Page 47 of The Significance of Moving On

How could happiness still exist in the world without my brother? How could happiness exist for me? Was it right to try for or hope for? Then Casey swooped in to the rescue. Giving me a home. Keeping me in school. Buying me a car. But most importantly, giving me his love the only way he knows how to give it.

Bad days will continue to creep in, I’m not naïve enough to think otherwise, but my brother only passed six month ago yet and I’m here at a tree farm, excited to see what the holiday will bring.

There’s probably a full two inches more of snow out here in the sticks. The thick layers cover the ground. My feet crunch underneath in some places, while others I sink right down. I remembered my hat, but forgot my gloves.

“Here.” Casey blows on my fingers to warm them as we walk.

From the parking lot we come to a small, brightly painted red hut selling hot chocolate and cider. Off to the left, three rows of pre-cut trees. In the center of everything they’d built a raging fire pit surrounded by benches. Tree trunk benches, four of them.

Case buys me a hot cider and I make my way over to the fire, flipping from facing front to facing back. My body becomes the moon. Sizzling light on one side and frozen darkness on the other, until he comes up behind me with a saw in hand, then I’m no longer the moon but a star totally encompassed by warmth.

We take off through the small, perfectly aligned forest of spruce, white pine, Douglas fir and a couple others prattled off in my ear which really don’t matter because my strategy for tree picking falls under strictly aesthetic. Every tree I stop at looks to be well over eight feet which gets me laughingly reprimanded because our ceilings only go to eight feet.

Finally we agree on a majestic tree with long, soft needles standing the same height as Casey. Full throughout the middle and smelling of cleaner, it couldn’t be possible for a better tree to exist in all of Michigan. I beg Casey to let me try cutting and he graciously hands off the saw which he even more graciously takes back after about ten minutes of my continuous sawing to barely nick the surface bark.

My arms feel congealed as if their muscle and bone have dissolved. Casey on the other hand works with purposeful strokes and we both call out “timber” when the tree falls, laughing because it hadn’t been planned.

“Jinx.” I yell.

“You jinxed me?”

“Hey, no talking while under the jinx.”

“How long does it last?”

“’Till I unjinx you which is double time now.”

Immature? Probably. But Casey plays along, dragging the tree behind him not speaking again, even when we return the saw and pay for the tree, earning some incredulous looks. He simply smiles, giving head nods in response to the people around us.

“What?” I shrug. “He’s jinxed.” Though, I feel compelled to say something else to the guy helping tie the tree to the roof of Casey’s car. He keeps looking back between us and chuckling.

“My girl does shit like that, too,” he says.

Well okay, I lost the urge to defend myself after that. His girl sounded cool in my opinion. When I climb in the front seat and shut the door, I’m effectively sealed off from the conversation outside, no matter how one way. But I see the man saying something to which Casey smiles showing all his teeth and shrugs.AaandI’m officially dying to know what was said.

On the drive back, he remains silent and I don’t know if he’s thinking or still playing along.

“Casey. Casey. Casey.”

He looks over at me probably expecting me to say more.

“You’re unjinxed now. I said your name three times.”

“Like Beetlejuice?

“Something like that, although he wants to marry Lydia. I’m not even asking for that level of commitment.”

He laughs. A month ago, those words would’ve engulfed the car with the flames of his annoyance and my regret until only the disintegrated remains of old wounds, old conversations smoldered in the dull burning orange of silence.

Not today.

Today, he laughs.

I can’t believe his transformation.

Chapter Twenty-One

We carry the tree in together. He walks out the backdoor to the garage while I sit tight and warm inside. When he comes back in, he’s carrying a medium sized storage bin under one arm and an old, probably from the eighties, aluminum tree stand—red base and green legs—with most of the paint having chipped off inside the water well, tucked up under the other.

---