The Treehouse

By Bent Lorentzen

For my Ma Jaya

"Honey, where are the kids?"

Carol, her colorful wrap-around skirt contrasting organically with the potted tree fern next to her, looked up from the living room teak table to her husband. She wrinkled her thin, well-sculptured nose approvingly at his choice of suit for the afternoon rounds at The Columbia University Department of Psychiatry.

"Today's Wednesday," she said, putting down some mail from Rutgers and teasing the waves in her brown hair.

"Wednesday?" he said, touching his mustache.

"Paul..." She smiled with brilliant white teeth. "You know, Aubrey's at her violin class and Andrew is at Greystone, with his geometry study group."

"Oh." He wrinkled his brow. "God, I never see them."

"Isn't it great?" she asked rhetorically, looking out the large window to their view of the grey Hudson. "Our children are doing so wonderfully." She regarded him more carefully. "How were your appointments downstairs?"

He laughed. "Hillary didn't cancel. --What's with all the paperwork? Thought we decided to relegate that to Saturday mornings?"

She inhaled deeply. "Hillary? No wonder your mind is slightly off center. What personality did she come with this time? --Oh, and Saturday is for non-urgent paperwork. This is about my speaking engagement at the APA convention."

"Good lord, I had forgotten about that."

"So, what personality did she come with?"

"Honey, medical ethics..."

Paula reached up a hand and caressed his thinning black hair. "She was my patient once, and we're both psychiatrists for the same office downstairs."

He shook his head, looking out the window to their sloping, meticulously mowed lawn and the Hudson below. "She was disconcerting. Queen of the trees. Almost decided to commit her. But she talked me out of it."

"How?"

"Said the kids needed me at home and that she wouldn't fly out a window without first calling the FAA for flight clearance. All in one sentence. Then she winked at me, like it was a joke. And for the whole forty minutes before that, I was trying to regress her back to when that personality first emerged. Suddenly, she just cracks this joke to disarm my concern. She'd make a brilliant child psychologist."

"That's my department."

He snickered, taking her hand and kissing it. "So, what's Rosalyn cooking for supper?"

"God, did she put a spell on you. Wednesday's our scheduled late night out."

"What about the kids... Oh, right... Never mind. Everything's planned."

"Andrew!" Aubrey said into the phone, her red hair washing over the headset. "Why are you calling?"

"Sis, I gotta tell you something."

"Andrew, I'm not finished with the violin lesson."

"I know, but this is incredible."

Aubrey put her hand over the mouthpiece and looked to Cecilia, her elderly instructor. "I'm sorry, it's my brother. He says it's important."

The woman reached forward to take the small violin from Aubrey's other hand.

"Okay--" said Aubrey.

Andrew, holding his cellular phone tight against his pudgy face so as to feel more privacy in a room filled with a dozen other students, said, "Do you know who Hillary is?"

"Who?"

"A pretty old lady who sees mom and dad. Uh, when I ran out of Mrs., uh, Paxton's van to Greystone, the old woman suddenly was there and said 'hello' from out of nowhere--"

"Andrew!" scolded Aubrey. "You know we're not supposed to speak to patients."

"Sis! I didn't say nothing to her. She was just there."

"'Didn't say anything...' So then what did she say?"

"Uh, she said that I should call you up and tell you to help me plant a tree."

"A tree?"

"Yeah, she gave me a seed."

"Andrew!"

"She stuck it in my coat pocket. I haven't touched it yet."

The two listened to one other's breathing for a while, until Aubrey said, "Okay, and then?"

"I just kind'a looked at her, and then she told me that she actually worked with dad and that she's really a queen."

"Oh, Andrew... that's nuts. She's not there now, is she?"

"No, I looked back to see if Mrs. Paxton was still there. You know, like she's supposed to, uh, wait and see that I make it into the building."

"And?"

"The van was already gone, and when I looked back at the old lady, she wasn't there neither. It was kind'a spooky."

