Always Be Here
The great storm will find me.
Is what you said to your gravestone.
At the time it was a sapling, and you didn't know you'd be six feet under.
There was a hill, the one you sled down when you were eleven, chipping a tooth in the process. At the bottom of that hill was a peach tree, the one that died when you were twenty-five. They'd planted you a new one on your thirty-first birthday, because what else do you need at thirty-one?
The great storm will find me, you'd said on an spring night.
You were thirty-six, and three days away from a foot surgery. You'd sat on the bench that they'd put next to the tree, foot in pain. Still growing, the tree was. You were too.
One day this tree will be as tall as the hill, you'd said on a summer morning.
By then they'd built a pool, and there was cell service everywhere, but nobody needed anything because it was a lazy, beautiful summer. You were sitting in a straw hat, feet in the pool, staring up into the peach tree. You were fifty-five, and your eyesight was terrible but you refused to get glasses. The tree hadn't grown any taller for years.
There were rivers here, once, you'd said on an autumn afternoon.
You were sitting hunched over on that bench, your bench, the one right next to the peach tree. You spread a hand out to the land and told us all about the animals that used to live on the land, about how their spirits still roam around us in another plane. How the water used to flow around the hill and how the soil soaked up all the water one day, until there was no more left. You were wearing your new glasses, then, finally at seventy-one.
I'll always be here, you'd said on a winter evening.
The sun had set, the air was freezing, but you wouldn't let us bring you inside. You were so weak, your skin sunken and colorless in the frigid air. The peach tree hadn't grown as tall as the hill yet, even after all the time that had passed. You were ninety-two.
The great storm will find me.
Is what you said to your gravestone, many, many years ago.
You hadn't known it then, but we buried you there, beneath the tree you loved so much. The pool was removed, but the hill remains, and it's rained so much since the day you died that the land is all flooded now. A river, created by a great storm. The animals have come back, too. I think they say your name sometimes. They watch the peach tree.
The storm did find you. But you'll always be here, beneath your tree.