Page 52 of Always Alchemy

18

FOREST GUMPTION

AIDA

The smell of something delicious cooking for our dinner hits me as soon as I let myself in our front door.

I am one lucky girl.

‘Sweetie?’ I call out as I drop my bag in the foyer and pick up the mail stacked on the table, riffling through it as I walk. More circulars.

‘In here,’ Cal says from the kitchen, his voice sounding thick. I head down the corridor and into the kitchen where I find him sitting at the kitchen table, head in his hands,weeping.

‘Oh my God.’ I drop the pile of mail on the table and sink to my knees beside him. ‘Sweetie. What’s up? Is everyone okay?’

My man has a big heart. He shows his emotions easily, and it’s one of the many things I love about him, but this is concerning, to say the least.

‘Hey.’ I smooth a hand over his dark hair when he doesn’t answer. ‘You’re scaring me.’

‘Sorry.’ He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he looks up, they’re reddened. ‘Yeah, everyone’s fine.’

‘Well, that’s good.’ I pull myself up and onto the seat next to his. ‘So what’s with the waterworks then, eh?’

He sighs and taps his fingertip on the magazine open in front of him. A quick glance tells me he’s readingTheFlorentia, Eton’s environmental magazine, which our son Pip has been working on for a couple years now. On the pages in front of him are an article with the headlineWeeping Willows—jeez, I love that—and a beautiful photo of what is most likely the Amazon. Below the heading I’m thrilled to see my son’s byline. I haven’t read this edition yet; it must have arrived today.

‘I’ve just been reading about the rainforests,’ my husband continues, wiping his cheek, ‘and it’s really fucking sad.’

I pause. This is why he’s crying? I put a comforting hand on his bicep—Lord, it’s big—and use the other hand to rotate the magazine towards me a little.

‘Yeah,’ I agree. ‘Itisreally sad.’ It’s way more than sad. It’s a fucking travesty. But it’s not exactly new news here.

He blinks at me with those beautiful brown eyes. ‘Did you know the Amazon supplies twenty percent of the world’s oxygen? I mean, what the hell are we thinking?!’

Well, that’s a gross oversimplification. There’s a tonne of reasons to be concerned for the future of our planet, but running out of oxygen isn’t one of them. I should know. I’ve been investigating and reporting on environmental matters since Cal was still in high school. I figure now might not be the right time to mention that I’ve actually interviewed Jane Goodall for the BBC.

Twice.

‘I know, right?’ I say instead. I stroke his arm softly. ‘It sucks.’

He jabs at the magazine again. ‘Pip’s writing is amazing. This is seriously good journalism.’

‘I can’t wait to read it. If he’s eliciting this kind of emotion from you, then clearly he’s doing some great reporting.’

Even if some of his stats sound a little spurious.I mentally shake myself. I should leave the poor kid alone. He’s fourteen, for God’s sake, and he doesn’t exactly have a BBC newsroom full of fact-checkers serving him.

‘Yeah,’ he says absently. He gives a big, wet sniff. ‘It’s really got me thinking.’

I should tread carefully while he’s feeling fragile. ‘Is this information…newfor you?’

‘I mean, not new exactly, but it’s kind of hitting different. You know? I was aware of it, but not really conscious of it. Does that make sense? But these statistics are just so fucking shocking. Did you know the rainforests house eighty percent of the planet’s biodiversity?’

‘Terrestrial biodiversity, yes.’

‘And we get, like, aquarterof our pharmaceuticals from rainforest plants?’

‘Uh-huh.’

He throws his hands up and looks at me in outrage. ‘Well, what the fuck are we going to do about it? We have to dosomething!’

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