Jay Asher - What Light

“It means the same thing! Are you still on me about my word choice?” I don’t mention that I kind of like it.

“Maybe I’ll pick up some of your vocab tricks before you head home.”

I reach over and nudge his shoulder. “You should be so lucky.”

He smiles at me and puts the truck in gear. “I guess that’ll depend on how much I get to see you.”

I glance at him, and as his words register, warmth runs through me.

When we reach the main road, he asks, “Any thoughts on how often that’ll be?”

I wish I could give him an answer, but before I make projections on our time together, there are things I need to know. I just wish he’d bring it up, like he said he would.

“It depends,” I say. “How many more trees do you think you’ll give out this year?”

He looks out his window into the next lane, but his smile reflects in the side-view mirror. “It’s the holidays, so my tips are decent, but I must say, even discounted trees get expensive. No offense.”

“Well, I can’t discount any more than I am, so maybe you’ll need to lay on the charm extra thick at work.”

We pull onto the highway heading north. The ragged pyramid of Cardinals Peak is silhouetted against the darkening sky.

I point toward the top of the hill. “I bet you didn’t know I have six Christmas trees growing up there.”

He glances at me briefly and then looks out the window to the dark and looming hill. “You have a Christmas tree farm on Cardinals Peak?”

“Not exactly a farm,” I say, “but I’ve been planting one a year.”

“Really? How did you start something like that?” he asks.

“It actually goes back to when I was five years old.”

He puts on the turn signal, checks over his shoulder, and then slides us into the next lane. “Don’t hold back,” he says. “I want the full origin story.” Headlights of passing cars light up his curious smile.

“Okay then.” I hold on to the seat belt strapped across my chest. “Back home when I was five, I planted this one tree with my mom. Before that I had planted dozens of trees, but this one we kept separate. We put a fence around it and everything. Six years later, when I was eleven, we cut it down and gave it to the maternity ward of our hospital.”

“Good for you,” he says.

“It’s nothing like what you’re doing, Mr. Charity,” I say. “Giving them a tree was something my parents did every Christmas to say thank you after I was born. Apparently it took a long time for me to agree to join this world.”

“My mom says my sister was fussy at birth, too,” Caleb says.

I laugh. “My friends would love to know you just described me that way.”

He looks at me, but there is no way I’m explaining that one.

“Anyway, this one year we decided to plant a tree for them that would be specifically from me. At the time, I loved the idea. But skip ahead six years and I had taken such good care of that tree for its entire life—for almost my entire life—that when we cut it down I cried so hard. My mom says I knelt in front of its stump and cried for an hour.”

“Aw!” Caleb says.

“If you like sentimental, wait until I tell you that the tree cried, too. Sort of,” I say. “When a tree grows it sucks up water through its roots, right? When it’s cut down, sometimes the roots keep pushing water up to the stump in little droplets of sap.”

“Like tears?” he says. “That’s heartbreaking!”

“I know!”

Headlights shining into the cab reveal a smirk on his face. “But you have to admit, it’s also kind of sappy.”

I roll my eyes. “I have heard every sap joke you could think of, mister.”

He signals again and we drive to the next off-ramp. It’s a tight curve and I hold on to the door.

“That’s why we cut an inch from the bottom of the trees before we let people take them off the lot,” I say. “It gets you restarted with a clean cut that will keep pulling up water. It can’t drink when it’s sealed with sap.”

“Does that really… ?” He stops himself. “Oh, I know, that’s a smart thing to do.”

“Anyway,” I say. “After we brought my tree to the hospital, Dad gave me that inch-thick slice he’d cut from the base. I took it to my room and painted a Christmas tree on one side of it, and I still have it propped on my dresser at home.”

“I love that,” Caleb says. “I don’t know if I’ve ever kept anything that symbolic. But how does that lead to your little farm on the mountain?”

“So the next day, we were getting ready to drive down here,” I say. “Actually, we’d already pulled away from the house and I started crying again. I realized that I should have planted a tree to replace the one we cut down. We had to get going, though, so I made my mom pull up to our greenhouse and I grabbed a baby tree in a pot and buckled it into the backseat.”

