by Joan Bauer
He told her about Dad’s house and how hard they were working.
“I’m sorry you lost out. But it’s good you’re not average size, Tree. It’s good your dad and grandpa have a really big guy to help take care of business.”
Tree squared his shoulders at that one.
Two of Grandpa’s friends brought an electric pump to drain water from the basement.
Dad and Tree picked through the kitchen and garage, finding what could be saved.
They worked like machines while they still had daylight, wearing big rubber gloves. Floodwater is infectious.
Lugged trash to the Dumpster in the driveway.
Every house on Tree’s street had one.
Tree shoveled out piles of junk from the first floor into the Dumpster, smiling bravely at other neighbors who were doing the same thing.
Tree worked till he couldn’t anymore. Then the momentousness took over.
There was too much to do. How could they ever—
“The first rule of rebuilding is to find something positive and concentrate on that,” Grandpa said.
Tree looked at the flooded, smelly mess. “I haven’t thrown up yet.”
Grandpa laughed. “That’s a start.”
The basement water had been drained, leaving rank, thick sediment that covered the floor and walls.
Sophie threw ruined books and sports equipment into garbage bags. She’d come to help Tree with the cleanup.
Tree looked at the broken trophy case lying open on the muddy basement floor—Curtis’s and Larry’s sports certificates were all ruined. Some of the trophies were cracked.
They’d seemed so important when he was growing up.
Tree knelt down to touch a frame with smashed glass. He remembered his mother framing Curtis’s award for basketball. Remembered being in the high school auditorium when Curtis got it. Tree had applauded so hard, his hands hurt.
Tree picked up Larry’s brass home run medal and Curtis’s athlete of the year trophy, dripping mud.
All that glory covered in sludge.
Tree put them in a box.
“I’m going outside before I puke,” Sophie announced, lugging a bag up the stairs.
The Trash King picked through the rubble of what was left in his junkyard—so much of it had been ruined by the flood.
“You look at this red wagon,” he said to Tree, who’d come to help him move some of the heavy pieces. “Why did it survive? It should have been sucked up by the wind—carried down the river. But it’s here. That tells me it can take the heat. I’m not going to sell it for peanuts. I want some real cash for a tough piece like this.”
He walked over piles of rusted metal, lifted an old weather vane from the heap. Stuck it in the ground; the vane pointed north. “Still working,” he declared, “after all we’ve been through. You can look at this yard of mine, think there’s nothing left worth saving. But trash is here to remind us all that the old’s not so bad—it’s got life in it yet.”
He looked toward the sun, scratched his chin. “I’m going to put that in the brochure.”
The giant oak tree began to bud five days after the flood.
Birds were chirping in its branches.
Not one limb was out of place.
Benches were upended, lesser trees snapped in two.
It makes you appreciate a serious root system; roots planted so deep in the ground, holding steady against the storm.
Tree stood in front of the tree with Sophie. Every day at Dad’s they were making progress. A huge dehumidifier was in the basement now, drying things up. They’d ripped up the carpet, lugged it out to the street.
“I know this is a special park for you, Tree. I like nature, but too much of it makes me nervous.” A tear rolled down Sophie’s cheek.
Tree bent down. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t tell you ’Cause you had so much going on, but Lassie . . . she didn’t make it.”
“Oh, no.”
“It happened at the motel. She was crawling so slow. Then she just froze on the branch. I tried to get her to do the dance, but she couldn’t do it anymore.” Big sniff. “I told her, ‘I know what it’s like to not have anyone like you around. You feel like giving up sometimes.’”
Tree took her hand.
“I told her that, as a pet, she’d been true. She didn’t fetch or do tricks, but she gave back as much as a reptile can. She fell off the branch, hit the floor of the cage.” Sophie lowered her head. “I buried her in the Dumpster in the parking lot. I said, ‘Thanks, girl, for everything. You could have been a dog if you’d had better luck.’”
“You were good to her,” Tree said. “You gave her a good life.”
Sophie nodded. “God knows I tried.”
Tree looked across the park to the roof of Temple Beth Israel, where the sign was still welcoming people home.
Just then, Nuts the squirrel showed up, nervous as anything.
“Hey, Nuts. You made it.” Tree threw him a peanut; the squirrel grabbed it, studied Sophie.
“You know this squirrel?”
“Kind of.” Tree felt stupid.
“He looks like he’s got a lot to deal with.”
Nuts shook a little, scampered off.
“So are you sleeping in the park or what, with your dad’s house all messed up?”
Tree grinned. “Actually, my mom’s house made it through fine. She invited us to stay with her until Dad’s house gets fixed.”
Sophie snorted. “Your dad, too?”
“Even Bradley. She said it was going to take a lot of work to get the house right, that no one should have to sleep in a hotel, and that she and Dad were adults and could handle this. We’re going there tonight.”
Sophie looked at the white oak. “You’ve got a strange family, Tree.”
Tree didn’t say it, but he thought this was a very good sign. Maybe his mother wanted to work things out with his father.
