October seemed lighter in spirit than she had all week. Her movements were smooth and floaty, like she was on roller skates, and she glided over to where I was, sat down across from me with one of her legs tucked underneath her, leaned halfway across the table and said, “Whatcha readin’?”
I had a mouthful of cereal and showed her the cover. She spun the book around and opened it to the inside flap, where Ingrid had written:
Dear Joey—
Thought of you when I saw this in the bookstore.
Love you,
Mom
“Ha-ha,” October giggled. “Joey.”
“Just so you know, Ingrid is the only person on the planet who is allowed to call me that.”
She began paging through the book. I watched her eyes moving right to left, widening as they skimmed the words and looked at the pictures. Every so often she would shake her head and mumble, “Holy cow.”
As soon as I finished my breakfast, I said, “I forgot to tell you last night. I got your mushrooms.”
At first she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about. Then she did. She leaned in and began to ramble nervously. “You have them? Wow. OK. You can’t just give them to me, though. You know that, right? I can’t do them alone. That doesn’t seem safe. Are mushrooms safe? Maybe we should film it. No. Probably not a good idea. No filming. Private is better, right?”
“Private is definitely better.” I saw Rae pull in and said, “Can we discuss this later? I don’t need Rae accusing me of being a drug pusher.”
October laughed and made a zipping motion across her mouth, and I quickly took my bowl to the sink in the back. All week long I’d been making sure I was nowhere near October when Rae arrived in the morning.
Rae came straight into the studio, presented October with a handful of bills, and asked her to sign some checks.
October set my book on the table with the page she was reading splayed face down. She scribbled her signature on the checks and then picked up the book again. Looking at Rae, she said, “The tallest tree in the entire world lives in a park in Northern California.”
Rae feigned interest, but I could tell she didn’t really comprehend what October was trying to tell her. I walked over to join the conversation and noticed Rae didn’t have any nuts and raisins with her. This meant she wasn’t staying long.
“Hyperion,” I said. Rae and October both looked at me. “That’s the name of the tree. It’s about 380 feet tall.”
“Three hundred and eighty feet?” October exclaimed. “That’s as tall as the Empire State Building!” She seemed to find this awe-inspiring. Rae acted like it was ordinary, but probably only because I said it.
“I camped in that park after Hyperion was discovered,” I told them. “It’s phenomenal.”
I turned to a photo of Hyperion and pointed it out to Rae. In the photo, a man was standing beside the tree. He was listed as being six feet eight inches tall, and that really showed the scale, because he looked like a tiny toy soldier that had been placed beside an upright bass.
Rae’s eyes finally widened, and she said, “Wow. That is big, yeah?”
I flipped back a few pages and pointed to Giant Tree. “This one’s my favorite. He’s not the biggest or the prettiest, but in person he really moves me.”
“He moves you?” Rae said, with a slightly comic tone.
“Where does he live?” October asked.
“Avenue of the Giants. In Humboldt. I once drove all the way there, had lunch with him, and drove home.”
Rae said, “Did you sing ‘Kumbaya’ to him too?”
I chuckled. “That’s actually funny, Rae.”
“You know, I can be funny, Joe.”
October said, “Let me see.”
I pointed. “Look at the way the sunlight reaches down through his crown. Incredible, right?”
October said, “I can’t believe I’ve lived here for as long as I have and didn’t know about these trees. I thought the trees in Muir Woods were giants.”
I could tell Rae was paying close attention to the way October and I were bonding over the trees. Or maybe she was just surprised by my passion and enthusiasm, which was rarely on display in front of her, or anyone for that matter.
I handed the book back to October and said, “I could talk about trees all day, but I have a birdcage to finish.”
I went back to my corner—I was about two full workdays away from being done. Meanwhile, Rae went into the office and printed something on the computer and then left to run errands.
October was still at the table, still engrossed in the book. Usually she had music playing during the day, but that morning I worked in silence while she read about the redwoods.
Around lunchtime she came back to see me with the book still in her hands.
I wiped my face on the bottom of my T-shirt and gave her my attention.
“Do you have plans tomorrow?” she said.
“No.”
She stepped closer and pointed to the cover of the book. “Will you take me here? To see the trees?”
“Tomorrow?” I laughed. “We can’t go all the way up there tomorrow.”
“You just said you didn’t have anything to do.”
I cracked my knuckles and stared at her, which caused her to point more vigorously at the cover.
“This is where I want to do the mushrooms.”
My body tensed and shook as though it were feeling the approaching future and all it held. October’s phrase “can of worms” popped into my head, and I mumbled something that was unintelligible, even to my own ears.
“Come on,” she purred. “Doesn’t this seem like the perfect place to do mushrooms?”
Fucking hell, I wasn’t going to lie to her.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “As a matter of fact, it does.”
Initially, October wanted to see Hyperion, but he’s pretty far north, almost to the Oregon border, in a fairly remote area of Redwood National Park. It would have taken us a good five hours to drive there, and another
