Forty Days and Nights: Love Stories. 25. Leaves

After it was over, after things calmed down and the family repaired what could be repaired and buried what could never be healed, after they drifted back to their lives, to the way things had been before, he just wandered around for days, for weeks maybe, lost. He took long walks, wandered along the river and among the trees, and so he found her, one day, found her and it all came slamming back on him; that long ago day and how he had run and run, chased her without plan or thought or mercy. How he had hounded her, pursued single-minded his heart's desire. It stopped him, it smashed him, it tore him apart, and he saw in himself his son, his dead boy, consumed pursuing thoughtless desire. He stood frozen, what he had done to her, how she came to be there, what she had been before pouring over him like water, like icy nightfall. It nearly broke him in two, to stumble on that old sin, that silent horror on top of so many others. He stood by her, reaching out helplessly, trying to form words that might be any way useful, any kind of sorry, but he finally just put his head against her trunk and wept til he thought he would run down into the river and be done, be emptied into that larger water. When he had cried himself quiet, he stayed with her, stayed with his arms wrapped around her and his face against her bark. He felt light, peaceful, tired, and he slid down til he lay at her foot and he slept there, against her, all night.

And after, in the days after, he just kept coming back to her. He found himself more and more often sitting in her shade, leaning his head against her bark. After a while, it was foolish, he knew it was foolish, but he talked to her. He talked to her and he told her everything. All of it. How he had wanted that love, his son's love. How he had tried to make the boy believe, how he had wanted this boy, this son to trust him, to admire him, to, well, to worship him. And what he had done. The terrible thing he had done, had allowed. He tried to explain it to her. He didn't lie to her, he told the truth. He spoke only truth, after all, but he really wanted to as well. He told her and it didn't even matter that she would never answer, could not speak. He said it all to her, from the beginning. I did try to talk him into sense, he told her, I did. I told him what would happen, I told him everything. And when he still fought for it, wanted it so badly, so badly, I did everything I could to keep him safe. I did everything I knew. Everything. It wasn't enough. It just wasn't enough. Everything I could do wasn't enough.

And he told her in simple words of the burning, the boiling rivers, the flight and the fall, of streaming flaming hair like a comet's tail, of waters that embrace and close and kill and cherish and soothe a heart's fire. He told her all of that day, his eyes wide and blind, seeing it over again and again. He told her of the death of a son and the end of a world. He told her of green spikes of grass through black ash and of gentle breezes on burned limbs. He told her of a longing as wide as the sky and of daring and of failure and of judgment and he wept soundlessly and endlessly. And after, he sat under her, sheltered in her shade, dark, silent.

But a minute later he was talking again and he was saying the truth and not just because he had to. He wanted to tell her the truth, he wanted to, and he did. I didn't do everything, he said, dry and hollow now. Not everything, he said, not everything I knew to do. I did everything except just tell him no. I could have said no. And he'd be alive. He wouldn't believe in me. He wouldn't worship me or even like me and he'd be alive. He put his face against her again and cried that out of him. He felt a wind about him, soft and caressing, leaves brushing by his face. He looked up at leaves falling from her branches, whirling and spinning about him, piling softly on his legs and feet and on the ground. On the ground where they made a word.

The leaves said, Hey.

That night he couldn't sleep.

He sat under her, in her shade, tried to draw together his courage.
Yesterday, he began.
He stopped.
Tried again.
Yesterday, he said. He stuck there. There are things that simply cannot be believed without a personal dare and a running start, no matter how hot the hope, how sharp the need.
He leaned his head against her, his heart hammering, splintering. Did you talk to me? he whispered, his face on her bark. Was it...was that you? Did you? Are you there? he asked, are you there? Please, he said, shuddering with hope, please. Are you still there?
Silence. He waited for a wind, for a breeze, for leaves to chase across his skin.
It was a long time before he gave up the last shreds of his burning hope and opened his eyes to get up, to go home to his bed, opened his eyes to see the leaves about his feet that said, You've changed. Come back tomorrow.

He came every day.

He told her what he saw as he drove, he told her all the family gossip, the family dirt. He told her about fighting with his sister when they were small, how he used to tell boys she liked them and how she used to shoot him in the back. He told her about the songs he was making. He told her the questions, the heartache, the insoluble dilemmas people brought to him, he asked her advice, he told her what the sun on the river looked like, he asked her, one day, if she remembered her own hair. Is that offensive to you? he asked gently, frightened, that I wonder if you remember something like that? It's just that, that I had never seen such lovely, lovely hair, and I miss it. It's the truth, he said apologetically, I can't help saying it. I hope, he said softly, I hope it doesn't hurt you. I was just remembering. I would hate to hurt you, he said, to hurt you any more. He looked out over the river and remembered hurts he had made. I would do anything, he said toward the river, you know I would do anything. When he wiped the silent tears off his face, he looked down at leaves that were telling him, Find my father.

He flew.

He talked to her father, told him what the leaves said to him, and he did just as he had said, he did anything, anything asked of him and after so much work and after so many days he came back to her and brought her father, came back not knowing, trembling, questing, halting, burning.

She wasn't there. Her place was empty, the ground torn and still damp. He saw it, they both saw it, the leaves, the great jagged strips of bark, the pools and clumps of blood like sap soaking into the ground, but there was nothing else. No marks in the dirt, no footprints, no message. No word. Her father's hands shook, his head shook, her father sobbed and beat his chest softly. He stood by her father, hands empty, heart empty, mouth empty. I'm sorry, he finally said to her father, stunned, broken, this is not what...I'm so sorry. And he ran.

A year later he found her. She was living in a tiny house between the river and the sea, in the shadow of a tall and arching cliff. She smiled when she saw him coming, saw the light rising under the dark of the overhanging cliff. Yes, she said, you found me. She took him into her house and he sat in her chair, brimming. She watched him, curiously. He smiled and smiled, and thought he might be better able to sing than to speak, but he could no more sing than he could leave this place, leave her in the shadow of the cliff. Are you alright? she asked, gently, and he nodded, reached out so slowly, so terribly carefully, to touch her hair. What is it? he asked, looking into her eyes. Uh, she said, you're, um, is that...how are you? she asked. I think I'm completely happy, he said, and she said, Yes, I see, and are those little flames coming off of you? and he looked around him. Yes, he said, embarrassed, yes, those are flames. Could you, he asked, do you have, something? And she said quickly at the same time, Why don't you stand up? Out of the chair? And maybe, I'm sorry, but would you like to take-- and he interrupted her, A cold shower? Yes. That's the thing. It's almost funny, isn't it? Almost, she said. Could you quick step off that rug? But she was laughing so hard. He laughed and reached out for her and she was running outside and before he could think, before he could stop himself he was chasing her. Horrified, loving her, wanting her, chasing. But she was laughing and laughing and she pushed him into the river.


If you really read the fairy tales, you will observe that one idea runs from one end of them to the other--the idea that peace and happiness can only exist on some condition. This idea, which is the core of ethics, is the core of the nursery-tales.
-G. K. Chesterton, All Things Considered, 1908