He wondered if something awful, like a flood, could have a good side.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Dad, Tree, Grandpa, and Bradley stood on Mom’s front porch.
They had been working hard at the house. They looked and smelled it, too.
Dad rang the bell. “Okay,” he said nervously. “This is going to be fine.”
Tree bit his lip, hoping like crazy.
Mom answered the door, looking really pretty in a blue sweater and skirt.
Her hands went up. “You’re early.”
Bradley went right to her.
Dad croaked, “You said come before dinner.”
“I said come after dinner.”
“We can come back,” said Dad.
“No, just come in. Tree, wipe your feet. Leo, how are you?” They came inside. “This is going to be a little complicated, but we’re all adults.”
I’m twelve, Tree thought. I just look older.
The doorbell rang.
Mom smoothed her skirt, announced shrilly, “I have a date.”
Her first date in twenty-three years.
“Oh,” Dad said strangely.
Doorbell again.
“And that’s him. So we’re all just going to deal with it.”
She smiled too bright, opened the door to Richard Blunt, an average-size, average-looking person.
“Richard,” Mom said.
“Jan, you look lovely.”
Grandpa sniffed.
Tree coughed.
Dad shoved his hands into his pockets.
Conan spoke for them all—hurled himself in complete fury at Richard Blunt’s ankle with a clear purpose: tearing it to shreds.
“Bad dog!” Mom grabbed Conan, handed him to Tree.
Good dog, Tree thought as Conan flailed.
“Are you all right?” Mom asked. “He’s never done that before.”
Richard Blunt nodded warily.
“Richard, this is my son Tree.”
Hand extended. “You’re back from college?”
Tree shook it. “I’m in middle school.”
Richard Blunt looked up.
“And due to the flood, I have some houseguests.” Mom glared at Dad, who was dank and damp and looked like he’d slept in the park. “Richard, this is my ex . . . this is my former . . . this is the father of my children.”
“How’s it going?” Dad said.
Richard Blunt nodded.
“And this,” Mom said, “is my former father . . . I mean . . . in-law . . .”
Grandpa took a lurching step forward, shook hands.
Not to be forgotten, Bradley walked to Mom’s side.
“And this,” Mom shouted, “is my former dog.”
Bradley’s cloudy eyes looked up in undying loyalty.
There is no such thing as a former dog.
It was a toss-up as to which was worse.
The introductions, or when Mom and Richard Blunt tried to leave.
The front door was stuck. And Tree, trying to help, made the mistake of putting Conan down, which caused Conan to go back to his original idea of tearing Richard Blunt’s ankle to bloody shreds, which caused Mom to shriek, “Remove that animal!” as she raced out the door.
Tree, Dad, and Grandpa stood there. No one knew what to say.
Then, finally . . .
Dad: “That guy’s a real turkey.”
Grandpa: “He has sneaky eyes. I don’t trust him.”
Tree didn’t say what he was thinking.
He couldn’t believe his mother would go out with anyone except his father.
He couldn’t believe he’d thought that all this togetherness was a good idea.
They cooked pasta in the kitchen and ate it silently.
They waited at the kitchen table until she came home.
She walked into the kitchen, saw the dirty dishes.
“You could have at least cleaned up,” she snarled at Dad, who said nothing, which never helped.
Then Dad unfolded the new sleep-away couch too hard and busted the spring, and it sat there, half opened—a huge, broken thing. He lugged the mattress onto the floor.
“I’ll leave in the morning, Jan. Get a hotel room.”
“Oh, yes,” she shouted, “make me the unreasonable one.”
“You don’t need any help with that,” he muttered.
Tree was listening from the kitchen, doing the dishes. Grandpa had gone to bed. Don’t fight, he thought.
Too late.
“How typical,” she shouted, “to use sarcasm.”
Dad said sarcasm was better than hair-trigger emotion.
“You always need the last word, don’t you, Mark?”
“Whatever you say, Jan.”
Tree wanted to march in there, tell them they were both wrong.
Stop fighting. He wanted to shout it.
Just for tonight, can’t you stop fighting?
Slam. That was her bedroom door.
Dad got the last word.
But Mom got the last sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Curtis and Larry showed up the next day and bunked in sleeping bags at Mom’s.
Dad was at a motel.
Grandpa stayed at Mom’s, too, with Tree and Bradley, but this afternoon he was out with the Trash King getting building supplies.
“How bad is it?” Curtis asked Tree.
Part of Tree wanted to say, “It’s awful with Mom and Dad,” but he knew Curtis didn’t mean that.
Tree tried to find the words, but you’ve got to see for yourself what a flood can do.
Curtis and Larry walked around the muddy lawn, kicked debris away, looked in the broken basement windows.
They went inside the house, came out gagging.
Larry swore, hit the Dumpster, stormed off to get away from the sight.
Curtis went after him. Motioned Tree over. Put one arm around Larry, one around Tree, and they stood there looking at the old house.
Tree felt so close to his brothers.
“We’ve got seventy-two hours,” Curtis said. “What do we do first?”
“Give up,” Larry suggested.
Curtis shook his head, held on tight.
