Up A Tree

UP A TREE

By

John McDonnell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 John McDonnell

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UP A TREE

By John McDonnell

CHAPTER ONE

Mom, you’re a 55 year old woman. What are you doing up in a tree? Lauren Summers could imagine her daughter Andrea’s tone of voice, the shock and disapproval ringing in her ears.

It was true, though, she thought. Anybody would say the same thing if they came along and saw her -- Hey, lady, what are you doing up in that tree?

Lauren was sitting on a tree branch 30 feet in the air, nursing a badly sprained ankle and trying not to panic as the sky darkened and the sun set behind her. She felt pain from her ankle, but the pain of embarrassment was worse. Not only was she stuck in a tree, she had trespassed on someone’s property in order to get up in the tree. On top of that, she had climbed the tree in a summer dress, which was shredded like confetti from getting caught on some sharp branches. This is pretty bad, she thought, and it can only get worse.

Things had come to this point because of Andrea. It was her fault, that’s what it was. Lauren was living her life in southern Virginia, muddling along after her second divorce, just trying to keep things on an even keel, and then Andrea, her successful lawyer child, developed an obsession with history. Maybe she needed a hobby after her own divorce, or maybe she was bored with her career, who knows? The bottom line was that Andrea joined a historical organization, decided to research the area in the countryside outside of Philadelphia where her mother grew up, and then found out that the old Billings Estate where Lauren had played as a child had fallen into disrepair and -- well, by that point Andrea had a cause, which was to save the Billings mansion from being torn down by a developer, and to have it declared a historical landmark.

Mom, this is a part of history, Andrea kept saying. The house has parts of it that are 300 years old, it’s worth saving for the architectural value alone, and you could help us by writing some articles about it. You’re a writer, after all, and you could help us publicize our efforts.

Andrea, I write cookbooks, Lauren said. I have a food column for the local newspaper. How is that going to help?

Well, anyway, Andrea had said, this house has sentimental value. It’s where you spent your summers as a child.

It was true that Lauren had spent parts of her summers there. Her aunt Lucy had lived down the road and was friendly with Maude Billings, the old lady who was the last of her line and lived in the big mansion alone except for a few servants. Maude loved children and invited the neighborhood boys and girls over to swim in the big pool out back and to play in the acres of woodland that ringed the property. Lauren spent many summer days running about the place with a pack of boys and girls, in the bright madness of youth, exploring the woods, playing endless games, telling scary stories in the dark, and, the last summer, when she was 14, kissing a boy named Jimmy Vance, who had dark eyes and lips as sweet as the blackberries that grew by the creek that ran through the woods.

Lauren shivered once, thinking about those evenings when she discovered desire, and those endless kisses with Jimmy. It was a familiar thought: in fact, she considered herself pitiful that she still treasured kisses from her teenage years, four decades ago. What a miserable love life I’ve had, she thought, that a 14-year-old boy is still the most exciting person I’ve ever kissed.

But it was true. Jimmy had dancing, flashing eyes, and sweet lips, and he was strong and good and she felt so comfortable with him. They were inseparable, even within the group of kids who played at the estate. They were always off on some adventure by themselves, and it just seemed so natural and free, and she had never felt that again with any man.

She shook herself out of her reverie. Stop this, Lauren, she said to herself. The past is over. If you need any proof that, look at the house. The house, which was 100 yards away, was a sad shadow of itself. Miss Maude had eventually ended up in a nursing home, and had run up large bills for her care. She had no heirs, and the bills from her nursing care and the upkeep of the estate had nearly bankrupted her. The house lay vacant for almost 30 years, as second and third cousins fought over Maude’s Will, and then it was sold and resold, but nobody seemed to know what to do with it. The trees and bushes from the woods had gradually taken over, and now the house was barely visible from the road, overgrown, the roof caved in, the windows broken. It had been forgotten until the local historical society got wind of a developer’s plans to demolish it and turn the property into a subdivision. That’s where Andrea got involved, and there were lawsuits and hearings galore as the fight to save the estate was launched.

Lauren had stayed out of it until recently, when Andrea said there was a last-ditch effort to stop the developer, and she convinced Lauren to travel to Philadelphia and take a look at the place.

Mom, you told me so many stories growing up of the happy memories you had at that house, Andrea said. You haven’t been back in ages. Why don’t you come back and we’ll visit the old place?

Lauren had reluctantly agreed because -- although she didn’t tell Andrea this -- she was hoping to experience the magic again. Her family had moved to Virginia when she was fifteen, and there were times when it seemed like everything had gone downhill after that. Her life didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to -- there had been failed marriages and relationships, career dead-ends, money problems -- at times these days she felt like her life was already over, and she had not much to show for it. Oh, Andrea was the light of her life, that was true, but it had been so long since she’d felt the warmth of a man’s embrace, and she found herself more and more thinking of those joyful days with Jimmy Vance.

So Lauren had traveled north and moved in with Andrea for a week, and they’d come out to the old property with several other members of the historical society to take pictures and document the state of the house. A representative of the developer was with them, an efficient woman in a blue business suit who kept saying how the place was beyond saving and that it was best to just tear it down and build something new on the property.

It was sad to see how far the place had fallen into disrepair, and Lauren found herself wishing she hadn’t come. It was nothing like she remembered. The house was so creaky they didn’t even go inside, for fear of falling through the floorboards. There was a family of feral cats living in it, who bared their teeth when anyone got close. The pool was a pit of leaves and trash and empty beer cans from neighborhood teenagers. The great old trees looked sad and weary.

Lauren couldn’t wait to leave.

For the rest of the week she tried to put the house out of her mind, but she couldn’t. There was something pulling at her to come back. She didn’t know what it was, but today, the day before she was supposed to go home, she got in the car and drove out to the place, without telling Andrea.

It was late afternoon already when she drove up the long driveway. She parked the car and got out, not knowing what she was there for, or what she was going to do. She wandered around the property, picking her way through the underbrush, trying to let the memories come. When she saw this tree, regal and broad-limbed, she knew she wanted to climb it.

It was madness, of course, but something in her compelled her to do it. A true tomboy, she had climbed many trees in her childhood, and she’d even had a summer job in college working for a tree trimming service where she’d lopped off branches near the tops of trees.

She kicked off her shoes, took off the thin denim jacket she was wearing, and scrambled up the tree. It had been years, but somehow Lauren’s body remembered how to do it. She managed to grasp a low-hanging branch and scramble up, then pull herself up from one branch to the next highest one. She was thankful she’d kept up her gym membership and was in reasonably good shape. It wasn’t long till she was high up in the branches of the old oak, looking out at the expanse of houses and properties for miles around.

And then it happened. With a loud crack, a tree limb she was standing on snapped and she fell headlong through the branches, finally grabbing a sturdy one and holding on while her body swung around and her left ankle cracked hard against the tree trunk. A sharp pain sliced through her, and she screamed in agony. She pulled herself up on the branch, sweating and cursing, then tried to assess the damage. Her ankle started swelling up right away, and she realized it was probably sprained or even broken. Then she realized her cellphone was in the pocket of her jacket, 30 feet below on the ground. Great. Now she couldn’t call Andrea, or 911, or anyone.

She called out. Help! Someone help me!.

This is foolish, she thought. I’m half a mile from the highway. Nobody can hear me. The sun was sinking in the