Good morning! Lonnie says and peeps through the open window to the back garden. The oak tree’s breath, soft and green, blends with birds’ song. The morning zephyr nips her face and strokes her hair.
A pair of wood warblers circles above the oak. One perches on the fence and calls in vigorous sounds. The second one lights next to it, and a second later they sing in a harmonious duo.
Lonnie listens and gazes at them hop and gather straws, grass and moss, and disappear among the oak’s branches.
It’s a lovely morning, isn’t? she says to the open window.
The oak tree lives in the neighbour’s garden. Since Lonnie has moved here with her family, she has been watching him grow tall, stalwart and proud. He has become the patron of the birds in the village. In spring, if a pair of birds wants to nest and lay eggs, they will come to him. In winter, if they need a shelter, they will come to him.
This oak tree of yours is the best thing in the village, Lonnie says any time she talks to John.
They both look up. Lonnie with a mouth open in reverence and John with a chest puffed out. He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes his eyes.
Lonnie is tiny lady in her early seventies. She has shrunk and hunched like a dead twig with age. But once she faces the oak through the window, and breathes in the vim and vigour of the morning, her thirst is quenched and appetite is satiated. Lonnie grows younger and is ready for her day.
Until that one fine day when a harsh and loud noise grates on her ear and drowns the birds chirps. Wher-wher-wher shrills over the village. Lonnie stares through the window. In John’s garden, a man in bright lime jacket and protective helmet holds a circular saw. He pulls the string. The saw coughs and stops. He pulls the string again and it resumes with a fresh power.
She rushes out in the garden and on seeing her head over the fence, John smiles.
Beautiful day! Perfect for gardening.
John, what are you doing!?
Grown very big and too close to the house. Gonna cut it down.
Trim him! think of the birds… the pride of your family…you can’t cut him down!
The roar of the saw hits her in the fore head. Splinters fly over and reach her face. Lonnie tries to protect her eyes with a hand, and chokes in dust and tears.
Back in her kitchen Lonnie shuts the window. Her heart beats like a bird in a snare. Ripples of pain creep over her and swell to sharp and frantic waves.
The sound stops. The two men move back and watch the oak fall. John lifts his thumb up, Good work! she reads on his lips.
The oak heaves, leans and hits the ground. The branches swish and crack. The earth shakes. The sun hides behind dreary clouds and a storm lashes the land. The fallen oak tree’s branches and leaves riot against the storm but eventually give in and drown in mud and dirt.
Lonnie leans on the window’s frame and gapes ahead. She doesn’t know for how long. A minute or an hour or the whole day. The window distorts the view of the garden, the whole world. No one to gaze at or talk to. No birds to listen to. All she hears is the damn road traffic.
Lonnie’s mind drifts decades back.
Mummy, look! Rosie, her daughter, points at a bird. She screams and giggles so loud that the whole flock of birds flee the oak tree in panic.
Rosie, be quite please! and Lonnie put a hand around her ear like a funnel.
Bryan whispers, Hush! and put a finger to his lips.
Where is the bird, Mummy, where? Rosie’s eyes grow wide in wonder. Where? she chirps, and looks up and searches for it. Her eyes jump from the sky to the oak tree to the fence. The birds fly back and hide deep in the oak tree crown and resume their song as if in respond to Rosie’s chirps.
Seasons and years pass. Rosie has left for her university and Bryan for another woman.
Lonnie lives in front of the window. Keeps it open all year round. Sun, rain, frost. From the good morning to the good night. From the first sun rays breaking through the oak branches to the last ones setting for the night.
The first warm rays of the next spring bring the pair of the wood warbles back to the garden. They wander for a few days and fly away. Only if the oak was here! An idea strikes her. How hasn’t she thought about it before, Lonnie thinks.
What’s this sapling here, never seen such a thing before? Lonnie asks the girl in the garden centre.
I don’t know but I like it.
Back home Lonnie chooses the sunniest spot in the garden. She digs a whole and places the sapling in. Every morning she touches its slender stalk and water it.
Good morning! You’re growing, aren’t you? I know you are.
The branches grow strong and tall, spread over the house roof and arch to the ground. They enter it and become roots and branch up and out again. In a few years the house nestles in a wooden lattice, a dome of verdure and serenity. The roof covers in moss and ivy creeps up the walls.
John has tried one day to find a way to the front door but turned back. The roots and branches tie and wave in such a thick mass that even the sun cannot penetrate.
The wood warbles come and find the way and build a nest.
Good morning! says Lonnie through the open window. Roots and branches and leaves whisper in answer.
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