would kill him. Last winter was the worst. One February afternoon she spent minutes trying to hear what he was wailing. When she finally made him out, it was as if he were reading her mind: I’m done. It’s hemlock time.
But spring brought him back to himself, and in these days near the summer solstice, she’d swear she has never seen him happier. She puts the tray down on the bedside table. “How about some peach-banana cobbler?”
He tries to raise his hand, perhaps to point, but the hand has other ideas. When he at last gets his mouth to work, he comes at her out of the blue. “There. That.” The words slur, as pulpy as the hot fruit mush she has made for breakfast. He leads with his eyes. “That. Tree.”
She looks out, her features eager, trying to pretend that the request makes perfect sense. Still the consummate amateur thespian. “Y-yes?”
His mouth opens and he launches a syllable midway between what and who.
Her voice stays bright. “What kind? Ray, you know I’m hopeless at that. Some evergreen?”
“From . . . when?” Two words, like biking uphill on a muddy mountain trail.
She gazes at the tree as if she has never laid eyes on it. “Good question.” For a moment, she can’t remember how long they’ve lived in this place or what they’ve planted. He flails a little, but not in distress. “Let’s. See!”
Then she’s standing in front of a wall of books. Ceiling to floor: their lifetime hoard of print. She puts her palm on a shoulder-high shelf, wood she can’t name. Her finger flicks the dusty spines, looking for a thing she’s not sure is there. The past tries to kill her—all the people they were or had hoped to be. She skips by A Hundred Hikes in the Yellowstone. She pauses on A Field Guide to Eastern Songbirds as something bright and red in her head flies off, unidentified. The slender thing, almost a pamphlet, skulks near the end of the shelf. Easy Tree IDs. She takes down the book. An inscription on the title page ambushes her:
For my dear first dimension,
My sole and only Dot.
Care to see which trees are clear
And which are clearly knot?
She has never seen the words before. Not even a vague memory of any attempt to learn the names of trees together. But the poem brings back the poet intact. The best worst poet in the world.
She flips the pages. Way more oaks than good taste would recommend. Red, yellow, white, black, gray, scarlet, iron, live, bur, valley, and water, with leaves that deny all relation to each other. She remembers now why she never had the patience for nature. No drama, no development, no colliding hopes and fears. Branching, tangled, messy plots. And she could never keep the characters straight.
She reads the inscription again. How old was the jingle-writer? Best worst poet. Best worst actor. Patent and lawyer who drove cheats into bankruptcy, then spent a tenth of each year doing pro bono. He wanted a large family, for the all-night Crazy Eights marathons and the four-part novelty songs on long car trips. Instead, it was only him and his dear first dimension.
She carries the booklet back to his room. “Ray!” Look what I found!” The howling mask of his face seems almost pleased. “When did you give this to me? Nice we held on to it, huh? Just what we need now. Ready?”
He’s worse than ready. He’s a kid on his way to camp.
“Start Here. If you live east of the Rocky Mountains, go to entry 1. If you live west of the Rocky Mountains, go to entry 116.”
She looks at him. His eyes are damp but traveling.
“If your tree produces cones and has needle-like leaves, go to entry 11.c.”
They both look out the window, as if the answer hasn’t been staring at them for the last quarter century. In the noonday light, the whirled boughs—stout and layered at wide intervals—shine a funny bluish silver she has never noticed. The tapered, narrow spire shimmers in the overhead sun.
“Definite yes on the needles. Cones up top, too. Raymond? I believe we may be on to something.” She flips through the pages to the treasure hunt’s next way station. “Are the needles evergreen and arranged in sheathed bundles of two to five needles each? If yes, go to . . .”
She looks up. His mask smirks now, more than it should be able to. The eyes are alight. Adventure. Excitement. Goodbye—travel