A Day in the Life of a Willow Tree

A Day in the Life of a Willow Tree

The Eve

It was August. My room felt brighter than ever. My fever and the broken air conditioner hanging on the wall had joined forces to make the room feel like an inferno. Mrs. Gabbro, my landlady, had promised someone would be there first thing Monday morning to fix it.

She was also my neighbour. The heat didn't bother her nearly as much. “When you get to my age, your bones get as thin as paper, and you're constantly chilly,” she had said with a giggle. I didn't find any of it funny at all. Quite the contrary, I felt a quiet anger rising in me. Looking back, I'm ashamed of the resentment I felt toward Mrs. Gabbro's relentless cheerfulness. The next day, I would hate myself for that childish impulse. Mrs. Gabbro had always showered me with unbidden kindness. My anger should never have been directed at her.

But I have to be kinder to myself. I had good reason to be in a sour mood that day. I lay half awake in bed for hours until the sun went down. As if possessed by something unearthly, I was tormented by fever dreams. When I finally managed to claw my way free of the swamp my bed had become, another misfortune awaited me: I completely lost my voice. I couldn't even whisper. I was utterly mute.

Eventually, I dragged myself into the kitchen. By this time, the air had shown some mercy, cooling down a little. I could even feel a faint breeze brushing against my feet through the open kitchen window. I pulled the curtains aside and looked at the willow tree in the garden. It was the reason I had chosen to rent the place. I had always felt an affinity for the willow, since we shared the same name.

And it was in that moment that it happened. I was preparing some soup when my phone began to ring.

Mrs. Gabbro.

I saw her name on the screen and decided not to answer. My voice was completely gone. Besides, perhaps some small part of me still clung to that anger. I wasn't in the mood for giggles, however well-intentioned. Just like that, I missed the phone call that could have changed everything.

I told myself that once I had finished making my soup, I would send her a message explaining that I couldn't speak. But half an hour later, as I was typing it out, a shadow beside the willow tree caught my eye. I looked toward the window. Was that a person, or had my feverish mind turned it into one? But my mind felt strangely unmoored, I couldn't hold on to a single thought. The figure by the willow tree slipped from my mind, as did the message. I ate my soup, took some medicine, and went to bed. By the following morning, I still hadn't realized that I had never pressed the send button.

As the final curtain fell on my increasingly peculiar day, the nightmares returned. I was aboard a sinking ship. In one of the cabins stood Mrs. Gabbro with her cat, Nova. She was calling out to me, but I couldn't answer. Much as in reality, I had no voice. In the end, I jumped overboard. As I struggled against the waves, all I could think about was what would happen to Mrs. Gabbro and Nova. Somehow, I convinced myself that cats could swim. That they would be fine. What an absurd dream. 

The Day

Morning came, as mornings always do. Everything seemed normal again. My voice had returned, and my fever was gone. The light crept into the room once more, but this time it didn't irritate me. I stepped into the kitchen and fixed myself a cup of coffee. I always liked to start my day sipping my coffee by the window, looking out over the garden at the willow tree. Then it hit me like a sharp pain shooting through my head.

The figure beside the willow tree.

Mrs. Gabbro's phone call.

Had she ever seen my message? I reached for my phone. I had never sent it. A wave of guilt washed over me. How awful. I had to go and knock on her door. I had to apologize, explain what had happened to me the day before, and perhaps even ask whether she had seen anyone in the garden.

I put my coffee cup down and headed toward the door. When I opened it, I was surprised to find Nova sitting there on her little favorite pillow, curled up. Why would Nova, Mrs. Gabbro's treasured companion, be left alone in the hallway? Before I could process that thought, Nova slipped between my legs and darted into the apartment like a bolt of lightning. Nova had always been rather reserved and shy. Mrs. Gabbro had once confessed that, although sometimes even animals needed some distance from all living creatures, she worried that Nova might never take to another person the way she had taken to her. However, Nova had taken a liking to me, which Mrs. Gabbro had interpreted as a sign that I had good energy. But she had never barged into my apartment like this. Something felt wrong.

I walked down the stairs, alarmed and, quite frankly, terrified. I was even more shocked to find Mrs. Gabbro's door firmly closed. How did Nova get out? I knocked on the door, my heart pounding.

There was no answer. I rang the doorbell again and again. Then, in desperation, I pulled my phone from my pocket and called Mrs. Gabbro. Her phone began to ring behind the door. My blood ran cold. It was still early, and my mind hadn't quite caught up with the situation. In the space of a heartbeat, a thousand thoughts raced through my head.

What if Mrs. Gabbro had called me because she needed help? What if there really had been someone in the garden? What if that person were about to open this door and come face-to-face with me? What if Mrs. Gabbro had been having a stroke when she called me? … What was I supposed to do now? Call the police? An ambulance?

And then another thought surfaced. What would Mrs. Gabbro want me to do? By some miracle, I remembered something she had once told me. “I have a niece, dear, who works nearby. If I'm not around and there's an emergency, you can call her. She has a spare key.” 

