Free The Tree by Judy Pascoe

but not before he’d lectured her about the state of the house and the tree and the roots and the steps.
    â€˜Dropping’ – he flung an arm behind him, pointing to the said steps – ‘dropping off the back of the house.’
    I stayed awake for hours determined not to sleep, so I could hear when the drain man left, if he left. I lay on my back so I couldn’t get comfortable and kept one finger in my mouth and every time I felt myself lowering into sleep, I bit my finger hard so I’d stay awake. With the added noise of the tree rubbing at the window it wasn’t that difficult. I heard them stirring eventually, crouching down to step through the window back into the house, then moving towards the front door. I knew Edward was still awake, I could see him through my window bent over his books, but with half an ear listening out as well.
    He didn’t see what I did though, the two of them by the front door in the shadows embracing. I hadn’t meant to see them, but I had, and my mother was furious and shocked and I must have looked like the spy I was, standing in the hallway not even trying to hide.
    They kissed like people on television and I must have squealed because I was so cross I wanted to cry, but I had paid my mother back, without realizing it, ten-fold for betraying me to the priest and Mr King.

17
    I crawled up the tree that night to commiserate with my dad. He sang me a lullaby I’d never heard before. It went over and over and soothed me to calmness. And to think I had believed, so stupidly I then realized, that, because of the angels in heaven that I’d been taught about, I would be rewarded for finding my dad in the top of the tree. I thought it would be like Lourdes. People would journey from all over the world to our tree. They would make pilgrimages to be cured of their ailments. I fantasized about my fame, the fame of our house, our suburb. I didn’t understand that you could be taught about the mystical, but be forbidden to believe in it, seek it out or enjoy it. The mixed message caused an anger to descend that made me hate the world, hate my mother, hate Megan and the drain man; my mother the most though.
    It hit me then, that I only came to talk to my dead father when I felt lousy. When I felt good I ignored him.
    â€˜I’m so pleased to talk to you any time in any condition,’ he had answered.
    I could see my mother in her bedroom window, she was looking straight up at us. I nested in behind a frayed drop of leaves. I knew she knew where I was, but I wasn’t going back to the house, ever. I decided I was going to stay in the tree. I could come down to the lower branches to get food that I would ask Edward to bring me. And if I convinced him I needed it, maybe he could, with Mum’s permission, build me a tree house a bit lower down. I could sleep in there. Really there was no reason to return to earth.
    I heard my mother hissing at me from below. She was stuck halfway out of her window. I refused to answer her.
    â€˜I’m furious with her,’ I said.
    â€˜She’s got to get on and so do you,’ my father said.
    He was so understanding, it made me cross. It was easy for him, it was so calm and peaceful where he was living, lit by the sunset in the salmon pink gaps between the branches. I wanted him to side with me, his only daughter, but he wouldn’t. He was sitting on the confounded fence like he always had. He would never put me before her and so discreetly he always put her before me.
    â€˜No way,’ I huffed. ‘No way.’
    My mother had woken Edward now, her henchman. They were on the top step, their voices transported easily through the balmy night air.
    â€˜Simone. Come down now,’ my mother said.
    â€˜No way, creeps,’ I replied.
    It must have been after midnight. They advanced down the stairs, Edward behind my mother. I could see him clutching the top of his pyjama bottoms, trying to keep