is both of ours. These are your trees, too.”
Harry fiddled with his wedding ring. After a long moment, he said, “Harry’s Trees.” He blinked and looked away. Cleared his throat, spoke softly. “That’s always been a dream of mine. To start a business called Harry’s Trees.” And at the end of each day, he thought, I would come home to Beth.
He looked up. Oriana was watching him play with his ring. He stopped and placed his right hand over it.
“Harry’s Trees,” she said gently. “That’s a great name. Nice and simple.” Then she stepped back, and recited:
“Oriana’s Forest
And Harry’s Trees.
A place enchanted,
Thick with leaves.”
Harry nodded. “Wow. Impressive.”
“Told you I was smart.”
The Grum’s Ledger sat on the table, waiting. Oriana waiting.
Harry avoiding. “So this tree house,” he said. “How come nobody breaks in or bothers it?”
“You know why. It’s protected by magic.” Oriana considered further. “And nobody really comes out here much. You might see Ronnie. And maybe Stu.”
“Who are they?”
“Ronnie was my dad’s friend. He feels bad about my dad dying. When he gets a deer, he always brings venison for Mom. He won’t bother you unless you bother him.”
“And Stu?”
“Stu Giptner. He’s a creep that always pokes around. He sells houses.”
“Why would he be coming out here?”
“To look at our house. Because he’s a vulture.”
Ronnie leaving meat. Stu sniffing out the property. Amanda Jeffers, widowed, supporting herself. An Amazon with a financial Achilles’ heel?
Harry looked over at The Grum’s Ledger. “Tell me more about your dad,” he said. The man hovered above everything, was at the core of Oriana’s obsession with magic. Harry didn’t know a thing about kids, but it made sense. If he’d had a crazy year after Beth, this child would have had her own kind of crazy year.
And he wondered. Did her father write The Grum’s Ledger for her? Was that the secret of this book? If Dean Jeffers built this far-fetched tree house, did he make up stories, too? Certainly, no-nonsense Amanda Jeffers was not a storyteller.
Oriana said, “It’s time, okay?”
Why was he stalling? Because the book was everything to Oriana, her sole purpose, and if it loomed large for her, it loomed large for him. Here he was trying to deal with his own heartache, and she was determined to pull him into hers. What if he couldn’t help her? Really, how could he, when he’d done such a lousy job of making it through his own tangled forest? Look at me, Oriana. You see I’m still wearing my ring. If I told you what it meant, you’d understand that I’m the last person to help you let go of your father. I am not a man who knows how to let go.
And then he thought, Jesus, Harry. Stop thinking of yourself and help this kid. Help her let go. Really, what is she asking of you? She just wants you to read a book. Not very much, is it? This is what grown-ups do with children. She needs the comfort of a special book. You read it, she feels better, she calms down. What’s more soothing than a book? That’s what they’re for, right? A good book, then she goes home, climbs into her little bed and falls to sleep. Oriana goes to sleep. Harry goes to sleep. Amanda goes to sleep. The forest goes to sleep. The entire planet goes to sleep. Harry was getting sleepy just thinking how wonderful it was going to be. The perfect way to end a long day. A bedtime story. He yawned.
“All right. Okay. We read it,” he said. “Then you go on home to bed.”
“Deal.”
They sat side by side on the cot.
He cleared his throat and scrunched his eyes. Harry realized he had never read a book to a child.
Oriana reached over and opened the cover of the old bank ledger. Harry took a nervous breath and read the first handwritten words. “‘Once upon an endless time in the Endless Mountains there—’”
Oriana elbowed him. “Go slower. And your voice should have a kind of singsong to it.” She demonstrated. “Once upon an endless time...”
Harry nodded and started again. He could feel his heart pounding as he read. And he could feel, somehow, the beating of Oriana’s heart, too. The tree house was a-thump with human heart.
“‘Once upon an endless time...’” he said.
Once upon an endless time in the Endless Mountains, there lived an old grum. From moonrise to sunrise to moonrise again, the grum sat hunched and grumbly atop his hoard of gold coins, his heart as cold and heavy as his treasure.
At the end of each endless day, he counted his coins and entered the number in his ledger. The number was always the same. Everything was always the same.
One evening, as the sun dipped below the distant mountains, the grum fell into a fitful slumber. He whimpered and twitched, his nightmares tossed with Grieving Ghosts and Shadowy Sads and Woeful Wisps.
The grum lurched awake when he heard a sound—plink plink plink. His twitchings and turnings had shaken loose a single piece of gold. It rolled down the treasure pile and plinked away into the dark green forest. This had never happened before. The grum frowned, sighed a great musty sigh and started after it. He stopped. Sighed again.
And again.
Something wasn’t right. He breathed another grummy breath. The heavy place inside his thick chest felt...lighter. He shifted his furry bottom, which was icy cold from sitting so long atop his pile of gold. When he wiggled the six gnarly toes of his left foot and the seven gnarly toes of his right, three more coins rolled—plink plink plink—down the golden heap.
Now when he drew a great lungful of foresty air, the grum smelled rich earth and damp leaves. His murky eyes unmurked, and he saw fireflies like gold coins dancing in the air around him.
The grum scooped up a handful of coins. He felt their cold weight and winced at their blindy shine. He opened his fingers and let them slip from his grasp—plink plink plink.
His thumpless heart thumped. His crooked spine uncrooked. For the first time in years (that had passed like centuries), he turned h
is eyes from his treasure heap to the star-soaked sky. The stars...were brighter than his gold!
The grum scooped up another handful of coins and let them fall. And then he scooped up two handfuls and tossed them into the night. He did it again. And again. More and more, faster and faster. As the mound of treasure grew smaller, his arms grew stronger. Clumps of greasy fur dropped from his body. With a smoky poof, a gnarled toe vanished from his left foot and—poof poof—two toes vanished from his right. He stared at his feet and remembered. Five was the right number of toes! The more gold he tossed into the night, the less grummy he grew.
Casting away the last of the gold in great heaps and hurls, he uncovered another treasure, his first and truest, which he had lost long ago—a beautiful young woman with chestnut hair and tortoiseshell glasses. Year after year, coin by greedy coin, he had buried and forgotten her. The grum fell to his knees and begged forgiveness.
The woman was wise and kind. With a kiss she forgave his foolishness. The grum changed back into the young man he had once been and the two lovers walked hand in hand through a forest lit by golden fireflies, endlessly happy ever after in the Endless Mountains.
* * *
Oriana made Harry read the story twice. The second time through, she listened with her eyes shut.
Harry felt light-headed as he closed the ledger.
Oriana opened her eyes. “Now the other story. They go together.”
What did that mean?
“I had the book, you had the ticket,” she said. “You have to tell me the story of the lottery ticket.”
“Now wait a minute. That’s not a story. It’s real life. And I don’t want to.”
“You have to.” She cocked her head and studied him. “You’ve never told anybody. Have you?”
When he shook his head, he didn’t look at her.
“Because you’ve been saving it,” she said. “You’ve been saving it for right now. That’s what my dad knows.”
“Listen,” Harry said, his voice rising. “All I did was buy the damn thing. At a convenience store. I bought a crummy ticket at a crummy convenience store. There’s no story. Not everything’s a story, Oriana.”