The Cherry Blossom Tree

Cherry Chapter Two

The distance from luxurious Manhattan to the tiny town of Fort Sangrey in middle-of-nowhere Montana was 2,377.6 miles.  Suffice it to say, after driving for that amount of time, I’d grown a new appreciation for people who walked or cycled from point A to B.  At least those modes of transportation didn’t leave you with several cramps and a numb rear end.

I pulled the little Starlet down a long winding driveway; the driveway of our new residence, and one I calculated as being one and a half miles long.  Good lord, it was practically the equivalent of driving halfway across Manhattan.  Well, okay, slight exaggeration.  But really, the expanse of untamed wilderness surrounding me in every direction was mind boggling.  

A week ago, in my native Upper East Side of Manhattan, I couldn’t walk more than thirty feet without bumping into one of the neighbours.  Here, I’d have to run a marathon every time I wanted to reassure myself that civilization was still out there.  I doubted I’d be able to spot the nearest neighbour’s house with a pair of military grade binoculars.

There was a hitch in Annabel’s snores as I ran over a small pothole.  Beside me, Mom didn’t so much as twitch.  She’d had a brief period of consciousness on the last leg of our journey but other than that, stress, exhaustion and quite possibly the prospect of entering a new, lower middleclass lifestyle kept her snoozing obliviously.

Annabel and I had taken driving in shifts, deciding amongst ourselves to forego another night in a motel and just forge on ahead to our destination.  It meant we’d arrived a whole thirteen hours ahead of schedule.  Dawn was beginning to break over the horizon in an array of breathtaking colours - a mix of blood red, fiery orange, deep indigo, with hues of blue and yellow threaded throughout.  I’d never seen anything like it.  

Back home such exquisite beauty couldn’t be witnessed for the skyscrapers and towering apartment complexes.  Not to mention the city lights remained on until the sun had fully risen, the artificial light bleeding a harsh glow over the city limits almost like it was preventing nature from exposing itself in all its glory.

Brakes screeched as I pulled the car to a stop outside of an old white Victorian style house, complete with a wraparound porch and ten foot high pillars flanking a wide staircase that lead to the front door.  Cutting the engine, I gave the dash in front of me a dubious stare.  The poor thing gave off the vibe that it had just sucked in it’s last breath and that resurrecting it was nigh impossible.  I hoped not.  Mom had bought the car last week with the intention of it being our primary vehicle for the foreseeable future.

Yawning, I opened my door to a symphony of groaning hinges and clambered to my feet.  Yep, the old butt felt like it was no longer attached to the rest of me, and it took a few minutes of furious pacing to get the blood flowing back into it.  Massaging my lower back, I headed in the direction of the imposing house for a closer look.

Stairs creaked and shifted under my weight, my shoes kicking up a flurry of chipped paint and clouds of dust.  The second one from the top was missing entirely, forcing me to hop over it and onto the porch.  When Mom had announced her victory on the house searching front, she had mentioned the place she’d secured was in need of a little love and work.  Wasn’t that the understatement of the year.

Paint peeled off the pillars, porch, and all sides of the house in great big strips to expose the bare wood beneath.  The portion of porch edging the left side of the house had been sectioned off, inaccessible due to the gaping hole in the centre of it.  A cursory walk around the remaining three sides revealed two cracked windows, a few missing planks of wood I had to navigate around, and guttering that was broken with one end resting on the porch railing.  I assumed this was to allow water to flow down onto the ground below.