I named the Japanese Maple tree "Roald," and thought of it as "him" even before I'd left the nursery. Growing up in Detroit, my only horticultural experience was tending a Venus Flytrap plant as a kid (which ingrained me with the belief that pieces of bologna were viable plant food). My wife and I had just built a home in a subdivision that had once been a farmer's field. Seeing all of the freshly-turned dirt surrounding our house struck a get-back-to-the-earth chord in me. In fact, I didn't even think of it as dirt, but as loam. And from that loamy earth I imagined a lush lawn rising, flowers bursting in profusion, and possibly even planting a small vegetable patch in the backyard.
"We'll live off the bounty of the earth," I said to my wife one night. She didn't look up from her laptop.
In our loamy, treeless subdivision, Roald would grow into a titan of Japanese Maples, under whose shade I would sit and read, or compose Petrarchan sonnets in a leather-bound journal; in front of whom my children would have their prom and wedding photos taken. Roald would become a landmark in the neighborhood, the town, the county. Watercolors of him would be submitted to postage stamp competitions. At some point in the future, my street would be renamed "Maple Crescent", or possibly even, "Roald Close."
Driving home with him secured and protruding from the trunk of my car, I shouted back to him: "Avanti."
He waved in the wind, as though to say, "I'll try my best!"
I planted Roald in the front yard.
". . . and Mom was upset that my sister's teacher was talking about Hell in class," I said to Roald one night. "Except Mom didn't say the word, she spelled it. My little brother looked up from the TV and said, 'Hey, you're talking about Hell.' And my folks were surprised and asked him where he'd heard the word. 'In the prayer,' he said. My parents thought about all the prayers they knew and couldn't think of one that mentioned Hell. 'Which one?' Dad asked. 'The Hell Mary,' my brother said."
I'd heard that talking to house plants had beneficial effects, so every evening when I finished watering our newly sodded lawn, I watered and chatted with Roald; telling him about my family, my high school years, how I'd met my wife. Before going in for the night, I set up a little boom box for him, so he could have some music. Unfortunately, late night rains and early morning thieves eventually put shut to that idea.
"Is it me?" I said to my wife, hysteria rising in my voice. "You can tell me! I can take it! Is it me?"
"I don't know why the tree won't grow," she said, as though speaking to a man standing on a building ledge.
"His name is Roald!" I snapped.
"Plants are like animals," my wife said. "They're attuned to the vibes of the people around them. You're so worked up about the tree- about Roald, that you might be strangling it with your expectations."
It seemed impossible. Our sod had taken so well, my wife's flowers were coming in beautifully and the plenitude of weeds I picked were an utter mockery of Roald's blight.
After a few shock treatments with Miracle Grow, I decided a radical transplant was necessary, and replanted Roald a good ten feet away from his original location.
"Come on, man," I said to him one Saturday when it appeared he wasn't doing any better in his new location, "you look like me on my first day of high school - scrawny, stunted, rickets-ravaged." I wouldn't normally speak in such negative terms, but I recalled how motivating an old basketball coach's insults had once been.
I tried Roald in a third location. Nothing. Was I some kind of anti-diviner, able to pinpoint the few fallow spots in my otherwise generously fertile property?
After the fourth transplant, I stopped eating. I lost interest in my work, and while driving I listened to the all-weather station on the radio, rather than music. The only water I drank or used to make coffee and iced tea came from the garden hose, so I could see if it was the life-sapping culprit. It was not.
As autumn approached, I could no longer look at Roald. When I wasn't at work, I slept. After calling in sick one day, I sat in my robe in the living room, reliving the day I first picked out Roald and how naturally his name had come to mind; thinking about the plans I'd made, the dreams I'd dreamed; our first nights together in the front yard, beneath the stars.
When my wife came home from work, I figured we'd put off the inevitable long enough: it was time to dig up Roald and set him out front with the trash. I was about to say this when my wife entered the living room carrying a bag.
"You need to let go of Roald," she said, seeming to read my mind. "It's time to get back to basics."
From the bag she produced a Venus Flytrap plant and handed it to me. It was the same, strange Muppet-green plant I recalled from my youth. My wife pulled something else from the bag - a package of bologna.
"I've taken care of the tree," she said.
"Yes?" I looked at her. "Thank you."
"Of course." She turned to leave me alone with my plant, but I called her back.
I said, "Would it be OK if I ate some of this bologna, too?"