I hung up, finally silencing Mrs. Gabbro's insufferable ringtone that had been ringing in the background. Yet the melody continued to echo in my head, over and over, the perfect soundtrack to my mounting panic. 

With shaky hands, I found her niece's number and called. I barely remember the conversation that followed. I remember telling her what had happened. I remember her assuring me that she would be there soon, that she was only two blocks away. Then the line went dead, and I was left standing outside Mrs. Gabbro's door.

She was only two blocks away. Surely, it was a matter of minutes before she arrived. But standing there, waiting, every second seemed to stretch. My thoughts began to spiral around the same questions, over and over.

And then, finally, there she was, Mrs. Gabbro's niece, far more composed and in control of herself than I was. What an odd beginning to a first meeting. She put the key into the lock and turned it. The door swung open, revealing an empty apartment. Her niece went from room to room, calling out for her aunt. When she finally had nowhere left to look, the silence was deafening.

Something shifted in her. She turned to me, her expression unreadable. “This has happened before, you see.” Then, in the same flat tone, she asked, “Where is her cat?”

“She’s in my apartment,” I replied. She didn't ask why or how, almost as though she had already reached a conclusion of her own. For a fleeting moment, there was something like relief in her eyes.

She seemed to settle into a sudden certainty. “I’ll handle this,” she said, her voice confident. But as she added, “It will be alright,” her voice softened.  

Whatever I said, I had no control over the words, nor do I remember what they were. By the time I came back to my senses, she was gone, and I found myself abandoned in the empty apartment.

Then I heard Nova behind me. She had come back downstairs. She padded into the kitchen, and I followed her. Everything looked normal, as tidy as ever. On the kitchen table lay Mrs. Gabbro's reading glasses and an agenda, left wide open. I glanced at it, then hesitated. For a moment, I wondered whether I should look inside. The page was headed with yesterday's date: Sunday, August 9. Apparently, Mrs. Gabbro planned each day beforehand. The entries continued every day through August 9th, and then stopped. 

They were ordinary enough: 

her favorite café, where she would have her breakfast.

The pet shop.

A gallery.

Call Willow.

My eyes lingered on the last entry.

Call Willow.

My heart sank. I wanted to pick up her phone and look for anything that might give me a clue as to why she hadn't sent me a message after that call. But I thought her niece might return with the police, and I didn't want to risk tampering with any potential evidence.

So many questions. So much I had let slip through my fingers. When her niece told me, “This has happened before,” I had been too overwhelmed to ask what she meant. Now I was desperate to solve the puzzle Mrs. Gabbro had left behind. For the first time, I wondered how much of her I had never really seen.

I felt powerless, a mere spectator to it all. But surely there was something I could do, even now, as late as it might be. Then, on a sudden impulse, I decided to look up the gallery she had visited before calling me. It was a contemporary art gallery. 

It wasn't just that I couldn't picture her enjoying contemporary art, standing there in her kitchen, surrounded by floral cups and saucers, delicate ornaments, and paintings in ornate frames, the contrast almost screamed at me. Everything about Mrs. Gabbro's taste had always struck me as decidedly classic. 

I looked at Nova. “What do you think? Should I go to the gallery and see if I can find any clues? Do you know where she’s gone?” I spoke softly, the way one might speak to a child. Nova stared at me, fully alert, as if she somehow knew what I was about to do: take her back to my apartment and leave for the gallery.

Before I left, I texted Mrs. Gabbro’s niece to let her know I was going out to get some air and would be back soon. 

I wasn't sure what I was hoping to find at the gallery. I moved from canvas to canvas, trying to imagine Mrs. Gabbro standing where I was standing. I lingered in front of each painting, searching for something that might give me a glimpse of what had drawn her here. But the more I looked, the less I understood. I tried to picture her here, but the image wouldn't come. 

The final piece was an enormous abstract canvas. There was no recognizable figure, no landscape, nothing I could hold on to. Just layers of color and violent strokes of paint spreading across the canvas. I stared at it for a long time. I had never understood contemporary art. I could never tell what a painter had intended, what had compelled them to make one stroke instead of another. 

The red paint was making me anxious. I felt as though I were running out of time. I felt foolish for coming here. I should go back home. Maybe her niece had found out something by now. But before I left, I spared one last glance at the painting. Is that all we inherit from another person? The marks of their brush? The painting didn't even have a name. The small plaque beside it simply read: Untitled. 

Back in my apartment, with Nova and her favorite pillow beside me, I was about to call my boss and let him know I wouldn't be coming in that afternoon. I had barely reached for my phone when there was a knock at the door. Hope surged through me. Could it be? Was Mrs. Gabbro back?

I rushed to the door and pulled it open. It wasn't Mrs. Gabbro. It was the air-conditioning repairmen. I stood there for a moment, staring at them.

Monday morning. First thing.

Mrs. Gabbro had kept her promise.

Outside, the willow swayed gently in the warm summer breeze. Nova sat by the front door. I sat beside her and rested a hand on her back.