There’s a wide circle of yellow caution tape around the apple tree. Actually, it’s a yellow streamer. My enviro-mom doesn’t like plastic, but she didn’t want to pay for biodegradable caution tape. You have to buy it in bulk. “Let’s hope we never need five hundred feet of caution tape,” Mom told the hardware store clerk.
Silas made a sign: Tree Ailing: Do Not Climb. The entire tree is on a slant.
“Like the leaning tower of Pisa,” Silas comments at breakfast.
“Tilting,” Mom says, launching our family game.
“Listing,” I say.
“Lurching,” Silas says.
“Diagonal?” Leland says.
“Sloping,” Mom says.
“Off balance,” I say.
“I’m off balance.” Leland pouts as he sadly stirs his cereal.
I am too. Our apple tree was the first tree we climbed. Every fall, the kitchen shelves fill with jars of applesauce. If our generous tree is going to tilt, then our lives will too.
“Our tree has had a long life,” Mom says. “It’s been growing for over a hundred years, long before this house was built. I asked John Allans.”
“The dude with the top hat who gives ghost tours?” I ask.
“That dude,” Mom chides with a smile, “is a local historian. He says our apple tree was part of a huge orchard. This land was once all farmers’ fields. I’ve called an arborist to come over and give a diagnosis. And when I’m in Duncan next week, I’m taking some of our apples to a pomologist.”
Mom’s going to Duncan to help the museum put a dollar value on their collection. There’s a pile of butter churns, chamber pots, saddles, even tractors from a farm that is being razed to make room for apartment buildings. Mom is an art historian. She helps museums and auction houses figure out what they’ve got and what it’s worth.
“How’s a palm reader going to help?” Silas asks.
“Pomologist. Think pomme. French for apple,” Mom says. “A pomologist studies fruit. She’s going to tell us what kind of apples we’ve been eating all these years. The arborist—her name is Imogen—is a tree doctor.”
“She’ll say it has to be cut down,” Silas says gloomily.
“Yes, she might,” Mom agrees.
“That would leave a big empty space,” Leland grouses. He is stirring his cereal into sodden mush.
“Yeah,” I say. I feel close to tears. “You might as well yank my heart out.”
“Hey!” Leland cries. “An apple is probably the same size as your heart. It’s even shaped like a heart.” Then he goes quiet. We all do. None of us finish breakfast.