The Odyssey Tree

(continued)

By Jeannette Angell

One night, early in December, he was out later than usual. Amelia was worried: there had been a snowfall in the afternoon, and everyone knew how treacherous the roads could be in new snow. She herself was well prepared, as always, with candles and batteries to hand, and extra bread and milk in the refrigerator; so she had nothing to do, really, but sit and worry about Tom.

The clock on the mantelpiece chimed one o'clock in the morning when she finally heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. She had nodded off on the sofa; hastily, he pulled her shawl about her shoulders, thrusting her feet into her faded carpet-slippers, and ran to the back of the house, to watch him through the kitchen window.

It was light out, the deceptively bright light of a new snowfall, reflecting back the streetlamps; and Amelia could see quite clearly. Tom got out of the car and stood beside it for a moment, leaning against the door, as though impervious to the cold. Amelia frowned, still watching, and then her eyes widened as another car pulled into the driveway, behind his, and a young woman got out.

Tom had been waiting for her; he walked slowly over to her car, watching her lock the door - which was silly, really, it was such a safe neighborhood - and they stood for a moment together in the porch light, talking, before he led the way inside.

Amelia sat alone in her dark living room, thinking. Why was this girl here? Was she a sister, a friend in trouble? Tom was so compassionate, she thought. Were they sitting at his kitchen table, now, just as he had often sat with Amelia, talking over their troubles with each other? It was now nearly two o'clock. What could they possibly be doing together?

She crept at last into her bedroom, too tired finally to wait up any longer, and it was then that she heard the sounds - terrible sounds, muffled sounds, cries and moaning and gasps, coming from the room downstairs. From Tom's bedroom; his apartment was designed to be identical to hers.

She lay awake all night, tears running silently down her wrinkled cheeks, with the world changing all around her; and when she heard the pipes banging from the bathroom below she slipped into her robe and shuffled into the kitchen, feeling very old, and stood behind the white net curtains and watched the girl get back into the small foreign car and drive away, and a few minutes later she watched Tom do the same.

She walked back into the living room and sat down heavily and stared at the Odyssey Tree for a very long time. And then, slowly and very tiredly, she brought the boxes from the bedroom and packed everything away, neatly, wrapping all the little cherished objects in tissue paper, and even adding Tom's postcard to the pile. And then, after everything else was finished, she put the tree in the garbage can.

It would be better, she knew, if she could move away; but that was impossible. She had rented this same apartment from Mr. Phillips for the past thirty-one years, and she could no more think of moving than she could think of flying. It would be better, even, to die; for she would never, now, be able to appreciate life in the same way. But that was impossible, too. She was too practical, or too religious, or too much of both to contemplate suicide with anything other than wistful longing.

She knew what would happen. She would go on. She would watch Tom through the kitchen windows, and she would eat his spaghetti and serve him tea, and she would be miserable because she would know, all the while, what he was thinking. That he was pitying her. That she was a convenience, nothing more. That she was nothing but a pathetic old woman.

If he knew what she had been thinking about him, he would be disgusted.

And so the winter passed, and in the spring, the lilacs outside of Amelia's window burst into flower, filling her rooms with their heady aroma.

One evening there was a knock on the door, and she opened it, tiredly, to find Tom standing there. Tom, and another man, one who looked a lot like him but who was older, with gray hair and slightly mottled skin.

She was sure that she saw a twinkle in his eye when Tom said, "Amelia, I'd like you to meet my father. Dad, this is the wonderful lady I told you about."

And, later that week, she went out in search of another Odyssey Tree, a tree for new beginnings.