Under the Branches
The whiteness soothed my bruised soul as we trudged through thickening blankets of snow. The trees, some bare, some prickly and evergreen, were covered in pale icy sheets. I knew we didn’t have much time left, but the sound of the snow underfoot seemed too loud to talk over, and your last words still echoed faintly in the still winter air.
You touched my arm with a gloved hand, and we came to a stop under a towering fir tree where the snow gave way and molded easily under our backs as we lay down under the sweeping branches. Staring up at the moon in all her luminous splendor through the gauzy shroud of clouds that glided across the sky, I hoped you understood my silence. I hoped that you knew to interpret it for the act of respect that it aimed to be instead of assuming my mind had already moved on to something else or that I was uncomfortable. The needles of the branches above us had frozen beads at their tips that looked like they might, at any second, burst and splash on our exposed faces. Of course, they wouldn’t. Everything was frozen and nothing moved or made a sound except us, shifting slightly in the snow.
I did not know what to say. You had bought me more time, knowing, no doubt, that words were slow to surface from the whirling depths of my mind and even slower to form the thoughts of my heart. I did not know what to say, but oh how I wished I did. While the freezing air soothed my burning cheeks, uncertainty pulsed in my veins and numbed my stomach.
“You’ll always be here, right?” The childish words flowed through me, springing from a place so deep within me that it had gone unnoticed until then. I pinched my lips together and shut my eyes, wishing I had not been so quick to turn the topic into something so selfish. I knew what I was asking of you and that what I asked for would be impossible to promise. I turned to look at you. Your eyes were closed, and you might as well have been asleep, but I knew that you were thinking. Silver and bronze turned and whirred in your head as I waited until you opened your eyes and blinked rapidly a couple of times as if just waking up. An easy smile, one of the genuine ones that shines your quiet, peaceful happiness, lit up your face for a moment before it dimmed with a melancholy that tightened your mouth and lowered your eyelids again. You moved your hand to wipe your nose on the back of your glove.
“Yes,” you said in a low voice. “I’ll be here. You’ll find me under this tree when you’re ready and when you’re not. When you’re tired, sad, or happy, and when the reality of your human existence seems impossibly heavy, I’ll be here.”
I relaxed completely into the snow, pushing myself farther into its cold embrace, and breathed. I breathed in the air all the way from the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere where the safety of our world ended and boundless space began. I breathed until my head felt light and cottony, and that was when the words came to me, all at once. I gave them to you one by one and in torrents of phrases that flowed from the unseen waters of my mind. There were beautiful ones that I felt like shouting for all the world to hear, sad ones that I whispered to you alone, and words that frightened me even as I spoke them and realized their grotesque truths. And you listened and replied.
We went back home together that night, and the constellations of bright Christmas lights in windows and on trees winked and blurred as we raced each other through the freshly fallen snow. The warm smell of woodfires laced the air as people started fires in their fireplaces, and I thought with a relish of the heat returning life to my numb fingers and toes. Gasping for air and with our faces stinging, we stopped in my yard. We smiled at each other, light and love shining on our red cheeks and chapped lips. Your woolen hat had slid so low over your face that I could hardly see your eyes and you could barely see me, but you compensated for it by tilting your head back so that your curious brown eyes peered at me from under the hat.
“Thank you,” I said, suddenly desperate to say something more. That was all I said, but it meant more than just that. It meant Thank you for everything. I love you. I’ll see you again under the tree someday. Goodbye. You nodded, and I hoped that meant that you understood. Then, pointing upwards behind me, you whispered:
“Look,” and I turned to see a star. Though it was far away, it shimmered clear and bright and seemed almost as if it were perched on the top of an aging fir tree. I turned back to find that you were already at the end of the road, soon out of sight, but I was rooted to the spot where I stood beside your empty, gray footprints.
Eventually, I was able to move again, to walk across the yard and up the steps to the front door where my hand hesitated on the handle before I stepped into warmth, loud chatter, and quiet music. I never told you, but I would eventually come to like winter again. When I drink hot chocolate in the frosty outdoors, I taste the nights we spent together under the stars and huddled on blankets of snow. When I see an especially bright star in a cool winter sky, I remember your kindness and understanding, your calm presence. I even visited that tree one day, years later. As a lone bird called in the treetops and the winter’s first snow floated down around me, I could almost hear you calling my name.
