Ziggy and I met at the copper beech tree every day. Every single day, he was there waiting for me. I climbed up the trunk to him burl by burl. We performed the inspiration spell. And then we traveled to the ninth dimension together, where we shape-shifted and became vast, flinging our powers and our voices into the universe. But then one overcast Thursday, Ziggy wasn’t there. Jenny’s old car was parked in front of Nana Jean’s house. The windows were rolled down, and the car seemed to yawn in the fading sun. It smelled like old cigarettes and trouble.

I climbed the copper beech tree by myself and waited for something to happen. I could hear voices inside Nana Jean’s house, high and tight and filled with hurt. I could hear the sound of hurried footsteps. Then the screen door slammed, and Jenny stormed onto the porch with a laundry basket filled with her clothes. Ziggy trailed behind her with the albino ferret quivering on his shoulder and tears streaming down his face.

I held on to the branch and watched, silently.

Ziggy tried to pull Jenny back into the house and she tripped. Laundry toppled all over the porch. Jenny swore and dropped to her knees, feeling around her like a blind woman for her clothes. Ziggy crouched beside her. They picked up the laundry together. Jenny rolled each piece in a ball and shoved it back into the basket. Ziggy picked up a pair of her jeans and handed them to her. Jenny sighed and took them. Ziggy picked up one of her tie-dyed T-shirts, leaned his face into it, closed his eyes, and breathed in. Jenny took the shirt from him, rolled it into a ball, and shoved it back in the basket.

“Why can’t I come home with you?” asked Ziggy so softly, I almost couldn’t hear.

“You can’t. It’s too much right now.”

“Not to stay overnight or anything. Not for dinner. Just for an hour or two. To help put the laundry away. Just a quick visit. You never said I wasn’t allowed to visit.”

“I keep telling you,” said Jenny. “I’m not ready. Me and Donny, we have things we need to work out. Everything’s still a mess.”

They both rose to their feet.

“I like mess,” said Ziggy. “I’ve lived with mess my entire life.”

“That’s the point,” said Jenny. “You shouldn’t have to. Nana’s right. You need Trowbridge Road. After that horrible year we had. Those boys at school. All the trouble between me and Donny. Ziggy, honey, you don’t need me right now. You need this.”

“Why do you think that you know what I need and I don’t?” Ziggy stomped his foot.

“Because I’m your mother,” said Jenny.

“Then act like it,” shouted Ziggy, right in her face. “Act like a mother and take me home.”

I hugged the trunk of the copper beech tree.

Jenny took a cigarette from her pocket and lit it with shaking hands. She took a long, trembling drag.

“Please,” said Ziggy. “For just a few hours. I want to see my room. I want to see my books. I miss my books.”

“Nana Jean has money,” said Jenny. “She can buy you new books.”

“It’s not the same!” screamed Ziggy. “Don’t you know it’s not the same?!”

Across the street, Mrs. Delmato closed her kitchen windows.

There was the sound of a dog barking.

“It’s not supposed to be the same, Ziggy. Everyone decided you needed a change. Your teachers, your principal, Nana Jean. And I agree with them. I know it’s hard, but for once I’m doing what’s right for you. This is what you need.”

“But no one asked me what I wanted. How can you know what I need if you never asked me what I wanted?”

There was a crash of dishes inside the house and a low voice muttering.

Jenny turned behind her and yelled into the open window. “Mama?” she called. “Mama, I know you’re listening to all this. You want to come out here and put in your two cents? You have something you want to say?”

Nana Jean came out on the porch. “You want my two cents?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “You want my two cents all of a sudden?”

“Yes,” said Jenny. “I want you to tell Ziggy that this change is for his own good. That he needs to stay here with you. That we discussed it all civil and quiet, and we agreed that this is what’s best for him.”

“You sure you want my two cents?”

“Didn’t I just say I did?”

Nana Jean took a deep breath and put her hands on her hips. “Okay. Well, my two cents are that you deciding to come over here to do your laundry like a teenager and then just leaving after an hour when this boy hasn’t seen you for weeks is cruel. It’s just plain cruel, Jenny.”

“My washing machine is broken,” said Jenny. “I don’t have money for the Laundromat.”

Ziggy dropped onto the wicker chair. He put his head in his hands.

Nana Jean pushed Jenny closer to her son.

Jenny stumbled toward him. “Also, I wanted to see you, Ziggy. Okay? I missed you bad. And I have something for you. A present. Something I didn’t get the chance to give you yet. How can I give you a present when you’re yelling at me and carrying on like this? There isn’t enough time. There just isn’t enough time.”

