I used to love watching the sunset from a tree in MiMi’s backyard.
Her words from our day in Brooklyn come back to me, and I glance at a path worn in the grass leading behind the house.
Worth a try.
I follow the path with no real hope of finding much, but there’s a whole other world I wouldn’t have known existed. A canopy of trees shades the path down to the water. Flowers bloom everywhere, not well-kept, but wild, beautiful. And then I see what must be Lotus’s tree. It’s huge, and I can imagine a little girl thinking she could see the whole world from up there. I search the line of limbs and branches until I catch sight of something bright, something gold.
There’s a rustle of leaves and a shifting of branches. I walk a few feet to the left and have a clear view of Lotus on a limb maybe twenty feet off the ground.
“Lotus!” I yell up at her.
She turns her head, unstartled, and looks right in my face, but there’s no response. Her eyes, even from here, seem vacant, distant, like the girl I know, the one I love and who loves me, has gone into hiding somewhere.
“Baby, come down,” I try again. “It’s too high. I don’t like you up there.”
No answer, but a frown that draws her fine brows together. She shakes her head.
“Dammit, Lotus,” I mutter under my breath and walk to the tree, glancing at my tennis shoes. “Guess we’ll see if these Glads are made for climbing.”
I can’t say I’ve ever actually climbed a tree. I grew up in Philly. I’m a city boy through and through, and never saw the value in climbing anybody’s damn tree, but if I can beat August climbing a rope, I can climb a tree.
There aren’t many limbs between her and me, but there’s a lot of space between each one, and I’m not sure how she made it up here when I’m struggling. I’m one branch below her, close enough to look into her eyes, when she speaks.
“Why are you here?” she whispers.
I’m not sure how to answer that. Obviously I’m here for her, but grief has a way of making things less obvious—make less sense.
“I came for you,” I say simply. “I’ve been worried about you. I’ve been calling you, Lotus. I’ve been . . .” Losing my mind, I finish silently, tightening my fingers on the limb.
“I’m sorry,” she says, swallowing, blinking rapidly. “I should have called. My phone died, and I didn’t bother—”
“It’s okay.”
And it is. Face-to-face with her pain, it doesn’t matter that I flew here, drove to some tiny parish in the bayou on the mere hope that she would be here. I’m just glad she is.
“I’m coming up to you.” I reach for the last branch that will take me to her.
“I’m not sure it’ll hold us both,” she says.
I pause, my hand on the branch, my eyes on her.
“Then you could come down,” I suggest.
She looks at me for a long moment before shaking her head, no. “I’m not ready to come down, yet.”
“Then I’m coming to you, and you better hope this tree holds us both.”
Not waiting for permission, I grab the last limb, glad to find it sturdy and steady even when I pull on it, and hoist myself up to the thick limb where she sits. I carefully slide behind her, let my legs fall on either side like she has, and pray to God I won’t die falling from this tree.
I slowly push my back to the bark, find my center for stability, and then put my arms around her. She stiffens at first, resisting, but I tighten my hands at her waist. I let her feel me, hoping I feel as right to her as she always feels to me.
By degrees, her shoulders relax and she sinks into me, until her full, slight weight all belongs to me, leans on me. I pull her closer so her curls tickle my nose and caress my lips. “God, I missed you, Button.”
She turns her head to look at me, and for the first time, she smiles. “I missed you, too.”
Those are the last words we say for a few minutes, but I’ve got my girl back. She’s safe and she’ll be okay. Whatever hell seeing her mother took her to, she’ll come back to me.
And if she doesn’t, I’ll go get her.