The Odyssey Tree

(continued)

By Jeannette Angell

And then the knock came again, strong, loud, assured; and it galvanized her into action, if for no other reason than to silence the noise. Timidly, slowly, she opened the door.

On the landing stood the young man from downstairs.

He really was quite handsome, Amelia thought. He wasn't very tall, but she had never been fond of towering men; and he had sandy hair, just like Edward's had been at his age, and eyes that appeared to be blue. He was wearing a pair of corduroy trousers and a brown sweater over a brown checked shirt. He was smiling.

"Yes?" said Amelia, at a loss. She wasn't accustomed to greeting callers at her door.

"Miss Ford?" he asked. "I'm Tom Morrison, from downstairs. I just wanted to thank you for the cookies. They were delicious."

"Oh! Thank you," she said automatically, twisting her hands, and then she remembered that he was the one thanking her, and her response had been incorrect. What should she do? He was still smiling. Hesitantly, as though treading on uneven ground, she asked, "Would you like to come in?"

She had hoped - assumed - that he would say no, he had no time; but the smile broadened. "Thank you, Miss Ford. I'd like to." So she had to swing the door open wider; and when she did, he walked past her into the living room.

Amelia moistened her lips. "I was just about to have tea," she said carefully, taking refuge in the familiar. "Would you care to join me?"

"That would be great," he said, enthusiastically, sitting down on her sofa and looking around the living room with interest.

Oh, dear, Amelia thought. She hadn't had company since Harriet had died, and she wasn't exactly sure that she could remember what onedid; but she could always start by getting the good china from the cupboard. Her mother had always said that if one had good china, then the rest would follow.

She excused herself and fled into the kitchen, putting the kettle on to boil, setting out things on the tea tray, taking the pound cake from the refrigerator and slicing it carefully into very thin slices. She had always prided herself on her thin slices, even Harriet used to say that no one could make them stay together as well as she did... The small familiar routine acts of food preparation calmed her and she found herself hardly shaking at all by the time she carried the tea tray into the living room.

The new tenant - Mr. Morrison he had said his name was - was examining the Odyssey Tree - "This is great!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen anything like it."

Amelia put the tray down, carefully, on the coffee table and then straightened, her cheeks a little flushed. "It was my idea," she said hesitantly, wondering if she seemed too proud, twisting the tea cloth in her hands. "I call it the Odyssey Tree." And then, in case he didn't understand, she added, quickly, "It's after a Greek story written by -"

"I know it," he said easily. "What a creative idea. Have you been to all of these places?"

Amelia lowered her eyes, attending to pouring the tea. "No," she said, in a low, shamed voice. "I don't travel. But I read a great deal, and my family has been generous." She hesitated. "Sometimes,when I look at the tree, I feel as though I've been to all of these places - in my mind. I suppose that that sounds fanciful."

"It sounds delightful. I will have to remember," he said, sitting down and taking a cup from her, "to send you something for your tree, the next time I'm on vacation."

She knew that her cheeks were pink. "I'm sure it's not necessary," she protested, casting around in her mind for safer ground. "Do have some cake, won't you?"

He stretched out his legs and drank her tea and ate four pieces - four pieces! - of her cake; and they talked - or, rather, he talked, and she listened. She learned a great deal about the new tenant that day, about his divorce from his wife Caitlin and the occasional visits with his children who lived with their mother, in Maine. She learned about his work in computers (although, later, she was hard-pressed to describe the exact nature of that work), and about his Friday night basketball games at the YMCA. She learned about his new car, and how he had come to choose that particular one (more mysterious vocabulary here that she didn't dare interrupt for fear of seeming ignorant), and about his widowed father whom he called every night; and, after a while, he looked at the old clock on her mantelpiece and shook his head. "Miss Ford, you're too patient, you should really have kicked me out by now. It's getting late."