It would outlive me, Rowan, and future generations, until someone so totally blind to the absurdity of trees cut it down. Or maybe a storm would come. Or a fire. But even then, that was still part of the shift and change of the landscape of which I was now a part. Here. Visible. Tangible. Very much not void.
At the spot where I was about to dig next was the small corpse of a mouse. It curled stiffly around a red gash where its innards had been. Its eyes were shut as if sleeping. Its tail was broken. I didn’t say anything to Rowan, but dug the hole for the tree all the same then tipped the tiny body in with my spade. I scattered fertilizer over it and set the sapling on top, gentle this time with the soil, and pressed the tree in place, sending the mouse into the tree’s hopefully absurdly long future.
“Nice work,” said Rowan. He stood close by with his arm resting on his spade. “Stop for a bite to eat?”
We downed tools and found a patch of grass short enough to sit in. Rowan brought over two bridies in a paper bag—picked up from the pie counter at the butcher’s that morning. I bit into the flaky pastry and the flavour of salty beef mince instantly filled my mouth. My God, I thought. I hadn’t realised how hungry I was. How long had I been this hungry?
I smiled over at Rowan to express my gratitude. He smiled back, but this time it felt forced. An awkward silence descended on us.
An alert sounded on his phone. He silenced it without even looking.
He pressed his lips together, looked out over the view, took a deep breath, then said:
“I didn’t retake the tests when the driving ban was over because I was in prison.”
CHAPTER 31
A breeze funnelled through the clearing, hushing through the pines and rustling the leaves of the saplings behind.
“At least you’re not stuck in the truck with me,” he said, giving me a small half-smile.
Yes, but I am now out in the middle of nowhere with you and you have a spade, I thought.
“But how did you end up in prison?” I brushed crumbs of pastry from my mouth. “You are, like, the nicest person I’ve ever met.”
He bit back a laugh. “There’re plenty of nice people in prison, believe me. Nice people do stupid things all the time.”
I pulled the spade laid on the grass closer to me, gripping it for support.
Maybe he was wrongly convicted? Maybe it wasn’t that bad?
“Was it for the driving thing?”
He shook his head.
“Is it something…” I leant back.
“No, nothing like that. Sorry, I should have led with that.” He scratched the back of his head as if the discomfort of the situation was making him itch. “I mean, it wasn’t great. I went to prison for it. But I…”
He wiped a hand down his face and exhaled.
“From the start?”
I nodded.
“Okay, from the start.” He leant back onto his palms in the grass. “I am the youngest of three. My elder brother, my elder sister and then me—the surprise.” He put out his hands in a ta-da motion. “By the time I came along, my parents were a bit more hands off with us kids. My sister was ‘The Girl’, so my elder brother was never allowed to play rough with her. It was always, ‘play nice with your sister’ or ‘we don’t hit girls’. Me, on the other hand… well, I can only assume they thought it was good for me, or it was natural for boys to fight. My brother used to poke or pinch me, not hard, but just enough to get me to lash out at him. Once I’d done that, he’d put me into headlocks or sit on me or what have you. It used to make me so angry, but the angrier I got the more it encouraged him. He’d just pin me down and laugh. The more I fought, the harder he’d laugh. My parents, too. They thought it was funny. I’d scream and rage until tears were streaming down my face, and they’d all just laugh like it was the funniest thing.”
He looked out to the view, took a breath.
“But I wasn’t little for long. By the time I was sixteen I had a good foot on my brother. The last time he tried to pin me down, I threw him over my shoulder like it was nothing. God, I remember the look of surprise on his face. He looked to my parents, but they just said it served him right. They only ever stood up for me after I’d already stood up for myself.”
“That must have felt good,” I said, envy bristling my skin.
“It felt amazing,” he said, a sad smile briefly lighting his face. “But it didn’t fix all the years when I’d been helpless. It just taught me my anger was always righteous—my anger was the only way to keep me safe from being that helpless kid again. So, I leant into it.”
“Hence the road rage incident,” I said.
“Hence the road rage incident.” He nodded. “After I lost my license, it just sort of got worse. The anger. It felt as if the whole world was laughing at me. Little things set me off. Getting a sleeve caught on a door handle or not being able to open a packet of something on the first try. I went off crisps for, like, a full year. I’d just rip the thing apart. God, I couldn’t even hold a conversation with my friends without losing it over something that annoyed me. I used to recognise the point I’d gone too far because their faces would…” He waved a hand around his mouth. “You know? But that didn’t shake me up either. Didn’t make me stop and think, maybe this is a bit much now, maybe I should sort myself out. It just made it worse somehow, like I couldn’t talk to them, like I was some kind of—”
