Everyone Has Their Why
Serial Short Fiction - The Treehouse Part 4
Missed the beginning? Start here!
Previously, Oliver shows a few of his cards, and Hazel is left with a gaping question and growing curiosity.
In Part 4 Oliver shows Hazel his “why.”
*Everything in this story is fictional and not to be regarded as fact or inferred in any way.
The Treehouse Part 4: Everyone Has Their Why
The crickets are fully alive again today, their familiar high-pitched purring acknowledging the dusk that’s falling upon us as we walk the path towards the creek. Oliver chuckles as we ford the creek and reach my cairn I’d constructed at the mouth of the bushes where Rufus and I had entered yesterday during our exploratory mission. When I ask “What?” he just rolls his eyes and winks at me. Is he flirting? I glare back.
I’m grateful, and surprised, he’s showing me something - his why - but I don’t want to be teased along the way.
We take a hidden path, barely a sliver of a game trail through some brush I wouldn’t have noticed about 10 feet to the left of my cairn. Remembering the fish-shaped hollow in the tree Rufus and I reached last night, I inquire, “I found a tree yesterday with a unique hollow. Do you know the one? Looks kind of like a fish.”
“I do,” he responds gently. Did he notice my annoyance at his teasing? And then continues, “That’s one of my favorites out here actually. It reminds me of the tribe…and my mom. They eat lots of fish. It’s one of the first dishes my mom taught me to cook as a boy. Paella.”
Quickly changing the subject, he adds, “So how do you have all this time to track down some mysterious treehouse all the way out here, with little cell service? You take a vacation?”
“Sort of.” I say confidently, only after realizing what I’ve shared doesn’t exude much confidence. “I took a leave of absence so I could have a longer chunk of time off work.”
“Interesting. But why?”
Now feeling much less confident and wary of sharing more, I simply respond, “It’s complicated.”
“So cliche. But okay.” He says without turning around, continuing to push through the brush along this tiny trail.
Now I quickly change the subject, asking “So what happened after your mom left? I mean, how did her parents react?”
“Well they weren’t going to stop her. But they were heartbroken. They’d thought, hoped, she would stay, especially after her brother-” his voice breaks “well since he was gone too.”
“Is that why your mom left? Because he did?” I fumble with the words, not knowing how to ask whatever it is that I’m asking.
“For someone who doesn’t want to answer many questions, you sure do ask a lot of them.”
Damn. He’s right. I truly didn’t even realize that. “Fuck, sorry. You’re right.”
After several beats and a long almost awkward silence, I offer, “My dad. That’s why I’m here.”
He stops walking, turns around and stares at me, waiting for the rest.
Fine, I give in. He is showing me his why after all. I might as well tell him mine. “My dad loved treehouses. We built one together when I was a kid. Well, I handed him tools and he taught me how to use them and showed me how to cut proper angles. I’d go up there every day. On the weekends, we’d have slumber parties up there, he’d even carry our dog up, and we’d share silly stories while falling asleep on top of the cushions while watching the moon rise and hoping for that one last shooting star of the night. Those nights were my favorite.”
I pause, realizing I have a small smile at the memories.
“So when I heard there might be a treehouse and knowing this area is largely inhabited by the Tribe, remembering my dad’s friend, Eddie, I got in touch. I hadn’t met him personally, or that I remembered, but Eddie had said he’d met me once when I was real little, barely walking. Anyways, my dad passed when I was a teenager, so the Eddie-treehouse connection to my dad, that’s what brought me here. Just a mission to feel more of my dad.”
He’s looking away now, unsure how to respond. Most people just say “Sorry for your loss.” but it seems like he might be able to relate. “Did your mom pass too?”
Somewhat surprised, but mostly sad, he turns my way and nods. I see the slight sparkle of the sunset reflecting off a thin wet stream down his right cheek.
We continue walking silently, comfortably, only the sounds of Rufus mouth-open breathing, our legs passing through the brush on both sides and the crickets.
Twenty minutes later and now almost completely dark, we approach a huge tree. Gigantic actually. In the beam of our headlamps the largest tree hollow I have ever seen appears before us, Rufus trotting over skeptically, sniffing its entrance, hackles up, investigating.
Oliver walks right up to it and inside, surprising Rufus who quickly follows, and calls out “Come see.”
At that, the lights come on. A million dangling lights weaved through the tree branches above my head, and enough hanging inside the hollow to illuminate it like we weren’t 90 minutes from a paved road. Seeing my jaw hanging open and zero movement on my part, he comes back out, grabs my hand and pulls me inside.
Catching my bearings while I take in the cushioned wooden bench up against one side, a small framed picture nailed above it and the lights strung around its circumference, he says “Hazel” then points to a carving on the inside of the tree. Names. But with different styles. Oliver. River. Eddie. Kuri. “Who are they?”
“River’s my mom.”
“Did she carve them?”
“She carved hers and the other two. When I got here, years ago, I carved mine.”
“How did you…” I muster out the first part of my question, not being able to finish the sentence, not knowing what I was even asking, really.
“She told me about the tree. When I was maybe 8 or 9. She showed me a polaroid of her at the entrance of this hollow, she was standing inside, looking out at the camera, smiling. She looked so happy. After she died, I found a wooden box tucked in the back of a closet and this picture was in there. I remembered it immediately. On the back in her handwriting was written ‘For Eddie and Kuri.’ Those are her brothers. They’re all named after the rivers, like a river eddy and Kuri is sort of short for current.”
A beat.
“I got in touch with Eddie after she died and that propelled this whole….this whole thing. That’s why I’m here, to protect my mom’s tree. Their tree.”
“That’s why Eddie let you come. And buy it. For your mom and Kuri. What happened to Kuri?”
“He went missing a few years before my mom left. She was so upset that she couldn’t stay. That’s why she went to Europe. To just be somewhere very far away. And that’s why her parents didn’t try to stop her. They understood.”
Another beat. Silence.
“I want to show you something else. Come.” With an outstretched arm and palm facing up, an invitation, he stands at the hollow entrance looking directly into my eyes.
I take his hand and he pulls me outside, around to the backside of the tree from the hollow where there’s a very treehouse-esque ladder nailed into its trunk.
MEET ME IN THE COMMENTS!
Where was your favorite place to play and escape to as a kid? Did you have a fort or an attic or a make-believe castle? Maybe even a treehouse?
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