“Scrub the basement walls and floor with Clorox,” Grandpa ordered. “No joke.”
Rubber gloves on, face masks tight, the Benton brothers formed a fighting unit to kill all bacteria left by the dirty floodwaters.
They lugged ruined boxes of photos and videos to the street.
Grandpa demonstrated how you pull down Sheetrock walls.
Slammed a sledgehammer into the wall, yanked as much out as he could with a crowbar.
Tree and his brothers stood by the wall, holding sledgehammers, too. No one wanted to go first.
Finally, Curtis said, “I keep thinking how it used to be, how Mom drove us crazy picking out the paint for the walls. It’s stupid. I don’t want to knock them down.”
Larry dropped his hammer. “I don’t, either.”
Tree wanted a magical wind to dry everything up and put it back in place.
“You’ve got to take a thing apart before you can fix it,” Grandpa explained.
Tree, Curtis, and Larry looked at one another.
“The best thing about a sledgehammer is how it lets you release your frustrations.” Grandpa pounded his into the wall. “You fellas should try it.”
Three sledges rammed the wall.
Grandpa shouted, “And watch the plumbing in there!”
Larry went at this with everything he had.
A clang and a crack.
Larry hit a pipe.
Grandpa limped over, marked the crack with tape. “You got many more frustrations left?”
Larry gulped. “Not too many.”
“Good. Watch how your brother does it.” Grandpa motioned to Tree. “He hits it just right. Swings easy, keeps up a steady rhythm.”
Tree liked hearing that, but he wasn’t sure Larry would. He hit the wall with the sledge to demonstrate, ripped off the wallboard. Hit it again.
Larry tried, but wasn’t getting it.
“Here.” Tree stood behind him, held his arm back, let it go. “Hit it like this.”
Larry tried it himself.
“That’s it,” Tree said.
By night, they’d knocked the wallboard down in the hall and the living room.
They pulled out the insulation.
Those rooms stood stark like a tree without leaves.
Dad came in, beat—he had to work at the store and help at the house.
Stared at the sight. “You guys did all this?”
“I did most of it,” Larry said.
Tree and Curtis pounced on him.
Two A.M.
Tree was in his room at Mom’s house. It felt good to be clean, felt good to be someplace that didn’t smell like sewage.
He’d scrubbed Larry’s home run medal and Curtis’s athlete of the year trophy in hot, soapy water.
Dried them off.
Poured metal polish on a cloth and began to rub the medal. He went over and over it, let it dry. Did the same thing with Curtis’s brass cup.
He rubbed the dried polish off. Still a few scratches, but the metal looked gold again.
Took another cloth, polished both pieces till they shone.
He sprayed Windex on the marble base of Curtis’s trophy to make it gleam.
The trophy looked good, but Curtis’s name in raised black letters wasn’t clear. He filled in the C, the T, the BENTON with a laundry marker.
Turned to the medal. It was in an open leather box. The box had water stains all over. It looked awful. Tree had seen his dad restore a baseball glove left in the rain with saddle soap.
He poured saddle soap onto a damp cloth and cleaned the box.
That made it better, but not good enough.
He opened a can of mink oil—put some on a cloth, rubbed it deep into the grain.
You’ve got to be patient to fix a thing right.
He felt the leather get softer, rubbed more and more
mink oil in. Gradually, the color deepened. The water stains disappeared.
Tree rubbed for an hour until he’d restored it to something you’d be proud to put on a shelf.
He fell into bed at 4:30.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“It’s going to be better here now.” Curtis surveyed the first floor of Dad’s house. They’d gotten all the wallboard off, down to the frame and joints.
A contractor friend of Grandpa’s was going to put up new walls next week.
Curtis and Larry were heading back to school.
“One game!” Larry ran outside, got the basketball that survived the flood.
Curtis ran outside as Larry dribbled the ball in the driveway. They’d hosed the driveway down. It was clean now.
“Come on,” Larry shouted. Passed the ball to Tree.
Tree bounced, passed to Curtis, who made an easy basket. Larry got the ball under the net. Passed it to Tree again.
“Come on.”
Larry got in front of Tree to guard him; all arms.
Tree tried to get around him.
Larry laughed.
Tree tried a basket from too far away.
Missed.
Curtis threw the ball back to him. Larry got out of the way.
“Nice and easy,” Curtis said. “Set up the shot, then shoot.”
Tree did that. Watched in triumph as the ball popped through the net.
“Awesome, Tree Man,” Curtis said.
Larry slapped him on the back.
It was one of those moments you want to cover with plastic to keep safe.
Dad pulled up in the car with Grandpa, honked the horn.
“We’ve got to go,” Curtis said.
“Wait. I have something for you guys.” Tree ran to the porch, grabbed the presents wrapped in tissue paper. Handed one to Larry, one to Curtis.
“Open them.”
Dad and Grandpa were heading up the walk.
Larry tore his open.
Couldn’t believe what he saw.
Curtis unwrapped his carefully, held it solemnly to the light.
“I washed them off and gave them a polish. That’s all it took,” Tree said.
