Limb by Limb
“We’ll replant something stronger, something that will last,” I tell her, but she’s smart enough to know that she will be gone long before the next generation reaches the same height.
A drop of rain falls onto my arm. For the second time this week, a sun shower begins to pour down on us, impossible to predict from this sky of brilliant blue.
Rotating her body, Kate dismisses my hand, swings around, and hangs from the largest limb. In an instant, she’s in front of me with red eyes and defeated shoulders. Raindrops make polka dots on her orange top.
“It doesn’t matter what we plant,” she says. “There’ll never be enough time.”
I pull her toward me and feel her hands lock at the small of my back. She tightens her grasp around my trunk, and we stand together in our infinity hold, the branches splayed above us like an umbrella.
“Not enough time for what, Birdie?”
She pauses then looks up. “For me to climb.”