“That dot,” I said, “is a little tree about as tall as a yardstick. Your great-grandpa carried it up from the creek in a wet feed sack in the spring of 1952. He had been home from the war three days.”
I told them about my mother asking why three, and what he said back.
Mason didn’t say anything for a while. Then he laid his whole hand flat over the center of that stump, covering as many years as his palm would reach.
“It took seventy-four years to make this.”
“It did.”
“How long did it take to cut down?”
I had made Kim a promise.
“Not long,” I said.
He looked at the other two stumps, and at the tops lying in the grass, and I watched him add it up. He didn’t ask me another thing. He had decided who to ask.
Lily had already hopped down and was gathering walnuts into the lap of her skirt.
I have asked myself since whether I used those children. I have prayed over it, too. I don’t believe I did. I told them nothing but what their great-grandfather did and what a tree is. If I had wanted to turn them against their daddy, it would have taken one sentence, and I held that sentence behind my teeth.
There were eight of us at the table. I had a roast in, mashed potatoes, green beans cooked down with a ham hock, and Linda brought her yeast rolls. Ray said grace and thanked the Lord for Joan’s life. Darren sat across from me and had not said six words since he came in the door. Jeff, bless him, was carrying the whole table with the price of feeder calves.
Mason had not touched his plate.
“Dad?”
“Eat your dinner, bud.”
“Why are Great-Grandpa’s trees gone?”
Every fork at that table stopped. Linda had the gravy boat halfway to Jeff and she held it there.
Kim put her hands in her lap. I kept my eyes on my plate. I had said it was not mine to answer and I meant it.
“They had to come down, Mason,” Darren said.
“Grandma said they weren’t sick.”
Darren didn’t answer.
“We counted them,” Mason said. He wasn’t being smart. He was a boy laying out what he knew. “They were seventy-four years old. Great-Grandpa planted them when he got home from the war, for three men he knew. There’s a ring in there for the year you were born. I put my finger on it.”
Darren looked at me then. I will never forget it. It was not anger. It was a man looking for a door, and I was sitting in the only one.
“Darren,” I said, “if you’d rather, I’ll take the children out on the porch and you can say what you need to without them.”
His jaw worked. The kitchen clock ticked eight or ten times.
“No,” he said. “No. He asked me. He ought to get it from me.”
He set his fork down and put both hands flat on the tablecloth.
“I cut them down, Mason. Me. On Tuesday, while Grandma and Grandpa were at Aunt Joan’s funeral. I sold the logs to a man for twenty-seven hundred dollars, because I was behind on the payments for the skid steer and I was scared of losing it.”
“Did Grandma say you could?”
“No.”
“Did you ask her?”
“No, son. I did it while she was gone so I wouldn’t have to.”
Lily looked up from her potatoes.
Lila Hart is a dedicated Digital Archivist and Research Specialist with a keen eye for preserving and curating meaningful content. At TheArchivists, she specializes in organizing and managing digital archives, ensuring that valuable stories and historical moments are accessible for generations to come.
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