More Than Hollow
Serial Short Fiction - The Treehouse Part 5
Missed the beginning? Start here!
Previously, Oliver shows Hazel his “why.”
In this final Part 5 Hazel gets another surprise, Oliver and Hazel find out more about each other, and Oliver guesses as to Eddie’s intentions.
*Everything in this story is fictional and not to be regarded as fact or inferred in any way.
The Treehouse Part 5: More Than Hollow
I look up, finally noticing the boards above our heads. There’s The Treehouse. It’s clearly being repaired. Some old, cracked boards still to be replaced. And it’s big. Really big. Adult-sized big.
The new ladder slats feel sturdy under my weight as I climb up and up and then finally over the edge of the treehouse floor, letting my lower legs dangle over, feet dancing in the cool, dark night while Oliver makes his way from the spongy forest bottom. I scoot to the right, letting him settle in beside me at the ladder’s mouth and we sit silently, a quiet knowing between us. We both ooh at the first shooting star, then turn to each other giggling like little kids, feeling that child-like tickle at our jinx moment.
“I want the grand tour. Show me around?” I say with a smirk, eyeing Rufus below our feet, laying patiently at the base of the tree.
He stands, holds out his hands to pull me up, returns my smirk, then once I’m standing he spreads his arms out like he’s presenting a castle, again showing off his Vanna White skills, and says “The Treehouse, madam,” ending with a bow.
I open-mouth laugh, dazzled by his dramatics.
He leads me around, pointing out where he’s still making repairs as if it weren’t obvious, but his narration is sweet and I feel included, welcomed, enjoyed.
“What’s going there?” I ask with more excitement than I realized was going to come out in my tone, noticing what appears to be a very large window with a bench-like structure mid-build beneath it.
“That’s one of my reading nooks.”
“One of your reading nooks? Is that going to be a bay window?”
“Sure is. It’s going to be a bench long enough for me to lay on. I’m gonna make a cushion and some pillows. This window faces west and has a great view of the sunset.”
After showing me the in-process book shelves and his other reading nook that’s an overhang outside on the deck where he’s going to install a hammock chair, we lie down on the bare wood deck, avoiding the two planks that look like they’d collapse if even a beetle were to rest on them.
“You’ve lived here for ten years, on the property I mean. It seems like you’ve just started fixing up the treehouse, though. Why not start years ago?” I ask gently, complete lack of judgment in my tone.
“Yeah I know. Eddie prodded me for years about that. But something in me just wasn’t ready. Part of me wanted to keep it exactly like it was. Preserve the memories they had here. I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to preserve as much of my mom as I could. Every time I woke up on a Saturday and thought, okay, I’ll just go and replace one board, that’s all, I’d get here and freeze up, then just sit on the bench in the hollow thinking about my mom.”
“What about your dad, has he been here? Is he still in Spain?”
“He did actually come once, a few years ago. He does still live in Spain, but had come to the US a few times with my mom when I was kid, we’d all come back to visit Eddie and my grandparents. After my mom passed, he struggled, but he did the best he could with me until I left Spain and moved here, well, Washington I mean, with Eddie’s family when I was 22.”
“That’s how you and Eddie are so close, then.” I thought out-loud, then continued, eager to know more about all this, about Oliver, “What did your dad think? Of the treehouse.”
“Oh, he loved it! He’s the one who pushed me to buy it, or try to, at the very beginning. He’d known about it since he and my mom met. She’d talk about her brothers all the time, constantly sharing stories and how they would play in the hollow, the treehouse they’d built, she showed him the picture. He still has my mom’s wooden box, the one I’d found in her closet with the picture, but I took the photo. It was too hard for him to stay here and all his friends and family are in Spain, that’s why he’s still there. I’ve gone to visit a few times and we talk on the phone every week.”
“What about you, then, miss full-of-questions. Where are you from and when do you go back to work?” he asks.
“Touche.” I smirk, then answer, “Well, I took 10 weeks. The first week and a half was with Eddie and his family, another few days checking in on my mom at the coast before coming here. Rufus loved the beach, it was his first time,” I smile, remembering Rufus running like a wild creature up and down the shore, biting at the waves before pounding straight into them then back out again.
“Oh and I live just outside of White Salmon. I’ve got a small ranch out there. You know it?”
“On the Columbia right? What do you do? For work, I mean.”
“Yep. Well, a few things. I host retreats on my ranch during summer and sell my goat’s milk, cheese and the soap I make at farmers markets. I guess what actually pays the bills though,” I laugh, “is my research job. Basically, I help biodiverse farmers adjust with climate change. I write a lot of reports. I’m a consultant at a firm.”
“Sounds important. And smart.” A short beat. “So you’ve got about 7 and a half weeks left?” he asks.
“Hopefully, as long as my goat caretaker can last that long! What do you do for work, Oliver?”
“I build stuff. I’m a contractor, so I leave for weeks at a time for projects in town and sometimes go into the cities too. It’s too far to commute practically, so I’ll stay with friends in town when I can, and the bigger projects will often post me up in a local, cheap motel. They like my work and I’m reliable so they go out of their way to get me onto jobs. It works.” he shrugs and moves his right arm into a triangle, his big palm under his head for a makeshift headrest.
“Well based on your treehouse ladder building skills, I’d agree.” I say smiling, looking at the stars. We lie there in silence waiting for a shooting star, my mind working, fitting more pieces into this puzzle.
“Why do you think Eddie lied to me? Why wouldn’t he just tell me you’re here, introduce us, tell me about the treehouse himself?” I ask, knowing I’m pulling this from left field.
“I really don’t know. But Eddie does things his own way. I think he gets a sort of strange entertainment from being sneaky. My guess?” he looks at me questioningly, tilting his head slightly in my direction, eyeing me, and I nod, “He knew we’d become friends and wanted it to happen organically. That’s the tribal way. They don’t push, they…let things happen.”
The End
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