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Arbor Day
by Keladry
When she chooses to remember, she remembers trees.
*
There isn't a word for the soil between her fingers. Too wet to be dirt, too dry to be mud, it is simply earth.
Soon, her mother will come with the saplings. There are six this year, carefully chosen with an expert's attention to detail. This should have been the year for five, but the baby, born silent after only 23 weeks, will have a tree a year early.
Last year her mother planted pear trees while Allison watched from the window. The carpets were new and the ground was wet, and no one trusted her not to track mud through the living room. This year she's expected to be responsible enough to wipe her feet after the cherry trees are safely in the ground. Allison straightens at the click clack of clogs on the deck. She is brushing soil from her new pants by the time the sound is muffled by grass.
*
Cameron measures the seasons by the silver maple outside her bedroom window. She doesn't mean to, but when the first buds appear every February, time involuntarily starts over.
*
There are always three trees at Christmas. A douglas fir blazes white and gold in the front window. It is elegant and refined, and she is forbidden to touch it. In the living room, presents are piled high beneath a white spruce, groaning under the weight of salt dough ornaments and garlands of popcorn and cranberries. The Virginia pine on the upstairs landing is red and white and blue, and to Allison it looks jarringly out of season, as if waiting for fireworks.
It has been this way for as long as Allison can remember, and she finds comfort and stability in the excess.
*
Camping is an activity Cameron feels is best left to other people. She prefers to vacation (or she would, if vacationing was something she did) somewhere with waves and sand. She doesn't even need the palm trees.
*
The numbers are off again this year. There are eleven for Allison, but there are only three for the others, one each instead of one for each year. It's just as well: they're running out of space to plant. There is little joy in her mother's eyes as she drags the last of the saplings to the yard, and she hands the spade to Allison.
The slump of her shoulders speaks of defeat, and Allison knows then that these will be the last trees they ever plant.
*
The wood of the silver maple is brittle. The second winter Cameron lives in Princeton, ice hangs heavy from its limbs and a branch cracks off in the middle of the night, shattering the windshield of her car. Cameron takes a day off of work to slowly warm the tree, protecting it from further damage.
*
Her new room looks out on light posts and parked cars. Her mother left the final choice up to her, as if either apartment could compare favorably to the old house. The view is comforting, though, because there are no traces of her old life-- not earned, she now knows, but stolen-- and it makes her feel clean. At night, she imagines that if she stares hard enough, the cold pavement can wash the stain of her father's crimes from her brow.
She insists on wearing thrift store clothing to her new school and politely declines invitations to movies and birthday parties. She learns to sacrifice, as if to atone for a decade of extravagance. Teenage rebellion takes the form of hard work and uncompromising honesty.
*
She has a regular clinic patient who suffers from spring allergies. He tells Cameron about a recent trip to D.C. and she prescribes Allegra and Nasonex. Her patient is scrolling through grainy photos on his cellphone when Cameron walks through the pharmacy half an hour later. Out of the corner of her eye, she swears she can see cherry blossoms.
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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