"'Either.'"

"Wha--?"

"Andrew, you've got to stop using those double negatives. She wasn't there either. Either. So, did she go in the school?"

"No. And you know the front door. You can see all the way down to the sidewalk and there's only that big tree by the playground."

Aubrey was pulled back from her spellbound state by Cecilia's gentle touch on her shoulder. "Is your brother okay? Perhaps we should call the police."

Aubrey shook her head, putting her hand on the mouthpiece. "No, he's just overreacting." She spoke into the phone again: "Well, plant it then."

"Where, sis?"

"I don't know. We are helping mom with that Children's Group. Maybe then."

"I think I'm just going to plant in the back. By the swing set. I'll wait 'till you get home, okay?"

Cecilia tapped Aubrey's shoulder.

"I gotta go," Aubrey said. "See ya."

"Sis, wake up."

Aubrey pulled a hand away from her stuffed tiger and wrinkled her face. Slightly opening an eye, she frowned seriously. A desk lamp threw her room into brilliant contrasts of color and shadows. Annoyed, she stared into her brother's awe-filled eyes.

"It's not time to get up, is it?" she asked.

"Aubrey! Come to the window. It's unbelievable."

Huffing, she climbed out of bed and walked to the window, practically being towed by her brother. The view that struck her was unbelievable. A tree as big around as a small house emerged from the center of their backyard. Its enormous and full-leafed branches consumed their view of everything except bits of the Hudson River down below. There had been no such tree a few hours ago.

"Oh my god! Is it for real?"

"Of course," he answered. "Come on, sis, put your clothes on. Let's go out and climb it."

"Andrew, get real. It's way too big. Dad--" and her eyes rolled up. "...And especially mom won't let us." Her eyes closed. "--Oh, I get it. This is a dream, right?"

Andrew exhaled loudly and pinched her.

"Stop it!"

"Ah, god.... Girls! Jeez, I'm just trying to show you this isn't a dream."

She looked out the window again, her eyes focusing on the moonlight reflecting on the Hudson and the glimmer of its shine against the granite rocks of the Palisades on the Jersey side. She remembered an old story she'd once read, about moonbeams on the Hudson, and an endless depth that reached to the Earth's very core. Or was that, soul? It was at that moment that a knock sounded on her door.

"Quick," whispered Andrew. "Go to bed."

Slowly, he walked toward the door, clicking off the desk lamp. He put on his most sleepy look and yawned expressively as he edged the door open just enough for him to slip through and close it.

"Dad?" he exhaled with the yawn, staring up to his father's piercing eyes.

Those eyes were trying to peek into the briefly opened room. There was a deceptive air about all this which his father couldn't quite discern.

"Okay," Paul said. "I'm sure you have a reasonable explanation." He pushed the button on his watch. "It's 3:30 in the morning?"

"Dad." Andrew looked up and put on his worried-about-the-future face. "I had a strange dream and I wanted to talk to you about it."

His father scrutinized Andrew's face, trying to catch the shadow of deception. It wasn't there. "You went into the wrong room, then?"

"Yes, I was really sleepy and half dreaming."

"But I heard your voice--"

"Yeah, dad. It was dark and I began to talk about it. Then I realized where I was so I left."

His mind ever ready to extract unconscious meanings in things, he asked, "Have we done anything to upset you?"

"No, dad." Then he yawned. "I'm tired." And he walked to his room.

As he opened his door, his father asked one last question. "Do you want to talk about the dream?"

Yawning loudly, he said, "Gee, I already forgot it. How come, dad?"

"Oh, that's quite normal. I wouldn't worry about it. If you'd like, we can talk about it at our 4:30 half-hour family discussion tomorrow. Then, don't forget about the 7:00 PM tree planting gathering your mom wants you to help her with. You know, with the Abused Children's Group."

"Dad, 4:30 is when we watch CNN together and you explain what's going on in the world."

