MY MOSTLY HAPPY LIFE: Autobiography of a Climbing Tree

Chapter 16 - Esther Meets Winston

None of the Swerlings were animal people, and when Sam's children were growing up, they never had cats, dogs, birds, snakes, fish, guinea pigs, or hamsters in their apartment. Even though no one in the family seemed to miss having a pet, they did try once. This occurred after Tennyson's science teacher brought a chameleon into class to demonstrate the lizard's camouflage characteristics. When the lesson was over, she asked if anybody wanted to take it home. Nobody volunteered. Not even Tennyson. But he felt sorry for the chameleon, so he raised his hand. He named it Godzilla, put its cage in the kitchen, and anticipated a friendship that would last its projected lifespan of seven years.

By all accounts, the entire Swerling family tried very hard to take care of Godzilla.

They kept his cage clean, well-ventilated, moist and hot. They gave him leafy plants with lots of vines and branches to climb. And they fed him the recommended diet of crickets and grasshoppers, which Tennyson purchased religiously from a pet store.

Nevertheless, the chameleon died in six days.

"Absolutely not," Ghita said to her children who, saddened by Godzilla's death, were clamoring for a puppy to replace him. "You cannot have a dog. You cannot have a puppy. Given our track record with pets, we'd probably kill him in two weeks."

After that, the subject was not discussed, so when Winston showed up many years later, Esther had absolutely no intention of keeping him.

He, however, seemed to have ideas of his own.

Other than Merritt Jones, who was a human, and myself, a tree, Winston was the only thing in the Samuel Swerling Park that Esther fell in love with.

Winston came first.

Merritt came second.

Winston, in fact, made Merritt possible.

It was a perfect day in April. Warm, but not hot, with a delicious breeze, a cloudless sky, and no humidity. Irises, hyacinths, anemone, and lily of the valley were all in bloom, and the air was heavy with the scent of wisteria and lilacs.

Esther was drunk on spring.

She had no purpose, no ambition, no desire, and no energy. She did not attempt to climb any trees. Not even me, and I'm her favorite. If there were Richter scales on that afternoon calibrated to measure will power, hers would have registered zero.

All she wanted to do was lounge on a park bench and let her mind bask in the sun.

She was, at that time, an elegant twenty-six years old.

She did not know that she was beautiful, because her inner tomboy had kept it a solemn secret, and she did not know that she was elegant, because nobody had ever told her that elegance is in the bones.

Esther's body was long, lean, and angular. She had a high forehead, high cheekbones, and a jaw slightly more oval than square. Her features were symmetrical, with naturally arched eyebrows, a wide mouth, and a mysterious smile. She wore her glossy black hair in a long braid that hung halfway down her back.

Her eyes were brilliant splinters of violet and sapphire that radiated from her pupils like starbursts.

A few years earlier, Esther's oldest brother Noah, a landscape architect who had worked summers for Alonso before going to college, was sitting beside her on one of my branches. They were talking about not much of anything, when all of a sudden Noah grabbed Esther's jaw, turned her face toward his and said, "Shut up for a second. I want to look at your eyes."

He did not say another word for at least a minute.

Then, still staring at her, he shook his head and asked, "Why haven't I noticed your eyes before?"