Windfall (2011)
“Actually, it’s a yellow streamer. My enviro-mom doesn’t like plastic, but she didn’t want to pay for biodegradable caution tape. You have to buy it in bulk. “Let’s hope we never need five hundred feet of caution tape,” Mom told the hardware store clerk.
Silas made a sign: Tree Ailing: Do Not Climb. The entire tree is on a slant.
“Like the leaning tower of Pisa,” Silas comments at breakfast.
“Tilting,” Mom says, launching our family game.
“Listing,” I say.
“Lurching,” Silas says.
“Diagonal?” Leland says.
“Sloping,” Mom says.
“Off balance,” I say.
“I’m off balance.” Leland pouts as he sadly stirs his cereal.
I am too. Our apple tree was the first tree we climbed. Every fall, the kitchen shelves fill with jars of applesauce. If our generous tree is going to tilt, then our lives will too.
“Our tree has had a long life,” Mom says. “It’s been growing for over a hundred years, long before this house was built. I asked John Allans.”
“The dude with the top hat who gives ghost tours?”
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