"Oh well. Good night, son."

"Good night, dad."

Forty-five minutes later, Andrew sat in the dewy grass of the dark backyard, leaning his head against the enormous tree trunk. It radiated a relaxing warmth, as though it were in the midst of some sort of work, and there wafted a pleasing scent--like freshly mowed grass baking in the sun. From within it came a humming tone, similar to the sound his mother makes on Tuesday nights when her meditation group comes over. He looked up to a sky of endless branches.

After counting main branches for a while, getting to twenty-nine, Aubrey finally appeared.

"What took you so long?" he asked.

"Don't give me that look! That's so typical of boys." She anchored her hands angrily on her hips.

"Okay okay. Quiet down. Shhhh. Do you want to wake up the whole universe?"

As if in response, a neighbor's dog began yapping. Then, switching gears, he took his sister's head and gently put it against the tree's craggily bark.

"Oh my." She giggled. "It's sure nice and warm. Do you think it has a fever?"

He put his ear to the tree. "Listen to it."

She did. She just smiled and said, "Let's climb."

"This is sure weird." He walked toward the swingset. It was half buried into the tree trunk, like the strand from a barbed wire fence he'd once seen in a farm upstate. The tree seemed to be eating the swingset.

"This is like a fairy tale. Look how the slide's ladder just sort of climbs up to the first branch."

"Yeah," said Aubrey, her eyes bulging. "This is just like 'Jack in the Beanstalk.'"

"What's that?"

"Silly, don't you read? It's a neat fairy tale."

"Of course. But what I read's mature stuff."

"Not!"

"Is so."

"Is not. Fairy tales are what really matter."

"That's for girls and sissies."

"Is not," she retorted. "Two weeks ago, when you were supposed to watch PBS, this old guy, Brown Beetlejuice, said that unless children read fairy tales they grow up funny and can't solve problems."

"Beetlejuice was a dumb movie. Remember? About those two that died on the bridge 'cause of that scraggly dog and didn't believe it. You're all mixed up."

She stuck her hands on her hips and retorted a little angrily, "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice! It sounded like Beetlejuice. Maybe it was...." And she frowned and closed her eyes. "--Bruno Bettelheim? Anyways, mom says he died a couple of years ago."

"Who cares?" He shook his head. "Okay, let's climb."

"Don't get so huffy about it," she said. "You're the one who was all excited and woke me up."

Something inside the tree groaned, and the ground shook a little. Both held their breaths.

"I don't know..." said Andrew.

She was already climbing the ladder. "Last one up is a scumbag."

He followed her up. "That's not a nice thing to say."

She looked down. Already she was negotiating the first branch. "Well, calling me stupid and a sissy girl isn't nice either."

"Sorry. Take back."

She was waiting for him on the branch. "It's nice," she remarked, feeling a pulsating warmth beneath her.

Andrew sat beside her. He looked up. "Wonder what the jets will do? There's no blinking lights."

She absentmindedly began to move her fingers among the bumps and cracks of the bark, delighting in the sensation.

"They have radar for that," she said.

They both looked up at the tree. It was huge and fat, the bark so callused that you could stick a small foot into some of the cracks.

Andrew turned to his sister and smiled, saying, "Bet National Geographic will come and take pictures. We'll be famous."

Aubrey tenderly took his hand. For a moment the two held each other's moonlit, warm gazes, letting the moist green smell of the tree smother them in an evocative redolence.

Andrew was the first to break the spell. "Wonder where she got the seed?"

"Me too. Let's go higher."

He pushed the light button on his watch. "What about school? We could climb it after school."

"No we can't. Tomorrow's Thursday. I've got flute lessons 'till three, then--"

"Yeah, I know. Everything's all planned."

"Let's not talk about that." She stood up and reached for his hand. "Come on."

The tree was marvelously suited for climbing. Each branch radiated from the immense, wall-like trunk at just the right height for a child to reach. Their experiences in jungle-jims proved invaluable. At no point was there a threat that they would fall.

