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And Nate is walking around on the roof. Like a crazy person. Like it is something he knows how to do: trying to measure the damage, trying to measure whether the tree will stay still or sink deeper into the house before the morning, putting them at further risk.
And Maggie is alone again.
In this house, alone again, but this time with the tree.
The rain has stopped. Still, she is half expecting Nate to slip up there, and to come falling down through the branches. To ride the trunk downward, like a too-long slide. Barring that unfortunate outcome, she is feeling too outside of herself—too much like she is watching her life as opposed to living this moment in it—to figure out what happens next. In a general sense, and in a less general one. They will probably not be able to sleep here tonight. How could they? And yet, if not tomorrow, soon they’ll have to leave here. Not just Nate and her. But the rest of his family. They won’t be able to do anything here anymore unless they try to fix this place, and something tells Maggie that fixing anything here is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
She hears someone behind her. She hears the footsteps behind her, and turns to see a handsome guy, but a little too baby-faced for his own good. He is carrying a duffel bag and a guitar case, and his hand is poorly wrapped in a thick Ace bandage.
And he is, maybe, seven feet tall. Or he looks that tall. From where Maggie stands he looks not unlike the tree.
“Hello,” he says.
“Hello there.”
He doesn’t look at her. He is looking up at the tree, turning his head to the side, as if staring at a tree from a different angle would help it make any more sense.
“Quite a mess someone has made here, isn’t it?” he says.
“You could say that.”
“I just did.”
She looks at him, confused and embarrassed for some reason. She feels, more than anything, a little embarrassed. “Can I help you with something?” she asks.
“I’m looking for Georgia, actually,” he says, which is when she notices it. The French accent. Georgia’s name made to sound like a slumber party. Zoor-zsa. I’m looking for Zoor-zsa.
“Denis?”
He is silent.
“You’re Denis?”
He gives her a small wave, only he is still staring up. He puts his stuff down at his feet and keeps looking up at the tree. He doesn’t ask her who she is, which Maggie guesses means he doesn’t care.
But then he smiles at her, a big round smile that makes his cheeks puff out, bloat, and it reveals a crooked tooth in his mouth—which, Maggie thinks, may be the best part of him.
“You’re Maggie. The food writer.”
“Former food writer.”
He nods. “Former, of course,” he says. “It is nice to finally meet you. We’ve got a photograph of you in our living room, on top of the fireplace. On the shelf that Nate built. It’s of you and Nate standing under a tree at some vineyard, holding wine-glasses. You look a lot better in person, if you don’t mind my saying so. Less, what are the words . . . washed out?”
She feels herself start to laugh, in spite of herself. “Thanks,” she says. “I think.”
“No problem.”
He rubs his hands together and heads to the staircase, starts bouncing up and down on the lower steps, pulling on the railing with a tight fist, leaves flying around from the impact.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking the endurance.”
Checking the endurance? “Maybe I’m a little slow here, but what does that mean?”
“It means the tree is stuck where it is. You don’t have to worry. It’s fallen as much as it is going to fall. It will stay where it is until someone gets here and does something else with it.”
“How do you know that?”