“And then you planted it here,” he says.

“After that, I brought a tree down with me every season. My plan has always been to cut that first one down next year and give it to Heather’s family. They always get one from us, but that one will be special,” I say.

“That is a great story,” he says.

“Thanks.” I look out my window as we drive past a couple of blocks of two-story hotels. Then I close my eyes, wondering if I should say this. “But what if… I don’t know… what if you gave that tree to someone who needed it?”

We drive another block in silence. Finally, I look over at him expecting to see a sincere smile on his face. I just offered to let him give away the first tree I planted in California. Instead, he stares at the road, lost in thought.

“I thought you would like that,” I say.

He blinks and then looks at me. A cautious smile passes his lips. “Thanks.”

Really? I want to say. Because you don’t look very happy about it.

He rolls down his window a crack and the air plays with his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was picturing your tree in a stranger’s house. You already had plans for it. They were good plans. Don’t change that because of me.”

“Well, maybe that’s what I want.”

Caleb pulls the truck into the parking lot of a four-story apartment complex. He finds an open spot close to the building, steers into it, and parks. “How about this: I’ll keep an eye out all year for the perfect family. When you come back, we can bring it to their place together.”

I try to conceal any uncertainty about next year. “And what if I don’t want to hang out with you next year?”

His face shutters, and I immediately regret it. I had hoped for a sarcastic comeback, but instead I scramble for a way to recover. “I mean, what if you don’t have any teeth next year? You do have that addiction to candy canes and hot chocolate…”

He smiles and opens his door. “Tell you what: I’ll brush my teeth extra well all year long.” The heaviness falls away.

I climb out of the truck smiling and walk toward the back. Most of the apartment windows are dark, but a few of them have Christmas lights around them. Caleb meets me at the tailgate, which he lowers, hiding the Sagebrush Junior High bumper sticker. He begins to pull out the tree by the trunk, and I reach into the branches to help.

“Now that I’m improving your hygiene and your vocabulary,” I say, “is there anything else you need help with?”

He gives me a dimpled grin and nods toward the apartments. “Just start walking. You’d have to clear your entire schedule to help me out.”

I lead the way, and we carry the tree toward the building’s entrance. I close my eyes and laugh, not believing what I almost blurted out. I look back over my shoulder and somehow suppress telling him, “Consider it cleared.”

The elevator is almost too small for us to prop the tree straight up. Caleb kicks the button for the third floor and soon we’re rising. When the door opens again, I squeeze out first, Caleb tips the tree forward, and I grab it. We carry it to the end of the hallway, where he knocks on the last door with his knee. An angel cut from construction paper, probably by a young child, is thumbtacked to the peephole. The angel holds a banner that reads Feliz Navidad.

A heavyset gray-haired woman in a floral-print dress opens the door. She steps back in happy surprise. “Caleb!”

Still holding the trunk of the tree, he says, “Merry Christmas, Mrs. Trujillo.”

“Luis didn’t tell me you were coming. And with a tree!”

“He wanted it to be a surprise,” Caleb says. “Mrs. Trujillo, I’d like you to meet my friend Sierra.”

Mrs. Trujillo looks ready to wrap me in a hug but sees that my hands are fairly occupied. “It is so nice to meet you,” she says. While we lug the tree inside, I catch her wink at Caleb while nodding at me, but I pretend not to notice.

“The food bank told me you would love a tree,” Caleb says, “so I’m glad I could bring it over.”

The woman blushes and pats his arm a bunch of times. “Oh, sweet boy. Such a big heart!” She shuffles in her slippers across the dual living room and dining room. She leans down, her belly straining the floral pattern on her dress, and pulls a tree stand from beneath the couch. “We haven’t even got up the fake tree yet, Luis is so busy with school. And now you brought me a real tree!”

Caleb and I hold the tree between us while she kicks aside magazines and places the stand in the corner. We listen to her go on about how much she loves the smell.

She looks at Caleb, touches her heart, and then claps one time. “Thank you, Caleb. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

A voice calls from the other side of the room, “I think he heard you, Mama.”