Above, a few stars glittered through the thick foliage and in the distance, Manhattan shimmered like a jewel. Soon, the moon and their house became lost behind a weave of branches and leaves. They felt no vertigo as they climbed even as a constant draft of warm air brought beads of sweat to their faces.

"Man, look at the GWB," said Andrew.

Aubrey passed a hand through her sweaty hair and stared at the arch of lights from the George Washington bridge. "We must be way up."

They leaned back against the trunk on a wide branch, letting the mild breeze play over their skin.

"This is incredible," he said with a gleam.

"Yeah, but I bet mom and dad'll have the city cut it down."

He inhaled and sighed. "Probably." The edge of tension gripped him. "Wonder why we don't do stuff like this all the time? This is really fun."

The tension now touched her. "We're always doin' stuff but it's not really fun. It's...." She searched for the word.

The breeze picked up, throwing a lock of moist hair over her eyes. Andrew finished her sentence: "Boring. We might as well be grownups already, with all the stuff mom and dad plan for us to do."

She frowned. "Do this, don't do that.... And we're not even in high school."

He looked up. "Let's go," he said.

They linked hands and began climbing again. There was now nothing to see in any direction--up, down, or to the sides--that looked like anything except the tree. The humming from within the wood had a calming effect on the two. It even made them forget a little about the passage of time. The breeze was no longer warm, but cool, like in the upstate mountains, and took away their sweat.

Slowly, the grey light from a false dawn teased them and birds began to sing. First it was a cardinal who pierced the night with a series of slow, deep notes. Then a few chickadees playfully tweeted their own names. Andrew knew each bird call. He was proud of that fact. It was one of the few rewards he felt at that moment as he climbed, of his structured life.

"Was that a catbird?" asked Aubrey, when a particularly piercing call cut through the morning air.

"Red-winged blackbird." He smiled. "I don't know why they're so high up. They like to live in swamps."

"Well," she said matter of factly. "We're up here too. I can't figure out why we can't see down or up or anything?"

"Probably 'cause the tree just kind of grew while we were climbing. Maybe we should go down." He looked down and shook his head.

She looked at him, then down. "Yeah," she said. "I don't want mom to get worried."

He leaned over the branch on which they were squatting to put his feet on the branch just below. His feet just dangled. He swung his legs back and forth. Nothing. "Aubrey, how far am I?"

She peeked over. "It looks like a long ways."

"That don't make sense."

She didn't like the way he dangled. "Maybe you better stop that."

He inhaled loudly and frowned, and swung his legs to catch a crack in the trunk. They didn't catch anything.

"What's wrong?" he asked nervously.

She looked down again. "It looks all different." She frowned. "That's weird. The bark is getting all smooth. I don't know, Andrew, this is spooky. I want to go back down."

He swung his legs harder but his grip on the branch weakened, and there was hardly anything left to grip on. The rough bark was smoothening even as he grasped it.

And he fell.

"Andrew!" screamed Aubrey, lunging forward and nearly falling herself.

"NO!!" he yelled, feeling a knot explode in his groin.

Her appearance was magical. Suddenly, Hillary, or Queen of Trees, was there, hanging in mid-air as if made of air itself. She grabbed him and gently brought him toward Aubrey.

"Thank... you," wheezed Andrew.

The woman's scent and warm billowing gown had an instantly calming effect.

"You really can fly," Aubrey said slowly.

"Of course," Hillary said with a twinkle.

"And you're not mentally sick?" Aubrey asked.

Hillary only smiled.

"So," began Andrew, as Hillary gently hovered before them. "Why do you see our parents? I mean, it must be very expensive."

"Oh, but I mostly did all that for you two. And really, what's money if I can conjure up something like this?"

"But--" said the two children with one voice. They looked to each other and briefly smiled.

