The Mirabelle Tree

He called me and in between snorting air from his nose like a Taurus, he told me he planted a walnut tree.
Of course I was delighted. I loved nuts maybe even more than fruit because nuts never made my teeth hurt.
I asked him where he planted it and he said he planted it behind the cypress, where the mirabelle tree used to be.
I couldn't understand what he said because this mirabelle tree was standing the day I left.
"Well, where is the mirabelle tree?" my voice contorted with fear.
"I cut it down."
"You mean you cut down some branches?"
I couldn't believe that this sixty year old, dark-barked, corkscrew branched, privacy giving tree could possibly be the victim of such an act and by a man I was supposed to love. And I speak nothing of its gifts of golden, soft mirabelles so sweet, always with one side blushed dusty pink.
"No, I cut it down. It barely gave any fruit last year and besides, it had a fungal attack."
He couldn't have known that it was I who tiptoed downstairs, unlocking the door in the early morning hours to pick as many mirabelles as I could before his mom would wake up. I secretly popped the warm orbs into my mouth one by one, spitting the pits out all over the yard. Should I tell him it provided me with many secret summer breakfasts?
The tears welled up and I cried, the tears running into the receiver. I hung up.
The next day he called back. He said what was done was done, that the walnut tree was doing well and that he was sorry and that he collected mirabelle pits from the lawn and planted them in a pot.
I wasn't consoled at that moment. But the distance made me hurt for him again, so I went back.
I saw that auburn splintered stump next to the walnut tree. I tried to ignore it as we worked the vegetable patch those bright spring days.
I was away again when I got his call.
"The mirabelle tree has sprouted a limb."
I thought he meant the pits he had planted long ago had finally germinated. But he meant the stump, the roots, of the original tree were still alive and that they had sent up a spindly branch to the sun.
And a little place inside me I had bolted shut opened up a crack, this young tendril coiling its way inside, opening me a little more. It whispered, "life."