“Then stay for dinner, like I said when you called,” Nana Jean told her. “Stay for dinner and visit with us for a while so Ziggy can spend some time with you. This here is no good. This way is just a tease for him.”

“I told you, I can’t stay for dinner,” said Jenny, taking another drag on her cigarette.

“Why not?”

“Because,” said Jenny. “Because I can’t. I can’t. That’s all.”

“You need to eat, don’t you?”

“Not your cooking,” said Jenny.

Nana Jean gasped like she had been slapped.

Ziggy hugged his knees and tried to make himself even smaller.

Jenny knelt down in front of the rocking chair.

“Hey, Ziggy. You want to see what I brought you? Want to see your present? I brought you a present because I love you, Goo Goo Boy, and I miss you so bad. Isn’t that nice? Didn’t I do a good thing?”

“You’ve got to stop teasing this boy,” said Nana Jean. “You’ve got to stop ripping his heart open.”

“He’s my kid,” said Jenny. “No one said I couldn’t see him.”

“You can’t come and go like it’s nothing,” said Nana Jean. “You gotta think about him.”

“You think it’s nothing to me? It’s not nothing. It’s everything. Ziggy’s still my Goo Goo Boy. Aren’t you, Ziggy? Aren’t you the Walrus? Where’s my high slide? Don’t you have a high slide for your Jenny anymore?”

Ziggy held himself.

Jenny reached beneath her hair and unclasped her necklace. It was made of glass beads of every color and size and shape. “I wanted you to have this,” said Jenny. “I thought it would look good on you. All your red hair. Just like mine. If you lift your head from your knees a second, I can put it on you. Lift your head just a little, would you, Ziggy?”

He didn’t lift his head, but he did put his hand out.

Jenny dropped the necklace into his open hand. She curled his fingers closed with her own hand. Then she kissed his fist.

“Okay,” said Jenny. “I better go.”

Ziggy started shaking.

Nana Jean came behind the boy and put her hands on his shoulders.

Jenny stood up.

“Goodbye, Mama,” she said.

Nana Jean didn’t say anything. She just hugged Ziggy tight.

“I said, goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Jenny,” said Nana Jean, not even looking up.

“Okay,” said Jenny. “Okay, I’m going.”

Jenny hoisted the laundry basket onto her hip.

Then she made her way down the stairs and into the car.

Jenny put the laundry basket into the passenger seat and walked around to the driver’s side. She got in, started the engine, and turned on the radio. She sat there in the car for a second or two, just smoking her cigarette and looking out into the neighborhood. Then she sighed, stubbed the cigarette against the side of the door, and threw the wasted butt into the grass. She stepped on the gas and made her way down Trowbridge Road and on through town, the sky getting darker and the radio growing softer as she drove away.

“Why don’t you come in with me?” Nana Jean said, still resting her cheek on the boy’s hair. “I can make us some lunch and we can turn on the television and try to get our minds off all this. How about it? Watch a little bit of The Price Is Right. We can start this day over again.”

“No thank you,” said Ziggy into his knees. “I think I’ll stay out here awhile.”

Nana Jean looked into the sky.

“It’s going to rain.”

“Please,” said Ziggy. “I just need to be alone.”

“Okay,” said Nana Jean. “Okay, my sweet boy.” She kissed him on the top of his head. Then she wiped her face, rubbed her hands on her apron, and walked with heavy steps back into the house.

Ziggy held himself for a long time in the wicker rocking chair. When he finally uncurled, his face was red and his eyes were swollen. He opened his fist. Jenny’s glass beads lay in his hand like a colorful snake. He touched them. All the colors and shapes. He rubbed the necklace against his cheek. Then he sighed, unclasped it, and put it on. Matthew muttered faintly, moving aside as Ziggy lifted his hair.

Ziggy walked down the porch steps and across the lawn to the copper beech tree.

He looked up into the branches and found me waiting for him.

I raised one hand to greet him, sadly.

There was no need for words.

He knew I had been there. He knew I had seen the whole thing.

He nodded gravely to me, and then I watched him place Matthew on his head and climb up our tree — one hand, one foot, another hand, another foot — until he could pull himself onto the branch and sit beside me in silence. He leaned against me, his face against my shoulder, while the clouds gathered. High up in the tree, where the branches crisscrossed above us, the leaves flickered copper and silver as wind blew its warm and heavy breath across their palms.