Authors: Alice Hoffman
Lucy puts her car in reverse and backs up, then heads out toward the marshes.- She turns off her air conditioner and opens all the windows, in spite of the gnats and the sticky air.
When she gets there the merlins dive at her car, then retreat to the tops of the trees. Every nest they make is wound out of cypress leaves and willow branches; not one has ever toppled to the ground. Julian's car isn't in the driveway, but Lucy gets out anyway. The piles of hay in the empty kennel are a rich, golden color. They haven't been touched, and they'll stay exactly as they are until a heavy rain mats them down. But out in the woods, the dog's last pawprints have already disappeared; they've been covered by leaves and a layer of sand.
There are no parakeets here, so Lucy reaches up and takes off her scarf. She's glad she cut her hair. She lives in Florida now, after all. She can't help but stare at the vines that grow along Julian's porch; they're so old no one can remember who planted them. Surely not Charles Verity, who never gave a damn about gardens, but he did ha daughter, and it's quite possible that she was different from her father as most children from their parents. It's possible that she st outside this house at exactly this time of day, this exact time of year, to watch what grow.
Lucy knows she should start home. It's dinnertime and she's got a sack of groceries the backseat of her car, but instead she goes to the porch that hasn't been painted for I All along the porch steps there are spider and stones, but Lucy sits down anyway. The is, it's too hot to cook and the sky is filled v light and she's driven all the way out here, might just as well stay. If they get used to if she comes here often enough, those xiii in the trees might begin to recognize her.
might come right up to the porch railing leaves out breadcrumbs and rice.
I.
During the dinner hour the parking lot is always crowded. Gas fumes rise into the orange sky as cars idle; clouds turn crimson. If the Angel cranes his neck he can see through the plate-glass window to where teenage boys in uniforms work behind the counter. There are the customers, waiting for their supper. There are the children, held by the hand. The gumbo-limbo tree is completely empty now. No birds nest here anymore.
Even the fire ants have fled. The Angel feels as if he's been coated with glue; it's not easy to lift his feet and he hasn't tried to climb into the higher branches for quite a while. Sometimes he paces out the radius of the circle he has to stay in, other times he just stands there, not moving, for hours or days.
He knows what he'll feel at the moment of his release: the cold blue reaches of the sky above him, the weightless flight, uncharted, even by birds. The Angel waits for that moment, growing paler in these last few hours of the month. He is standing there, beneath the tree, when Julian Cash pulls into the parking lot. Julian should be on his way home, he wants to go home, he's dead tired and he has to feed Loretta, but instead he finds a space near the drive-in window. He sits in his car for a while, then locks his gun in the glove compartment and tells Loretta to stay.
Twenty years ago he never would have imagined they'd actually go ahead and cut down all those gumbo-limbos to make room for a fast-food restaurant. Not that he's against fast food; it serves its purpose, he'd be the first to agree to that. He just figures you can never get those gumbo-limbos to grow as tall again. You'd have to wait about five hundred years. Those trees used to be filled with birds, especially in the early evening. The sound could spook you if you weren't used to it. You'd swear the trees had a voice of their own.
Julian gets out of the car and slams the door shut behind him, then starts walking toward the last tree. He thinks about all the stupid, senseless things he's done in his life; he thinks about the trees he and Bobby climbed together so long ago.
Before the Interstate, before the beach was anything more than a tangled mass of sea grape and sand, there were thousands of stars in the sky; they could make you dizzy if you stared up for too long. For as far back as he can remember, Julian has heard the sound of bees. He hears them now, even though it's twilight, or maybe the sound is inside him. Maybe it's always been that way.
Twenty years ago, beneath this tree, everything changed forever, except for Bobby. He is so young, and the white shirt he wore that night is still just as clean. He rises to his feet and walks through the grass, and his grin grows wider when he sees his cousin, just as it always did when he'd throw stones at Julian's window, then wait for him to tag along. Past the mangroves and the air plants, past the twisted live oaks. They never needed flashlights because they knew the way back home. They still do.
Julian has never seen anything more brilliant than the light above him.
A light like this could blind a man, but that doesn't stop him from looking at the sky. He will always remember this color blue, and he'll go on remembering it for the rest of his life. For a long time the gumbo-limbo tree will seem to shudder once a year, on the third day of May, but it will be nothing more than the songbirds in the tallest branches, and Julian Cash will probably be the only one to notice, since he's the only one who cares.
the end.