"But what is all this?" finally asked Aubrey.

"And why?" asked Andrew.

"No more questions, dears." She floated to them and held out her arms. "Come with me, up three more branches, and let me show you something...fantastic."

They looked to each other. Their eyes sparkled and they nodded yes. Hillary enveloped them in her arms and peacefully they ascended until there was no more up to the tree. Only the reddish-blue of an awakening cloudless sky, the tree below--with no sign of the Earth--and a wondrous little cottage nestled where seven fat branches emerged. The laughter of children resounded from within. Hillary landed on a wide porch overlooking emptiness. A sturdy, handcrafted railing corralled the balcony.

"Go in," encouraged Hillary to the two.

They looked to each other, to Hillary, and then walked the two yards across the solid board floor to an ornate door. From within came the shrill cries of children.

Aubrey looked back to Hillary.

"Go on, children. Open it."

Andrew bravely turned the L-shaped brass handle.

"Wow...." said the two with one voice.

An endless hall filled with running, dancing, playing and laughter opened to them. Its interior size didn't at all make sense. To Andrew, it was as though it reached into another dimension, like in an Isaac Asimov story he'd had to read in American Lit. But then, the very fact it rested above a giant tree was amazing.

"Who are you?" suddenly asked four excited children, two of them still clasping hands from some game they had been playing.

Aubrey didn't hear the question. She looked intently at a crying infant on the lushly carpeted floor as a teenage girl picked it up. That girl was then approached by an older woman. Instantly, three generations of smiles erupted.

"Where are we?" asked Andrew, watching his sister walk toward the three.

"Home," responded a mulatto boy his age. "I lived in the streets of Rio de Janeiro and the queen of trees asked me to plant a seed. That's how I got here. They were going to shoot me, the police, 'cause of the store owners not liking us."

"What about your parents?" asked Andrew, feeling at that moment a tinge of guilt, and only briefly wondering why the boy spoke English so well and not Spanish or Portuguese, or whatever they spoke in Brazil.

"I don't remember them," he said, only slightly sad. "I only wish my best friend, Danuza, could come. But the police shot her."

"But here," quickly said another boy. "Here there are many parents."

"Yeah," butted in a girl whose head was disproportionately large. "Lots of parents if we needs them. And they won't leave you in no mean hospital. And then we learns to take care of those that comes here all frightened and angry. Are you hungry or thirsty?"

"No," stammered Andrew.

"Andrew!" exclaimed his sister, running with a thirty-something woman in tow. She turned to the woman. "Luyin, this is my brother, Andrew. --Andrew, this is Luyin." Her excitement overflowed as she asked, "Tell my brother what you just told me."

"Well, what can I say?" began the petite, black-haired Vietnamese woman simply dressed in a tan dress. "It looks to me as if you two aren't too bad off. Maybe a bit off-center emotionally, but it doesn't appear that you were mistreated by your parents or society. Though I'm sure there's a reason for why you are here. So let me give you a short tour. This place is still being built off in the distance, but we have time to see some of the school and nursery...."

And so, for what seemed like an eternity of short moments, the two were shown an endless progression of rooms filled with infants, children and teens of every culture, all of whom were having fun learning and playing.

"The teachers were once children here," said Luyin. "Or at least, most of them were." A wistful, reflective look briefly passed across her face.

They stood outside a window looking into a lovely, lace-draped room filled with babies and teenage mothers interspersed with older women, and a few men.

"I came up on this tree," began Andrew. "Is it only kids that can come up here?"

"All trees come up here. To answer your question, who can climb all the way up is up to the Queen. Frankly, most adults freak out when they get here. And so, they go back and think they had a nice dream, and write stories about it. Like Hans Christian Andersen, or C.S. Lewis."

"Why did we come here?" asked Aubrey.

"My creative scheming is growing very large these days," said a familiar voice behind them. It was Hillary, Queen of Trees. Numerous children crowded her flowing white gown. "But it's time for the two of you to go home. Come."

