Page 37 of The Strawberry Field
She walks across the yard to a side door that leads into the garage. A moment later, I hear a click and then the raising of the doors. She rolls the wheelbarrow out. It’s the old-fashioned kind, metal and heavy.
“That should serve the purpose,” I say. She parks it next to the first tree, and we talk for a moment about which limbs need to be taken off and how we might shape the lower limbs.
The tree we attempt is a juniper that has grown wide and tall, right up against the house. I notice that a water spigot is behind the tree, unreachable because of how close to the house the tree has grown. “Would you like to shape up the back side a bit so you could get a hose in here?”
She sticks her head around the tree to see what I’m talking about. “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I didn’t realize that was there.”
I pick up the chainsaw, give the cord a tug. The engine makes a loud noise. I walk around the tree and set the saw against the lowest limb. I take that one off and then another nearby, step back and turn off the chainsaw.
“Think that’ll give you enough room?”
“Yeah,” she says. “That’s a lot better.” She picks up the limbs and starts across the yard with them. And then looking back over her shoulder, “Do you think over here at the corner of the yard might be an okay place to stack everything up?”
“That should be far enough from the house. We’re not planning to start a bonfire, so it should be fine.” I start the saw again, shortening the limbs that have grown out too far, working until I have returned the tree to a width that seems in proportion with the house. By the time I’m finished, we have a stack of limbs which we both put into the wheelbarrow.
I roll it across the yard and add it to the pile she began with the first two limbs. We start on the second tree next, a poplar that has to be at least one hundred years old. “This is a great tree. I love poplars.”
“Me too,” she says. “My mom taught us how to make pocketbooks with the leaves when we were little.” She picks a leaf from the limb I’ve just removed and says, “Did you ever learn how to make those?”
“No,” I say, smiling. “Wasn’t into pocketbooks.”
She begins folding the sides of the leaf just so and then uses the stem to run up the center to secure them. “See?” she says, holding it up.
“It does look like a pocketbook,” I say. She smiles then, and I notice that it’s the first genuine smile I’ve seen from her since meeting up with her at Carl’s. It reaches her eyes, and we lock gazes for a moment. And then she’s dropping hers, and the smile disappears, as if she feels guilty for it.
I want to ask her why, but somehow I know it isn’t the right time. So I start to work on the rest of the tree. We finish this one in silence. Again, carting the limbs by wheelbarrow to our ever-growing pile.
We work until noon, and by that time, we’ve completed all the trees in the backyard that needed the work.
My shirt sticks to my shoulder blades, sweat beading on my forehead. Sawyer has worked up a sweat as well, and once we pull the final limb to our pile, she says, “I made some tea. Would you like a glass?”
“I’d love one, with some extra ice if you don’t mind.”
“Come on in,” she says.
“I think I’ll change my shirt first. I’ve got an extra in the truck.”
She looks at me as if she’s not sure what to say, and then, “Oh, of course.”
Hattie has been watching us from a nice wide strip of shade under the Poplar tree and follows me to the truck. I pull a bowl from behind my seat and pour from the bottle of water I keep there for her. She drinks, thirsty.
I grab a clean T-shirt from the passenger seat, pull off my sweaty one and put the new one on. We head for the house, and I hear Sawyer call out, “I’m in here.”
I wipe my boots on the doormat and then follow the hall to the kitchen. Sawyer hands me the glass of tea, and says, “Would Hattie like some water?”
“I just gave her some, but thank you.”
“Sure,” she says, taking a sip of her iced tea.
I down mine in a few gulps. “That’s good tea,” I say.
“Mango,” she says. “It’s my favorite.”
“That’s something I’ve never learned how to make very well, iced tea.”
“I could show you,” she says. “It’s not hard. You just have to use enough tea bags. I don’t like it when it’s too weak.”
“Me either,” I say. “I can come back tomorrow, and we could tackle the lakeside yard.”
