Instead, an open window, the moon like a faint spotlight on their bed.
Familiar smells and tastes, too.
If I trust my memory.
As if I had anything else to trust.
The things one finds oneself wondering.
Knots and limbs, stabbing through the seat of my pants.
How something so large must have appeared to someone so small.
Thirty, forty feet tall to a girl two, three times shorter than the lowest branches.
Someone, as if I weren’t thinking of myself.
And Myles grinning in the frigid air, as if that green dog were the answer.
To think I used to climb up here in shorts.
What was the question?
Nothing between me and them now but a window screen, a few branches and leaves.
Certain sensations you can never return to, never experience again.
Comfort, to a child, an insignificant thing.
If you’re not careful up there, darling, you’ll break your etc. etc. Quote unquote.
What did Myles think it meant, the dog’s green fur, so bright it hurt to look?
The temptation to tweet and caw and wake them up.
The afternoon Mother brought home the mechanic, the song that was playing on her car stereo.
When you sit up in the tree staring, we wonder what you see. Quote unquote.
The ache in my back.
When we got back from Seattle, silently stuffing that green dog in the bottom of my duffel bag.
Like the world is a movie playing inside your head. Quote unquote.
And Myles never knowing I kept it.
In the driveway the mechanic raising the hood, and Mother leaving the engine running, the radio playing.
Before the tree itself, before I could climb, my fascination with the seedcases covering the ground.
And what was the name of that girl down the street who remembered events by the outfits she’d been wearing?
For me the place of memory always outdoors.
A summer day with the car stereo playing, and everything a little too bright, the sun, the blue and whites of the sky.
And in my head.
Propellers, were they called, the way they spun and twisted to the ground?
Wings?
No expectation of being able to see them at all.
The same duffel bag where I kept the poems Myles wrote, all those slanting, skidding rhymes.
Darling, what do you mean you don’t want a tree house? Quote unquote.
Even after Mother and the mechanic went in the house together, the engine, the radio, still going.
A chorus repeating baby, baby.
Along with the CD mixes of songs Myles thought I’d like.
The girl down the street remembered what everyone else was wearing, too.
The mechanic Dad said he didn’t trust.
Seedcases the first things I ever dissected.
A summer day, the engine running, and Mother walking into the bedroom and closing the blinds.
Our daughter the squirrel tamer. Quote unquote.
As if I would ever tame anything.
And it was the middle of the afternoon.
The brittle hulls, and inside the case the seed itself, slightly wet and bitter.
The yellow shorts the neighbor girl wore the day Dad ran over her dog.
His brown suit, her dead dog.
Dad rolls onto his other side, moonlit blanket rippling like a wave.
And where was I supposed to be that summer day?
A friend’s?
A neighbor’s?
When I was ten, I vowed I would never again cut my hair.
Was I supposed to be anywhere?
Along with the necklace Myles gave me for our first anniversary, a pendant of tarnished brass watch gears — which I told him I lost.
In her sleep, Mother scratches her cheek.
And for some reason they decided I should go to music camp.
Don’t you think it’ll be nice for you to make some friends, darling? Quote unquote.
Because mechanics are not to be trusted. Quote unquote.
Meaning what, precisely, by not trust?
Not to be trusted with one’s car?
At seven? eight? nine? climbing the tree for the first time and discovering the seedcases in the tree were green and elastic, compared to the brown and brittle ones spread across the lawn.
Not to be trusted with one’s wife?
You have a wonderful ear for music. Quote unquote.
This key, that key, whatever sounded nice.
And what sort of trust does that imply for one’s wife?
From the tree, watching the blinds blow in, hearing them smack against the sill in the breeze.
A wonderful ear for music?
To this day I don’t know what that means.
For a mechanic, I can admit a certain allure.
The blinds, which they’ve since replaced with curtains.
Or was that the squeaking of bedsprings, not the blinds at all?
There being a distinction between an ear for something and an actual skill.
An awe for anyone who can take something apart.
And my never having heard of such a thing as music camp.
And then put it back together, of course.
You’ll love it; the cover of the brochure shows lots of trees. Quote unquote.
Sarcasm being amusing only coming from someone you don’t loathe.
Did she know I was watching?
The curtains now, perfectly still.
Did she simply not care?
Her monogrammed suitcase I could have curled up in.
Stored everything I owned in.
Along with the black T-shirt Myles wore the night we played pool, which I stole from his floor the next morning.
As if there could be degrees of stillness, different degrees of not moving.
We simply wonder what you do up there all day. Quote unquote.
And I, for my part, wonder what you do in there.
Everything in their bedroom in shades of blue, the bedspread, the area rug, the lamp, etc. etc.
The suitcase is real leather and extremely valuable, so take care of it. Quote unquote.
Wondered then, wonder still.
The feeling of independence that comes from being able to do for yourself.