Chapter 7 - A Branch With Our Names On It
The saw stopped when I shouted through the open gate. Not because anyone was listening to me, I learned, but because the worker holding it had seen Owen running toward him.
“Everybody down,” Owen yelled. “Get away from that split.”
The enormous limb lay across our flower bed. Leaves covered the table Danny had built, and a jagged strip of bark hung from the trunk. Cynthia stood beside the gate with a clipboard; she looked startled to see me home before lunch.
“Who authorized you to enter my property?” I asked.
“We're clearing an immediate hazard,” she said.
“Your email says limited trimming over the trail. This branch was above my porch.”
The crew leader wiped his hands on his pants. “We were told the lot was accessible.”
Owen walked around the broken wood. His face changed when he saw the exposed seam. “No more cuts,” he told the crew. “We need an arborist.”
Cynthia snapped, “You can't abandon a job halfway.”
“It's not safe to keep cutting,” Owen said. “That's different.”
Ellie crouched beside the fallen limb. The growth marks were still on the low trunk, just below the ragged wound where Danny had carved ELLIE 8 and ELLIE 9. She reached past the broken wood to touch them. I tried to shift the limb away from her and discovered it was heavier than I remembered a tree could be.
“Please leave that piece,” she told the crew leader.
“Sure, kid.” He turned away, embarrassed.
I called Dana while Owen photographed the split. She couldn't come for two hours. She told us to keep everyone away from the crown and not attempt our own repair.
Cynthia went to her car and made calls with the windows rolled up. When she returned, she said the association would document the incident.
“Don't touch anything else,” I replied.
“I'm trying to prevent a lawsuit.”
“You're looking at one.”
I hadn't intended to say it. Ellie stared at me as if I were a stranger.
Dana arrived, studied the damage, and asked everyone to move back from the fence. She touched the pale torn wood but didn't press it. “This was an improper cut for the tree's structure,” she said. “There's a new crack that needs a closer assessment.”
“Can you save it?” Ellie asked.
May you like
Dana hesitated. “We need to find out how far that crack runs.”
The thing none of us said was that the tree now stood because no wind was blowing.