Brother and sister held back looks of disappointment as they followed her toward a small door. She opened it. It was a tiny room, all blue except for the drawings glued to the walls. Drawings of a city in Europe that had once held an Olympic festival but had more recently been the killing fields of children. A crayon drawing showing the White House with a black boy bleeding to death on the front lawn was especially shocking. Hillary went in, shooshing several children out and waving Aubrey and Andrew in. She closed the door.

"Well, my two, what do you think?" Already the sounds of frolicking children were fading.

"It...it's incredible," began Andrew.

"Yes," confirmed Aubrey. "What do you call it? And why...why are we in this room?" she suddenly asked, noticing that it was getting dark.

"I haven't given it a name yet," echoed the distant voice of Hillary. She couldn't be seen in the dark anymore. "Maybe you can think of one. My reason..." Her voice was really distant now. "--for bringing you here will be apparent soon. In any case, goodbye, my children, and I hope to see you again soon... Oh, and here are some more seeds for you to give away to those who need them...."

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed a familiar female voice.

"Unh?" said the two awakening children in unison.

"What are you two doing here?" she demanded. "Don't tell me you slept out here all night."

They looked up to their mother, standing taller than life next to the swing set. Above, the grey sky heralding morning broke over the gables of their Riverdale mansion. In the distance, the commuter traffic on the Henry Hudson Parkway pierced the still air. But there was no tree. Except...and it was Andrew who frantically pushed his sister's leg out of the way as she rose.

"What?" Aubrey demanded, annoyed.

"The tree," he said.

"The tree?" she asked, awed. "You had the same dream?"

"Yeah, the tree...." And he pointed at the seedling emerging from the ground where he had planted the seed just yesterday. His sister had nearly stepped on it.

"Well, lord almighty, children. Come in right now so I can take your vitals. Blood pressure, temperature and all that. If you're not sick, you need to take good long showers and eat breakfast right away...." She checked her watch, and then threw her eyes skyward. "Goodness, the time.... Oh, and don't forget. Today both of you are helping me with the Abused Children's Group. We're doing a special tree planting ceremony to symbolize a new beginning for them. Don't forget--"

"Mom," interrupted Andrew, "Uh, you're always so--"

"Regimented," finished Aubrey.

"And preoccupied," agreed Andrew, not sure exactly what any of those words meant.

The two children had never seen such a reaction from their mother. She seemed to completely lose it for a moment. Her mouth dropped and her eyes flared. So many things happened to her face that it's best described by leaving it to the imagination.

Years of stifling discipline struggled for control of the situation.

"Mom," said Aubrey. "Can we stay home from school today? I haven't missed a single day in six years."

Even Andrew's eyes bulged in shock over the request but he nodded his head in complicity.

Carol looked up to a pine tree. Red from the unseen sun painted its crown. A slow smile spread on her face.

"Yeah," she said quietly, almost to herself. "Why not?"

She felt a spark forgotten since childhood.

Quickly, before the voice of reason could snuff out the spark, she said, "Let's do something wild together. I'll cancel everything, okay? Except the children's group."

She knelt down, pulling her blue housecoat tight, and opened her arms to her children.

Andrew leapt in. "Mom, you look beautiful."

That elicited an entirely different reaction from Carol. One neither of the children had ever seen as well. The loose waves of her hair cascaded to her shoulders in a childish way. Decades sloughed off her beaming face. Something in her switched.

Aubrey entered the hug. "What about dad?" she asked.

"We'll kidnap him," whispered Carol mischievously.

Upstairs, Paul was awakened from a nice dream by what sounded like children laughing outside.

Outside? At this hour?

Curiously, as wakefulness strengthened, the unrelenting laughter touched an old memory buried during childhood. It was a poignant, if not bittersweet feeling, yet it evoked a sense of glorious hope, as strong as the rising sun of the dawn outside.