This Time of Death

I was in her backyard, the tiny fenced-in yard behind an extravagant Brooklyn brownstone. I had the baby, Violet, in my arms, and my son, Jasper, was running around with Mateo—both goofy and uncontainable. They were doing the work of four-year-olds—transmuting the world into play. My neighbor, a petite and fragile woman, stood silent, hands on her hips, eyes glazed over. It was spring, and the maple in her backyard stretched high above the brownstone. The tree had been there a long time, longer than the house, perhaps longer than the neighborhood. The tree could not contain itself; little seed helicopters were spinning down on the children, the baby, my friend, and me.

“What I really need is a garden here,” my neighbor said.

There clearly wasn’t much light in this Brooklyn backyard for gardens. I looked up at the tree, its trunk pushing up against gravity; its branches, fractals, spreading out over her yard and into ours. All that life lifting up and soaking in the sun.

“Roses would be lovely…some Belle Amour, Floribunda, and maybe the Tuscany hybrid. I should do dahlias too…I like those Labyrinths, maybe some Shooting Stars, and definitely Arabian Nights,” she trailed off.

I hadn’t looked at her, kept my eye on the tree as she talked.

Then she said, “The tree will have to come down.”

Six starlings swiftly flew from the branches, the boys got in a fight, and the baby started to cry.

That Saturday I heard the sound of the chainsaws wailing away at eight in the morning.

George was pissed. “What the fuck…”

I was already up with the kids, breakfast on the table and feeding Violet her oatmeal.

“What the fuck are they thinking on a Saturday morning? I’m trying to get some sleep. Jesus.”

“Oh, hey…the kids…” They were both looking up at their loud and annoyed father.

I tried to calm him down. “I know, I know! I think they’re cutting down that beautiful old maple.”

He looked at me as if I were stupid. “I don’t care about the tree. I care about my fu…my sleep.” He turned on his heel and spun out of the room.

The kids and I looked at each other. Everyone’s mouth open wide.

Then I heard the door slam. Still, I kept calm and continued to feed Violet, until I heard the shouting.

Standing on the sidewalk with Violet on my hip, and holding Jasper close to my other hip, I watched George cuss out Stan, my friend’s husband, who was cussing back at him. Next to Stan stood his wife. Her eyes glazed over, I could only imagine she was thinking of those roses and the Arabian Nights.

The men argued, the woman stared, the tree was dying, and the children were growing as I held them. A fierceness like a horse galloping through long grass passed through me.

“Come, Jasper, let’s finish breakfast. We don’t want to be a part of this.”

He looked up at me and nodded.

All weekend George’s loud voice rumbled and spread like a vine throughout the house as if the volume alone had the power to end all clashes, as if he were the arbiter of all that is just.

George didn’t win the fight, and the tree came down that Saturday; by Sunday evening all traces of its existence in the backyard were gone.